Sarah Flanigan - Poetry Simply Put

Philosophy
someone’s idea
of what I should think
quotes
words to live by
maxims
axioms
axiomatic truisms
Man can not embrace his own experience
blah blah blah
Made for empty minds
compelled to fill
to stave off the hunger
for something true.
Time? Space? Libido complex?
Delusions of grandeur? perhaps.
Know what you know and
know that you know,
I always say
Ivory towers are better
left for ivy
and long-haired beauties looking
for love

copyright 2008

Tags: bullshit, know-it-alls, original poetry, philosophy

I play the happy fool
who loves to make you laugh
but oh how life is cruel
for you do not know the half

I was not born a clown
a stupid dancing doll
nor a bunny in the down
to decorate your hall

I’m not the flippant fiddler
who dances on the roof
or the country bumpkin whittler
who’s missing his front tooth

Nor am I the mother
who brings you tea and cakes
whose heart goes all aflutter
by the mudpies that you make

I’m just a lonely traveler
on the twisty road of life
whose problems sometimes rattle her
and tempts her with a knife

So if you’re feeling blue dear
please look the other way
I’m not the super glue here
Just struggling through the day.

copyright 2008

Tags: irony, original poetry, personas

Words
the enemy
cutting
fresh blood and
new bruises
Shining the
light
darkly
on the mess
that is
Me
Gouging
fairy
tales
and happy
endings
Laughing at
self-deceit
Crying
I catch them
scratching at
mind
begging entry
to
wreak
wicked
schemes
Promising to
behave
and splash
beautiful
images across
pages
In the last
moment
they dash to
their own freakish
nightmare
and drag me
screaming
along with
Them.

copyright 2008

Tags: dark, Poetry, words without pity

Hot, sultry, steamy. Labor Day weekend is a bust. Nothing to do but swelter and try to stay conscious. Relief doesn’t come. Sleep doesn’t come. The appetite is fickle and wants nothing I give it.

I’m beyond tired. My mind isn’t processing rightly. I’m angry and frustrated with everything.

I long for a quiet place - without room mates and neighbors or any intrusion - that is cool and let’s my mind wander to a place long time missed and nearly forgotten. Where I can string words into the portrait I see in my dreams.

The breeze comes and I am encouraged that there are cooler days ahead. Days with clear thinking and even revelation. Days when petty, slanderous remarks don’t affect me and I don’t mind so much that life isn’t fair. That people are cruel for the sake of cheap laughs and quick nods. That no one is paying attention to what matters and the price we pay for our ignorance.

But today, I meander through my own misery and stumble through my own labrynth of concept and ideals, right and wrong, good and bad. Today, I long for anything that will lift the weight from my head and the heat from my too-brown skin.

Tomorrow will come, it almost always does, and with it, a new bundle of complaints and bushel of victories. My eyes will see things differently and forget what they have seen today. My heart will glue itself back together and the drum beat that is life will call out - leaving behind anyone too slow to get in line.

copyright 2007

There’s a rock
in my shoe
and I cannot lie

It reminds
me of you
that look in your eye

My balance
has faltered
I’m going down fast

The future
was altered
when you rushed right past

But the rock
in my shoe
doesn’t slow me down

Cuz I got
rid of you
and I’m less one clown

copyright 2007

When my life hurts
I imagine my other life
on the road not taken.

But, my mind wants to know
if is it the road not taken
that determines my life
Or me?

Would I be a different me
if I chose a different road?
Would the me of me
change with the seasons
the colors or the geograhy
Just because?

Or is it a trick
I play on myself
to explain away
my choices
good and bad
right and wrong
smart and stupid?

Even in my imaginings
I seem not able
to remove me from me
Untaken road or not.
No matter where I travel
in cars, on foot, in my imagination
the me of me is always there.

copyright 2007

No longer a child
and yet not old
No longer shy
still not bold

In between
rich and poor;
good and bad…
wanting more
than my mother had

Full of ideas
and things to do
Feel like paper
in need of glue

copyright 2006

No more Christmas crisis
no more Christmas crap
I feel my head exploding
so many gifts to wrap

No more petty fighting
no more whines or groans
the only sounds I’m wanting
is lovely Christmas tones

I know your cheer is dying
and your job is on the edge
but if you don’t stop your crying
I’ll push you off the ledge

So stuff your face with cookies
and give us all a break
wear your god damned Santa Hat
or your ass I’ll bake

Yell ho, ho, ho and hee, hee, hee
and make another smile
cuz if I throw you out of the car
you’ll have to walk for miles

You have all year to be a bitch
and make us roll our eyes
so suck it up and knock it off
and tell some Christmas lies

Peace on Earth, Goodwill to men
Is what I want from you
And if you give me what I want
I may not even sue!

