Please Don't Be Angry (BTP#8)

Instead of using the exact idea of the prompt at http://bigtentpoetry.org , (not knowing how to write about a topic) I took it to a slightly different place...how to find the right words to TELL someone something negative when it's absolutely necessary without causing a bigger problem...(Isn't this something we all struggle with from time to time?)

How do I tell you
without invoking a stoning-
or acrimonious torrent
of off topic vitriol?

I don't think you're stupid
(maybe slap-dash or lazy)
but that's something I'm used to
like traffic or television.

If it wasn't so blinding,
like a huge neon billboard
forcing my focus
and ruining the view.

Or if this had happened
on your own desert island
and not thrust hard upon me
like some prison tattoo.

I would not have to tell you
that the chaos you created
while refusing assistance
must now be demolished....

along with our relationship.
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Broken (BTP#7)

This week's prompt over at http://bigtentpoetry.org was a "Wordle" or list of words to incorporate into a work of poetry.  I managed to use most, but not quite all...

Starving for praise,
for empathy,
for tenderness,
craved as mother's milk,
yet unfulfilled.
Resentment grows

thick tendrils,

cocooning,
strangling,

until blotted dull

through time

and hopelessness,
 these frozen stars-
once beacons of belief,
 now unforgiving,
dark and

dangerous,

can receive no comfort,

and impart 

no warmth.
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Sorry to be so very dark, but that is where the "wordle" words took me; I thought of a child not having their emotional needs met, and what the result so often is. (ps: the above photo reminded me of a cocoon being unwound)

Eminent Domain (BTP#6)

(Desert Destruction by Cynthia Short)

Great prompt over at Big Tent Poetry!  http://bigtentpoetry.org/ Writing a Pantoum on something that angers you.  I had a hard time choosing a topic, I am pissed off about so many things...but here is something that hit very close to home with me.  (It could be a metaphor on all environmental issues, or surival of the strongest and least compassionate.)
It's my very first attempt at a Pantoum...so bear with me!

The American Dream is alive and well,
deep in the desert, where no one will care.
To carve out a piece, to make it your own,
no matter what else will get lost on the way.


Deep in the desert, where no one will care,
mule deer stand watch for the dozers to cease.
No matter what else will get lost on the way,
only Man's great dominion is important here.


Mule deer stand watch for the dozers to cease,
coyotes flee, quail exiled once more.
Only Man's great dominion is important here,
nature ground down by Humanity's boot.


Coyotes flee, quail exiled once more,
to fight for survival, sanctuary destroyed.
Nature ground down by Humanity's boot,
The American Dream is alive and well.
.
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Directly behind our home (which my husband and I have turned into a wild animal sanctuary with many places to build dens and nests, plenty of plantlife to graze on and a constant fresh water supply) some new "neighbors" bought 12 acres of native mountainside and then proceeded to completely rip off every bit of vegetation in a failed attempt to cut the mountain completely down.  They hit solid rock, so eventually gave up once every bit of soil was taken off the hillsides.  Now, nothing will ever grow there but the most determined tumbleweeds, and all the animals who called that mountain their home will have to attempt to live somewhere else.  Our hummingbird "nursery" has been totally destroyed...this breaks my heart. 

Calgon (BTP#5)

(Photo courtesy Photo8.com) 

The title refers to an old commercial for a woman's bath product who's catch phrase was, "Calgon, take me away!"  The rigid 8 syllable lines and rhymes within the piece are there to give it a traditional, forced, and dated feeling; a subliminal way of showing how trapped we can be by expectations in our lives, and how hard it is to break out of a rut into something new...


One day I’m going to run away,
and shed my skin of must and should,
throw off  layers of who I am,
and stop this circumscribed cliche.

There’s no importance where I land,
it doesn't matter what I find.
To just exist in some new way,
where nothing's ever been pre-planned.

Where I can be some other me,
and only dream of my desires,
while re-inventing future days,
into some unique way to be.

I won't do anything the same,
but break each habit that's ingrained,
to just revise myself into,
an empty slate without a name.
.
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As someone who has spent her entire life in the same small town, under the watchful gaze of those around me, this has always been a fantasy...
http://bigtentpoetry.org/




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