Evergreen Haiku

small evergreen tree
covid can't stop Christmas
some things don't die

12-28-2020

A long time ago, I read an article that said to try to write evergreen content for your blog. To write about subjects in a such a way that people will always need to read your content. I have found that very hard to do.

The posts I wrote about things like pollution that I thought everyone would like, almost no one reacted to. But my quotes get new likes all of the time and I haven’t been posting those for years. To see which of my posts stay evergreen read my wrap up posts.

Half-Grown Haiku

the painting sits there
I know I need to finish it
a half-grown flower
3-23-2020

This haiku got a lot of shares and likes on Twitter. I wrote another haiku poem on the same day that got nothing. So I will edit that and post it next week.

I intended to write a lot and paint a lot during my (our) quarantine. While I don’t have numerous paintings, I have painted nearly every day. I have written a handful of poems. I thought about trying to write one a day, but instead of writing for the sake of writing, these are going to be poems that mean something. I hope you like them.

Loose Haiku

drifting leaves
the tight fit of the I.V.
drifting loose hair

9-26-19

 

I think I am going to have to go back to just posting haiku with pictures. I just don’t have time for making big long posts in this season of my life. I barely have time for writing. I tried several times to start writing a piece of flash fiction, which was supposed to be 1,000 words long, but I never finished one. Maybe late in 2020 I can write flash fiction again. My mom is responding well to her treatments, and that is a great thing.

Haiku in Unexpected Clouds

getting sick
when I wanted to be strong
unexpected clouds

 

If you look on my Instagram page, I edited some of my pictures so that people would know that I had to do catch-up posts for Inktober. I always start a 30-day challenge with the intention of doing one poem per day (or whatever the challenge entails). But life always gets in the way and I always have to do catch-up days. I have noticed others doing this and it helps me to realize that it happens to other people too. The point of 30-day challenges is to get you creating again. It’s to get back into good habits and to connect with others. Have you ever done a 30-day challenge? 

Painting on a Canvas

Painting on a Canvas
painters have figured out a trick
you see
a sprawling white canvas is intimidating
it’s big and wide and clean
whether it’s a 5 x 7 or 20 x 24
it’s big and you’re supposed to
do something spectacular with it
You’re supposed to make something
that’s vivid and eye-catching or
so comforting that a person would pay
to take it home with them
And once you start you can’t stop.
it’s not like a piece of paper
so cheap and flimsy
that you can just wrinkle it up
and start again on a
New Piece
no, canvas is thick and does not bend
it won’t carefully contort for you when
you get frustrated and decide to
smash it and carry it to the trash
No, canvas has strength and self-assurance
there will be no bending or wrinkling until
it has set for years under heavy paint
only then does canvas start to sag
like all things that grow old
But for a canvas to become
an old painting you have to first paint on it
And herein lies the trick
if you’re writing your poem or bestselling novel
on a computer screen, all you have to do to get back the white crispness
is hit backspace or delete or new document
but with a canvas once you start you have to do something
so the best thing to do
is everything
You can splash down a mixture of green and blue paint across the whole thing
or start out your painting by painting an underpainting in a washed-out brown
Either way
cover up all of the white, to the point that
there’s no glare of perfection
Because it’s hard to improve upon perfection
but a dirty canvas, anyone can make that better

Finding Femininity

Crest and Fall – 8 Years of Blogging

doctor visits
the birds crest and fall in waves
like my hope and joy

6-27-2019

 

Today is the 8th Anniversary of this blog. I almost made a “goodbye post” when my depression was running wild. I am so glad that I just stepped back and took a break. I had to do that in a lot of areas of my life this year. I did not think I would have to take breaks from the things that I loved, but when life is hard and every day is a battle, even the things that we love and are passionate about have to take a back seat until you get your house in order.

School starts this week and so I am really looking at my routine and trying to decide what needs to change and what needs to stay the same. What things have I been doing for just ten minutes that I need to do for 3 hours a day? What things/activities do I need to cut down to 10 minutes a day or even a week?

I know that I need to paint more. Creating a painting makes me almost as happy as creating a poem. But it is a process; usually, if I paint I will be doing only that for 3 hours. So I can’t just start that at 2 pm when I have to pick up my son at 3. So I have to plan out my day. I know that I want to keeping writing poetry and painting, and I want to keep blogging. I have made up schedules for myself in the past, but this year I need to be flexible for all of my family, so I will only be posting regularly on Mondays. I will post on other days when I have time to make blog posts.

Thank you all for reading my poetry and for following me across social media. Thank you for sticking with me. I hope to always have this blog to share my poetry and other pieces of my life with you.

Missing Muse

  Missing Muse

I should’ve picked
a bigger muse
one that couldn’t fly away
through a cracked door
I should’ve picked a muse
that could be chained down

  9-10-17

 

So I wrote this back in 2017 and forgot to share it. My fingers are itching again and I am writing. I am also sharing the poems that I haven’t shared yet. I am using old pictures because my only camera since 2019 is my galaxy phone. It’s a good camera, I just haven’t taken the time to upload cool pictures to my WordPress gallery. 

Futuristic Thoughts

 

The human race has a confidence problem. All of the movies I watched when I was a kid showed us video chatting in the future. It dawned on me several years ago that we all have had the ability the video chat but almost no one does. Why don’t we want the ease of video chat? Why we do the old thing of voice only? Then there are people who think it is okay that they only communicate through text. They refuse to answer their phone that they pay hundreds of dollars for.