Merry Christmas!

copyright 2006

(there…I feel better. how about you? sarah )

(since it’s been rather solemn around here lately, I thought I’d take a break from the fiction and offer a laugh. This was sent to me by a friend in an email. I am not the author but I’d sure like to meet them and thank them for the chuckles.  sarah)

CHRISTMAS CAROLS FOR THE “DYSFUNCTIONAL”:

1. Schizophrenia — Do You Hear What I Hear?

2. Multiple Personality Disorder — We Three Kings Disoriented Are

3. Dementia — I Think I’ll be Home for Christmas

4. Narcissistic — Hark the Herald Angels Sing About Me

5. Manic — Deck the Halls and Walls and House and Lawn and Streets
and Stores and Office and Town and Cars and Buses and Trucks and Trees
and…..

6. Paranoid — Santa Claus is Coming to Town to Get Me

7. Borderline Personality Disorder — Thoughts of Roasting on an Open
Fire

8. Personality Disorder — You Better Watch Out, I’m Gonna Cry, I’m
Gonna Pout, Maybe I’ll Tell You Why

9. Attention Deficit Disorder — Silent night, Holy oooh look at the
froggy can I have a chocolate, hey pretty lights, why is France so far
away?

10. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder –Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells,Jingle
Bells,Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells,Jingle
Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle
Bells, Jingle,Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells,Jingle
Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells,Jingle
Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells,Jingle
Bells, Jingle Bells,Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells,Jingle
Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle ……

“I don’t care if they read. It’s not about that.” I lit a cigarette and continued typing.

Well, that’s ridiculous,” she sneered. “Of course you care. If you didn’t care you wouldn’t go to the trouble.”

I was onto the picture search and barely heard the nag rasping in my ear.

“Are you listening to me?” Even when she screamed it was barely a whisper. Really it wasn’t her talking that drove me up a wall but rather that sense of being poked in the forehead. That sense that something was obscuring my view of the screen.

“Uh huh.” I couldn’t find the right picture and I’d been to several sites looking already. It was going to be another long post. Damn! Amazing how finding a picture can hang you up. The post could take minutes (or hours) and then you spend the rest of the night looking for the picture.

“That one isn’t bad,” she said.

“I’m looking for right - not not bad. It has to be right.”

“Why?” she danced in and out of my peripheral vision. A flash of chiffon and feathers. “Who cares? Nobody reads anyway.” It always came back to the same taunt.

I typed in a different key word. Click. Pictures popped up. I scanned. Click. Next page. Click. Next page. “I’ve already told you it doesn’t matter if anyone reads. But of course somebody does. My stat counter says so.”

“Well, if they liked it - they’d say something, wouldn’t they?”

She was relentless, and doing everything she could to distract me. “Sometimes they say something.”

“But if they really liked it - it wouldn’t be sometimes, it would be all the time.” She bapped the side of my head. “You’re just not that good. You know it and so do I.”

Click. Up popped the perfect picture. “Oh yes,” I said. Copy. Paste. Click. Publish.

“So you admit it?” She was delerious. “You’re no good. You’re no good. Baby, you’re no good.” Did I mention she likes Linda Ronstadt?

“I’m fine. It’s fine. It’s all good. If they read then they do. If they don’t then they don’t.” I pulled a drag off my smoke. “I don’t do it for them. I do it for me.”

She rolled her green eyes.

“Scoff all you like,” I narrowed my eyes at her and dared her to speak. She said nothing. “Good, that’s more like it. You see, dear muse despite my pathetic life, my nowhere job and all the other things that can and do wrong - this is the one place that is all mine. I can do what I want, say what I want. Express my ideas and opinions. Even if no one is reading I still publish the thoughts.”

“Okay,” she backed off.

I sighed, relieved the dialogue was over for the time being.

“But if you were really good…some publisher……”

And then. My head exploded.

copyright 2006