Dear Shari:
Please accept my
sincere apology.
Try as I might
I can’t seem to
cut him off
completely.

Remembering
all the ugly
hurtful things
pissed me off for a while.
Still, I wasn’t able
to catapult myself from that
through disgust
to I totally can’t stand him now.

With humility, I confess
love
is the only thing my
heart understands
to do to him.

Regretfully yours,
me.

©2012 Shari Lynne Smothers

Day 3 poem, an apology or non-apology for April PAD Challenge with Robert Lee Brewer.

Time passes.
Nothing do I write.
Awaiting the unmarked
re-starting point
to vomit verses
that simply must
issue forth
no matter the cost
or company.

Today—lately—
I feel it coming on.
I’m pulling
away from
all the people things
that deluge me
ordinarily.

Making certain
I carve moments
to record;
Making certain I have
the pens and papers
to complement
my advancing machinations.

Nesting for me
is making ready
for the steady
stream of random
lines stanzas spaces
pressing forth to exit me
by way of
my willing fingers.

© 2012 Shari Lynne Smothers

It’s been a long week for me, getting adjusted to my new old city, my new digs. I’ve not written much in the way of my novel. I’ve made a few changes and settled upon a crime. Just working that out begs for minutes I can’t seem to string together.

It was a good week for learning what I will need to do and how some things will have to work. So, next week I can move forward productively, working through a text book of information compiled last week. Adding to my new Book of How as I go along.

I found some inspirations in the week I spent tooling around New Orleans, learning the new landscape, remembering my way around. All while I worked to stave off the aches and pains of moving that threatened to waylay me, seemingly permanently. I see buildings gone, new ones erected, schools closed down, slated to not return and I wonder why.

What formula are they using to say that Valena C. Jones Elementary School will not return? Quite likely, it’s of a demographic nature. And yet, however logical, ensconced in rationality and business savvy, it still stings a bit to see it gone for good after generations of family and friends passed through its halls.

My week ended with a funeral of a dear friend of the family, my parents’ friend. That ritual, familiar too. Sad definitely. But still so good to see old friends, many not seen since my dad’s funeral almost four years earlier. We had a little time to catch up before we’re apart again indefinitely.

My next weeks will be spent job searching and catching up. Family and friends I neglected excusing myself with having been away. Now’s my chance to re-connect before more go on in, as tomorrow is not promised to any of us — not them or me. And, I find I want people to know my heart before we part permanently.

I can’t say if this is prose poetry, if you’ll recognize it as such. However, this was my intent.

©2011 Shari Lynne Smothers

My eyes are closed
my mind alert
listening
for signs the sun
may have arrived
before me today.

Dammit.

Peeping out
from behind my lids
I find I won
again,
even though
I laid down my head
only just three hours ago.

© 2011 Shari Lynne Smothers

Lately, every time I
pick up a pen
songs come to mind.
First lines that invite
joy sorrow love hope from
times I only vaguely
recall, memories long faded
leaving only the
resonating emotions.

Feelings betray me
pushing up random smiles
shoving out unexpected tears
pulling up old songs;
playing the familiar tunes in my head
to keep themselves awake.

I wish they were dormant
not mingling with my present
to at least allow me to
pretend to be peaceful.

© 2011 Shari Lynne Smothers

Process notes: First, old songs brought up old feelings and faded memories. Then I wondered about what it was exactly that brought me to the old music.

Can’t account for when they
assail me. Although,
I’ve noticed a pattern of
when I declare sleep will rule
it mockingly evades me
as if to say
whatever damned mocking thing
it says.

My worst nights are those
when I’m forced to lay there
mapping ceiling bumps
in the barely moonlit room,
listening for
shifting carpet fibers,
wondering if there are any
nocturnal bugs trekking through;
hearing the birds
scratching the awning
on their way
to some secret rendezvous.

All because I have
an important thing to do shortly.

My best nights are those
where I have no appointment
to face in a few hours.
I can get up and indulge
my lack of sleep with
YouTube, writing, reading,
Lego’s
not necessarily all or in that order.
Just whatever entertains me, things
that let me say, to sleep,
whatever damned snubbing thing
I can find to say.

© 2011 Shari Lynne Smothers

All the world is
far removed from me
much as I
want to touch it.
Vicariously only
can I engage just now,
from my hovel
through my window
into cyberspace.
I see what people
want to show
of the lives they lead.
Who’s killing, loving,
having a
Chernobyl meltdown;
mentally challenged brothers
get the book
thrown at them
while great villains,
not so much.
Political strife,
economic difficulty
moral bankruptcy
foreign governments
posture to save face.

Short of everything
and still properly sated,
I return
to myself disconnected
as the muck of the world
sloughs off me
settles to the floor
where I can sift through
to find
my poetical fodder.

© 2011 Shari Lynne Smothers

Morning sun enters
softly insisting I wake;
“Nightmare’s over—breathe.”

©2011 Shari Lynne Smothers
#5 for National Poetry Month Today’s poem, a Haiku, to share in the magic of National Poetry Month. Always a silver lining, bad dreams are yet another reason to appreciate waking up. I’ll have to see about catching up before I get too far behind.

Up the water spout
went the itsy bitsy spider
searching out a drop
to end its drought.

Down came the rain
overdoing the thing.
But the tiny spider
only rode down
a wave, didn’t try
to catch on to anything;
reveling
in the crazy
ride to the bottom.

She made it in
breathless
drenched
empty handed,
with only
a grin for what
was to come:
The challenge to
again try her skill
at Water Spout Scaling.

© 2011 Shari Lynne Smothers

#4 for National Poetry Month

Early morning I heard
a word
whispered
from somewhere
I couldn’t see.
Its impetus unknown
detracted not the least
from its clear sound.
My concern was
what it meant
as I moved into my day.

The word whispered
on the early morning air
was
trouble.

© 2011 Shari Lynne Smothers

#3 for National Poetry Month

We are again
friends.
Hurt, disappointment
wound shy of
the deep dermis of us.
It was me
hoping it would die.
Guppy on dry counter
flailing, gulping at
water not there.

It floundered
til I found I
couldn’t stand it
put it back in water.

So here we are, you
swimming in oblivion
to your almost demise, me
looking in, feeding
you…us…occasionally…

Again.

© 2011 Shari Lynne Smothers

#2 for day 2 of National Poetry Month. I thought about titling this poem, IT IS WHAT IT IS, but that’s way overworked. MELANCHOLY was sadder than the poem felt or was meant to be. LACKLUSTER seemed to cover what I intended. You may not hear it, but for me lackluster seemed to draw in and accentuate the irony, like ‘just friends.’ You know, because there’s really nothing just about true friends, right?

If I choose to revisit this, to revise it, the title will likely be one of the first things I look at. Among other poetical aspects, titles will likely always give me pause.

Seeing clear
lines that shape
my life
all around me,
I reach out
can almost touch,
engage the fabric
solid and detailed.

Suddenly it
shimmers
   melts
      morphs
becomes something
altogether else.

Almost too shocked
to look away
too enthralled to
pull back,
I manage
to not connect and
turn away to
a new direction.

Trying again to know
all that’s around through me
I reach out again
in faith and trust
hoping to connect
before next dissolution
even if only
for a little while.

© 2011 Shari Lynne Smothers

My #1 NaPoWriMo poem. I wrote it yesterday but got busy and never came back to finish and post. Good thing there’s no pressure

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here, with good reason. Been real busy. I’m excited, though, about April! I’ve got great plans for National Poetry Month in 2011! I’m not signing up to follow any NaPoWriMo prompt activities.

That’s the ‘great’ plan? Yes! Yes it is.

There is so much going on in my life right now until it’s all I can do really to keep up with myself. Daily adventures in work search have me greatly distracted, to say the least. That doesn’t mean I won’t be poeming. Quite the contrary. I’ve decided to try it with a relaxed feel again. No pressure to get a poem written daily to a published prompt.

I signed Up

As for sharing somewhere other than on my site, I’m again signed up with NaPoWriMo.net. By the way, the site has a whole new look, which is also exciting.

As well, I’ll be tooling around the web to read the poetry of my cyber friends that I follow and new ones I learn of, through NaPoWriMo.net and other places I happen upon. I hope to see you guys around.

Writing Through

In one long inhale
since last I wrote here,
I breathed in
the girth of my more
uncomfortable trials.
Now, facing the madness of April,
poetry and other activities,
will I pilfer the marrow
for all fodder
in the delight and challenge
I anticipate encountering,
to exhale here
throughout National Poetry Month.

© 2011 Shari Lynne Smothers

Big Tent Poetry Wordle 2.28.11

Gazing into the flame
burning brightly
it came, tangle of a
question, idea, concern, obligation.
Scuttling persistently around my mind
an ambling parade to wake my
worry muscle. The collective
adamantly populated
my head, set to defy me
in my quest for emptiness.

Slowly, in the flame
burning down
in the tangled mass of thoughts,
a familiar face emerged.
His boyish smile betrayed that
even as I sought
to withhold my audience,
he would say more in his typical
controlling, helpfully annoying style.

Quietly, in the flame
burning away
a subtle change in thought
brought a gasp from
the rambling ambling head;
cause unknown since I couldn’t see
far down as his bloodied thigh.

Then poof, he was all gone
leaving me free to meditate
in peace
by candlelight
in the moments left to me
before the flame did slip out completely.

© 2011 Shari Lynne Smothers

***********************
For the Big Tent Poetry prompt of Monday 2.28.2011. Challenge is to use one of the following starter phrases and one or all of the wordle words.
“Say more ________”
“There is also the matter of _________”
“He started by __________”
***********************

This post is part of my #SHINEonline challenge commitment for 2 posts weekly; 2 of 2 for the 8th week.

Winter exhaled fully from deep
in his belly. Shared almost the full breadth
of havoc he knew with
freezing temperatures, blinding snow
and ice slicked roads—
then witness
all the people’s and earth’s actions in response.

I move through my days in slow motion
defrosting with cold’s departure.
Sloughing off my last stuffy nose morning
as Winter makes his quick exit,
for Spring to present herself through
more temperate, accommodating weather.

Out from under my blankets
where Winter had forced me,
awake without his icy tendrils
inside my head, slowing my thoughts,
pulling me out of normal time
as audience to all his regalements,
I thaw. I begin to move easier
think faster, behave more congruously
with warmer days that now greet me.

Through Spring, Summer and Fall,
I will continue more fluidly,
flashing only the occasional cold memory of Winter
until his eminent welcome return in December.

© 2011 Shari Lynne Smothers

This post is part of my #SHINEonline challenge commitment for 2 posts weekly; 1 of 2 for the 8th week.

Check out the #SHINEonline paper.li linked at the top of my far right sidebar.

I took some time off to get into some other things. It took getting hung up on a title, (something that never stops me), to pull me away to other projects. It was fun times away. Though now I’m back with a vengeance. I have some posts to make up for—4 for 2 weeks missed. I look forward to challenging myself.

It will also be a bit of a practice in case I decide to participate in a daily poem project next month.