Tag Archives: am writing

Being still, inside the chaos #AmWriting #reflecting

This summer has been full of milestones and change. Recently, Hawk’s Heart, the final book in my Stranger Creatures series was released into the world. Also, I’m in the process of moving, so chaos and cardboard boxes are both increasing on a daily basis. And in the midst of all this, I celebrated my half-century birthday.

Fifty feels simultaneously old and very young. I still have a lot to learn and there are so many things I have yet to do and experience. I have definitely not lived the life or achieved many of the goals my quarter-of-a-century-old self planned for me 25 years ago. The regret is overshadowed by how liberating it is to no longer allow myself to be bound by old dreams.

Life lessons have dragged me through a haunted forest of the unknown and changed the innocent, hopeful, idealist I once was into someone tougher, smarter, and far more empathetic. I’m curious to see what the journey through the next half century will bring and what I will bring to it. One thing I have learned, but still have to remind myself to actually do, is to stop occasionally, even during the chaos, to be still, so I can process the sheer agony and beauty (not to mention the strangeness) of it all.

Image description – a photo of a tan, wild rabbit pausing in a patch of grass beside an azalea bush

The Song Changes – #poem #poetry #change

The marketing director for the department of Everything is Fine

cuts out the disconnected, the supposed blight

Anything and anyone that deviates from the flavorless version of their ideal

must be eliminated from the glossy brochures that assure

shareholders along with obedient pitchfork and torch raisers

that the conditions under the rule

of the United Corporations are great and getting greater

Newscasters for the grifting enterprise

smile and take the bribes

They tell us to be quiet about the violence

but silence is a slow death

and being cooked alive on the low setting is no longer enough of a reason

to keep on being

an ant

marching to the tune of a song called “comply or die”

Time for the pieces to connect into a picture that can’t be denied

The song changes

The wind carries our words

and shifts the tides

A broken toilet, disconnected from the plumbing system and separated from any place it could be useful, is forced to occupy a space where people passing by become angry that the scenery is marred, yet nobody moves it- because we can’t be late to work, because we don’t have the right equipment to lift and move something so heavy, because alone, we don’t have the resources to fix the problem.

The current system was designed to be an obstacle to any type of progress that doesn’t benefit the wealthy donors who have purchased politicians’ favor. This system is only workable when we are merely individuals, trying to exist and endure, but when we step together and organize, we become something the system of oppression can’t survive

Spider Rain #poems #scarypoems #spiders #spooky

A creepy poem in honor of Halloween month

Spider Rain

Silk that seems

like angel’s wings

are spiders crawling in the darkness

Webs anchored in splayed hair

Summer raindrop memories are eight legged babies

descending

into satin sheets and draperies

Shadows keep secrets

from the morning sun

Image description: a picture of a large green and black spider climbing down its web in front of a window. The close-up photo shows the spider in detail, including the hair on its legs and the translucence of its green and black body.

For Halloween month, I will be sharing spooky, creepy, haunting, and strange but lovely poems, pictures, and posts throughout the next two weeks.