That is the choice that really floors me. People complain about not having enough friends and about friends that don’t care to check up on them, but then they think its perfectly reasonable to tell everyone that they don’t take voice calls, only texts.

I think we lack the confidence to speak face to face.

I think it’s easier to lie when you can’t see someone’s eyes.

I think we are all way too introverted. We want to hide in our houses instead of connecting. Connecting requires genuineness and it requires us to comb our hair. When did combing our hair become such a hard task?

Haiku and Resolutions

Mini Paintings at Nelson-Atkins Museums

painting with my mouth
my pen, my brush, my blog
hillside flowers
  11-26-2018

 

I don’t know why I waited so long to try painting. I don’t know why I put it off when it’s something that I had tried in high school and gotten compliments on. I guess I knew that I would not be able to paint in the realism form. But I don’t know why I let that stop me. I have started letting myself out of my self-imposed boxes. I am going to consider myself an artist, and stop just doing “poet things” because I don’t need to limit myself.

My goal is to paint at least 1 new painting a month in 2019. To exercise every week. I used to say that I would exercise every day, or lose X amount of pounds. This year I am going to try to exercise 3x a week and whatever happens, happens. I read 23 books in 2018. I know that when I was in middle school and high school I read constantly and I probably broke that record many times, but since I’ve been an adult and starting keeping track, that is the most that I have read in a calendar year. I hope to read 30 books in 2019.

I hope to keep working in ministry at my church as a lay person and see more people get involved in the church on that deeper level. I want to start writing longer blog posts. I will still put a poem in every post as this is a poetry blog, but I may start making longer more traditional blog posts. I am working on a book, but it has been really difficult for me. I have wanted to write a book for a long time, and I have an outline and I have the whole thing mapped out in my head I’m just having trouble writing the boring parts like describing the traveling and the land. I may try to do National Novel Writing Month in November and see if that helps me finish up.

So this is my New Year’s post and my New Year’s resolutions or goals for 2019. I hope you all have a great start to the new year.

End of NanoPoblano 2018

Today’s prompt is “something overdone” so I will end with a poem. I have tried doing different posts on this blog, but they rarely get Likes or comments (aside from my flash fiction posts) so I have stopped doing that. This is supposed to be a poetry blog and poetry is my first love creatively. Painting is a close second. Music is third, but I only listen, I can’t sing or compose. The thing about me is: I rarely write love poetry. For one, I feel like it is overdone. Especially the ones that are *just* about how beautiful a woman is – or how great the sex is between unnamed people- there are millions of those, can someone write something else? But because today’s prompt is overdone I will share a love poem with you that I have not shared before. I wrote this for my husband.

Also, thank you to everyone who started following me because of a NaBloPoMo post. I have enjoyed doing this challenge and I hope we can continue to support each other on our blogs and on Instagram. I gained a lot of followers this month and I appreciate all of you. I also had the best month that I have ever had by over 200 views! Because of that and a great month of visits in January, I am having the best year (stats wise) that I have ever had, as of this week. I will keep posting new poetry every week from here on out, so I hope you stick around.

 

  Together and Happy

The feeling of security
A warm hand on my back
With you I never lack
Your arms around me
The tears go away
With you by my side I do not sway
Onward we go
Toward the sun
It is always fun
When the thunder booms
And lightning crashes
You make me laugh
And I see the sun again
Together and happy
That’s all that matters

Day 26 NanoPoblano 2018

winter geese think
our hardest months are easy
traveler’s perspective

  January 27, 2018

Today’s prompt was “something far” so I am sharing a winter haiku a little bit early.

I have learned that getting up in the morning and randomly posting every day is not for me. I much much prefer to take a day like Monday and write out 5 or so posts when I have some alone time. Then I can take my time looking for a photo, and play with the formatting. When I like how they look in the preview, then I schedule them for a day that feels right. This process may take 3 days or 30 minutes per post.

I think I need to go back to setting dates on my calendar where I sit down and write at least 3 posts every week, for the next week. That is what I like about these challenge months that I sometimes do; they remind me of what I like about blogging and what methods work best for me. What do you think of my blogging this month? Leave me a comment.

You can follow me on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook. If you like haiku and want to learn more, then go to my What is Haiku? page. Many people think they know what haiku is, and many are wrong.

Day 18 & 19 Nanopoblano

Today I am playing catch up. I am posting a haiku for Day 18 of NaBloPoMo. The theme for yesterday is “something obvious.” It is obvious that the person celebrating their birthday is aging, but sometimes it surprises us when everyone else has too.

birthday cake frosting
all the beards in the room are white
another year gone

May 6, 2018

 

I am posting one of my free verse poems for today. The Somethingist prompt for today is “something celebratory.” I am thankful that God gave me the gift of writing and that He occasionally gives me poems to write.

Thank You

Thank you God for this gift.
Thank you for allowing little me,
to build a bridge where there had been a rift.
The soothing words do not come from me,
I’m not always that wise.
Because of You the poems be.
Thank you for making me a cistern.
I prayed for you to use me,
and now it’s my turn.
I am the vessel to pour out.
The precious jar of ointment.
Your gracious name I shout!
I give the honor and glory to Jesus.
I am but the pen,
writing the word that pleases…