If not
I’ll lie awake until
it dawns in me that
no matter the worry

there’s no action
I might take to cure it
at two o’clock
in the morning.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

And even at the back
of my busy thoughts
interspersed in my
times free of tasks,
was the idea
the longing to
return to here to share:

The sounds of the birds
as they conversed loudly
mellifluously
hidden in the leafy branches
heavily dressed by spring.

The late, rapid sprouting
of my honeysuckle plant,
and all the delightful things
my youngest niece does
as she blossoms excitedly
like the lilies in my backyard.

I’m home to the tell you
of all the big events
that kept my full attention
and the quiet sights
that capture my imagination.
Hopefully you’re still willing
to be my companion
traveling through this marvelous
world we live in.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

My apologies for so long away. I’ve begun studying a new computer course and have been making plans to move. Writing on my other blogs and all the while wishing I could catch up to here. I decided to just do it! I hope you like my newest draft.

And I’ve got a few more that I just haven’t been posting. So, since things are settling down (somewhat), I’ll try to get back to some semblance of regular. I hope you’re reading and writing poems with the some of the great communities online. If you’re looking for communities, check out the banners I’ve got in my sidebar, and my poets blog list.

Enjoy!

Then, sure as the sun
does its thing,
the wind blows
and the bough does break
so suddenly until
it’s all he can do to duck away.

Once the cradle and contents
crash into the earth
through the dust from the
thunderous impact it can be heard:
a baby
is screaming from fear and
possible broken-ness.

Now the groundskeeper
reaches through to the child
unaware of any shortfall attributed
to his own self-preservation act.
Quickly understanding that
he’s in this place to
do what he can after the fact.

© Shari Lynne Smothers

And I do.

Cotton blossom scent
of my favorite candle,
humorously outrageous
contorted faces
reacting to the very opposite
malodorous skunk aroma.
Waving leaves on trees
on an otherwise still day
give the strong impression
I’m watching them growing.

Even the gentle flurry
of the curtain rolling over
the soft breeze
through the open window
makes my mind smile.

All the soft, pretty, pleasant,
quiet sides of being alive
can cocoon me
and I get rejuvenated,
apart from the draining
aspects of my days.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

Ill-fitting ideas
rend us asunder
making life uncomfortable.

We try muddling through
feigning normalcy only
we’re really screwed up.

Bitter little things
fester and are added to with
actions emboldened by

others’ acts that seem
comparatively worse and
somehow lessen their own.

Acting out, abusing
power not really their own.
Unswervingly grasping

for something big to regret later.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

So, backing up a bit
with a deep breath
and mustering confidence
I don’t feel yet, I’ll say
a poem a day is on its way.

What I will say easily
is, they won’t be perfection
only offered up for you to find
what pleasure you might in their lines.
So not much different than
poems posted here regularly.

Revisiting and revisions are
down the road activities.
You’re welcome to wait
for the sleek, fluffed versions.
But, I invite you
to walk on the wild side,
join me for the adventure
of reading raw poetry.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

In my clearest dreams,
disagreements
can get loud
but never solicit
violence, murder of children
through slanderous provocative
speech
reminiscent of
    —you remember

or vandalizing buildings
terrorizing men and women
and by relation their children,
all because they didn’t
agree with their opposition.

Today I’m grateful for the haters,
though their vile words are
shouted loudest and from every venue,
from high places, bombed down
on the heads of the innocent;
from below, seeping up and infecting
all who are touched by it;

I’m grateful that, in my worst dreams
just like in my reality
they are in the minority.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

Every day there’s something disgusting making the news. I’m bombarded with the images that my imagination contrives, based on the vile and scary things I’ve heard discussed. This post is another shaped, in part, by the news. I write it in hopes that I can one day wrap my mind around certain actions.

my heavy heart bears
witness to people who call
for vandalism—

    murder—

          Shiiiiit!

Some of them have claimed
these acts are protected under
civil disobedience.

So

Not only do they
not know how to behave in
political settings,

they apparently
can subvert words, disguising
their actions and intent.

Oddly, they and some
followers are the only
people buying it.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

Tales of joy and adventure
loss and danger prance through
and only the rightest words remain
to flesh out the message.

My lettered friends mesh together
to express my shyest thoughts
lay out my anger and fear
ask for help I might need.

And yet, I can’t get them together
adequately, to express
the solace, the contentment I find
because they choose me to
give audience to their fire dance.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

I dismissed calls to DO NOT CALL
to register the family phones.
Nothing to say about tweeting
reading or posts I worked on.
Meals were just food to eat
with nothing fun to drink.

Dishes washed late last night
I put away before writing.
Washed the others throughout the day,
saved them all but the one
I drank from and returned
to my desk to write something great.

But, nothing surfaced as something tasty.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

There’s some interference
today that should
be cleared up shortly.

It’s not clear how long
shortly will be. Or, who’s
working on it for that matter.

But as soon as the
snowy signal clears…

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

TV shows, movies, and standup tell it,
but ad commercials collectively miss the point
by not mentioning you’re in the middle
of a gi-normous body of water
that freezes you in less than eight minutes
(I saw it in a movie too)
that Titanic went down in a big ass
body of water like this, and when she sank
any who didn’t paddle far enough away
in their little dingy lifeboats
got sucked down too.

Hypnosis and courage would kick in
hopefully
if I made it to dry land again
and help to return me to myself.

A cruise is not in the cards for me
not today at any rate.

For years I’ve grappled with
bouts of invisibility, living among those
who intermittently didn’t see me.

Alright with it most of the time,
on occasion it would piss me off
and I’d rail against it till I was seen again.

My current bout is by design.
The hand in it my own, as if
the acts of family bled into me

because I actually erased myself this time.

Thankfully,
because it’s by my hand, I understand too
my self can be written in again.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

Then one day a heavy storm blew it down
and finally I could see its message:

Will it go round in circles? Will it fly high like a bird up in the sky?

So then I considered the full
lyrics of the song
because surely
that’s what it was telling me to do.
And I wondered
What the hell does that mean?
It wasn’t until I got to
the dancing part
that I thought I could
follow a train of thought:

I’ve got a dance, I ain’t got no steps. I’m gonna let the music move me around.

It wasn’t long
before I took from it
what I needed:
Yes, I can definitely get with
going with the flow.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

Now you show up
at my door
like we’re
good friends again
like
your treating me
like shit
was some twisted
right you had
that
I must
be alright with.

I let you in
in case you
weren’t alright
noting the
smug tinge
to your grin
too spent to
demonstrate
my loathing.

All the while
I’m thinking
Smug bastard,
you should probably
be afraid to be here.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers