I’m reviving my “Give Me a Word, I’ll Give you a Poem” thingy.

So, I’ve revived the spirit of my old Mass Mosaic tile that lead to a lot of the poems you’ll find if you explore my site. I posted in a FaceBook Group of like-minded people and they flooded me with poetry prompts! I love it!

Any poems that will be posted that are/were a result of such prompt will be released into the public domain and credit will be acknowledged for the prompts where applicable. (Some prompters may wish to use pseudonyms or otherwise remain anonymous.)

The idea is that when I have collected enough of my poems (regardless of origin) I’ll publish them as a collected work, possibly featuring some of my photography.

Of Joy and Suffering.

This post is a little different. Rather than starting with the poem then giving notes, the notes come first, poem after the break.

This is a poem I wrote a while back, not sure when, probably within the past 2 years. It came to me as a song though. It has a folky ballad kind of sound. That’s another distinguishing feature to this post, I don’t write songs, I’m not terribly musically inclined.

The melody is somewhat inspired by the song “The Greatest Adventure” by Glen Yarborough as featured in the cartoon version of The Hobbit (from 1977).

At least one verse doesn’t flow with the melody well…I messed up on the meter somewhere.

I sang it tonight, for the first time ever, aloud, and in front of people. I think I need to fix the wonky verse, maybe tweak the order a little, the record it … and have someone who can write music put a backing track to it…maybe. Or maybe it’ll stay a capella. If I’m not terribly self-conscious after I get it recorded I’ll post here by way of YouTube…but that might never happen either.

This piece of work is also different from the rest of the work I’ve published here so far in the license, it’s CC-BY-NC — Creative Commons; Attribution; No Commercial.

Basically, it means that you are welcome to take it and do whatever you like with it, with two caveats: 1: You can’t sell it, or what you create from it. 2: You have to give me credit for the original work.

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I Never Could

days roll into weeks; weeks — years; years to a lifetime.
and still I never could.

strangers become friends; friends — lovers ; and love is forever.
but I never could.

heart sends words; words — mouth; mouth stays silent.
because I never could.

I never could.
I never should.
I never would

silence to words; words to paper; paper to you.
strangers to friends; friends to strangers; then back again.
a lifetime rolls back into days.

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I’ll Lie

If you ask me how I’m doing;
If you wonder how I’m feeling;
I will lie to you.
I’ll tell you I’m fine.
Things are going OK.

I might hint at the truth of the matter.
I might stumble through my words.
I might give you a half-truth.
I might give you a non-answer.
But I’ll probably never tell you the truth.

I’m not fine.
Things are not OK.
I’m drowning in fear and worry.

You probably ask because you care.
But I am not capable of believing it.
Because I don’t care. So how could you?

We are all conditioned to hear these questions as small talk.
We are all conditioned to respond in kind.

“Hey, what’s up?”
“Fine, you?”
“Yeah, nothing much.”

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Lovely Humanity

Look around, it’s easy to see
the worst parts of humanity.
You hear them spew hatred and fears,
suicide stories; few shed tears.
Hiding behind a shield of brass
makes it easy to kick some ass.

Now look again, more closely still:
see those who stand; sheer force of will.
I Got Your Back; Hands Up Don’t Shoot!
All of us share a common root.
A wall of love, support and trust.
So stand we all together must!.
There are no lesser people here
It’s time to put away your fear.

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