Launching Paper Poetry’s Gratitude Workshop

‘The beginning is the most important part of the work.’ Plato

Easier said than done, Plato!

And easier said in retrospect with the beginning already tucked safely in your hip pocket and you’re off flying along whatever path you’ve decided to pursue.

I didn’t have the benefit of retrospection in August 2020 when I decided to bite the blogging bullet and publish my first article on Medium. Prior to that my blogging experience, if you can call it that, was limited to Facebook and LinkedIn posts. I’d be the first one to admit, I had no idea what I was…

Sahil’s Poetry Challenge | Tercets | Anxiety

The pain of diffuse obtuse worry
The pain of contrived catastrophe
The pain that is curs-ed anxiety

The pain of thinking the worst
The pain of overthinking what’s first
The pain that is un-deciding what’s best

The pain of obsessive remembering
The pain of crippling forgetting
The pain that is there when it’s not

The pain of losing control
The pain of needing to let it unroll
The pain that is being trapped in the middle

The pain of the ache in the stomach
The pain of nerve-jangling panic
The pain that is muscles clenched flexed

The pain of non-restorative…

Poetry | Free Verse | Love

He held her hand,
tenderly,
Palm-on-palm

He brushed,
feather-light,
each slender finger
Knuckle-to-nail

His hand stroked
her silk-silver hair,
gently
sweeping it away
from her brow

He ran his forefinger
s l o w l y
down the length
of her cheek
Temple-to-chin

His fingers trailed
upwards to her mouth
flip-turned
Tips-to-lips
a lingering
finger kiss

She opened her eyes
locking into his
Her lips moved
imperceptibly
“I love you,”
she whispered
and was gone.

© Carolyn Hastings 2021

I haven’t written about Lynda, my BFF-soul sister-heavenly muse, for a while. It doesn’t mean I don’t think of her; I…

Sahil’s Poetry Challenge | Free Verse | Self

I sat on the fence for ages
undecided about which way to go
Do I choose work
and serve others,
or family
and serve them?
I was stumped and
somewhat dejected

I’ve juggled both
- work and family -
for as long
as I can remember
but,
let’s face it,
there’s no such thing
as the fountain of youth;
I only need look in the mirror
to see the undeniable proof

So, I sat on the fence a while longer
and pondered the choices
back and forth
One thing I was certainly sure of;
I was spreading myself wafer-thin
Something had to give,
and that something
sure…

Sahil’s Poetry Challenge | Emotions | Self

It’s okay to be angry
Just take it over there
I can’t deal with the hostility
It makes me lose my hair

If you bring your anger towards me
This is what I’ll most likely do
I’ll try to pacify you — make you laugh
Because I hate it when you scream

If you’re angry and in a fury
Please don’t project it onto me
Because I’ll internalize and compost it
And that’s bad news for my spleen

If I’m the object of your anger
That makes things even worse
My emotional brain will be overwhelmed
Help! …

I once knew a guy who chopped wood
He’d talk wood all day if he could
What a pain in the neck!
I said, “What the heck?!”
I’m not Little Red Riding Hood!”

Okay, that was my warm-up limerick.

I haven’t written a limerick in donkeys. Something would always go wonky. Not hee-haw funny at all. Shock, horror when William J Spirdione challenged me to join Michael Burg, MD (AKA Medium Michael Burg)’s limerick war.

William, I thought we were sonnet sparring partners? Are you trying to trip me up with this limerick trick, or are you getting back at…

Sahil Patel’s Poetry Challenge | Japanese Micropoetry | Prose Poetry

Once upon a Timothy
A dedication poem
to a boy who needed us -
we turned him away

A Peter Pan I once knew
his death was no fairy tale
train surfing is suicide
the rumors were true

We were both sixteen
our futures untold stories
his ended falling

Dead in his life’s tracks
a boy who lived on the edge
trying to fit in
but never getting it right
his death taught me to choose life

© Carolyn Hastings 2021

His name was Timothy Clarke. He was the knock-about kid. The try-hard who tried hard to belong but never…

Sahil’s Poetry Challenge | Free Verse | Self

Betrayed I have been
by people I admired, loved, and respected
people I naively believed
could be whole-heartedly trusted.

I have been betrayed

It says more about them
than it says about me
If only it were that easy

Betrayed I have been
The pain and despair of being violated
The monster I now bear
There’s no undoing what hast been done

I have been betrayed

An alien imperfection
like a knobbly, rogue stitch
forever knitted into my fabric

Betrayed I have been
If I say it over and over
will it hurt less and less? …