I Want

I want to live in a cabin between the woods and the sea
I want to smell mossy earth and pine resin at daybreak
Wood smoke and salt air at sunset
I want to be surrounded by books and filtered sunlight
Candles, blank pages, and moonlight
I want to walk with hopes by day
And dance with dreams by night
I want to watch banana slugs explore my garden
I want to hear the chorus of crashing waves 
Gulls crying exultantly from the sky
Wind playing chase through the cypress boughs

I want to be free of the chains of expectations
Free of the weight of the looming other shoe
I wish not to drink from any more bitter cups
Fall on any more swords
Remove twisted daggers from my back
I crave peace
Beauty
Lightness
Hope
Creativity
Freedom
I crave relationships that are mutually supportive
That nurture souls
That transact in honesty
Respectfulness
Genuineness
Ease
Love

-gws

@wordswishesandwisdom
Happy NaPoWriMo! Here’s my Day 8 poem called I Want #poetry #wordsmithing #poem #writer #wordswishesandwisdom #poet #poetsoftiktok #poetryTok #NaPoWriMo #NaPoWriMo2024 #poetryreading
♬ A Gentle Sunlight – James Quinn

Little Men

My darlings
You became little men
The day we ran from the boogeyman
You met the task as an adventure
Not yet aware that the world you knew
Crumbled while you slept
I will bring you as much magic as you can hold
To keep your hearts moored in innocence
I cannot stitch your world whole again
I promise to weave you a new tapestry
Rich in dreams
Love
Possibility
My little men
You have learned too early 
How unkind the world can be
But we will meet it
Softly
Gently
Together

-gws

@wordswishesandwisdom
Happy NaPoWriMo! Here’s my Day 7 poem called Little Men (it’s day 7 – really) #poetry #wordsmithing #poem #writer #wordswishesandwisdom #poet #poetsoftiktok #poetryTok #NaPoWriMo #NaPoWriMo2024 #poetryreading
♬ original sound – GWS

Dear Sister

Dear sister
I see you
How your heart is bleeding
How your soul is aching
You are transforming
Becoming so much more 
Than you imagined you were or could be
You are becoming a diamond
Under all of the pressure
One worthy to be the center piece
Of your own glorious crown
I can't wait to see how you shine

-gws

Love is Not Enough

"Love is not enough"
This was a truth I gave you
In place of a kiss goodbye
Love is not enough to bridge
The chasm separating us
Neither is it flexible enough
To withstand the tension
It cannot rewrite our history
Erase the years of pain
It cannot alter reality
Nor save our unsalvageable marriage
The love between us is a shadow
A wraith
A  remnant
Of a hope dressed up to look like love
In third-hand threadbare finery
The illusion shattered
And the real state of things exposed

-gws

@wordswishesandwisdom
Happy NaPoWriMo! Here’s my Day 6 poem called Love is Not Enough (it’s day 6 – really) #poetry #wordsmithing #poem #writer #wordswishesandwisdom #poet #poetsoftiktok #poetryTok #NaPoWriMo #NaPoWriMo2024 #poetryreading
♬ original sound – GWS

Glass on Asphalt

Glass on asphalt 
Making a mosaic 
Of the mundane world 

-gws

Unlearn

I need to unlearn your touch 
The sound of your breathing 
Next to me in the dark
I need to unlearn a lifetime 
Of everything about you

-gws

She is a Poet

She is a poet 
An enigmatic storyteller
A word-painter who colors outside the lines
Who sometimes rhymes
Language her artistic medium
Manifesting nouns and verbs
Seeking nuanced shades in adjectives and adverbs
Crafting simile and metaphor
Manipulating personification and hyperbole
Until a shape evolves
This scaffolding for allegory to be called a poem
A golem built from meticulously chosen words
Watercolor emotions
Empathetic evocations
The work imbued with the DNA of her life experience
Powered by hope for her audience to feel at a visceral level
A fraction of the tsunami that lives in her

-gws

@wordswishesandwisdom
Happy NaPoWriMo! Here’s my Day 4 poem called She is a Poet. #poetry #wordsmithing #poem #writer #wordswishesandwisdom #poet #poetsoftiktok #poetryTok #NaPoWriMo #NaPoWriMo2024 #poetryreading
♬ original sound – GWS

Making Friends

She dressed for the night
Draped in shadows and silver
Making friends with the darkness

-gws

Getting Over You (and Other Divine Interventions)

The Universe intervened
In our amber-trapped lives
Cleaving us asunder 
Now that your umbra is clearing
I begin to see the Universe has
Gifted me infinite sunrises 
Bursting with innumerable possibilities
After half my life with you
Standing you up
Holding you up
I find myself suddenly free
Of the responsibility of you
I delight in the joy of doing anything
Without your judgment
I relax remembering that there are no 
Relentless expectations to navigate
I revel in a full night's uninterrupted sleep
I relinquish more and more tension from my body
As each day passes without you
A single divine gift containing 
All the possibilities I can dream of
I will not get over you in a day
You have left me a moonscape
Desolate and damaged
I will redeem and reclaim myself
Both shadow and light
Ever shifting and changing
Just like the magnificent moon

-gws

@wordswishesandwisdom
Happy NaPoWriMo! Here’s my Day 3 poem called Getting Over You (and Other Divine Interventions). #poetry #wordsmithing #poem #writer #wordswishesandwisdom #poet #poetsoftiktok #poetryTok #NaPoWriMo #NaPoWriMo2024 #poetryreading
♬ original sound – GWS

This is the Poem I’ll Never Write

Holding hands in matching rockers
Laughing about when we were young
You reminiscing about record stores and ska shows
As I tell our grandchildren tales of magic
Spending our sunset days in loving conversations
Each other's best bestie
Strolling into the ever after that follows the happily

-gws