‘The Never-Muse'(new poem)

This poem was inspired by words I found written on a lapboard I used to take a quiz on Monday. Enjoy!

“The Never-Muse
By Maggie McGinity

My apologies.
Time lost track of me.
My line now mystery,
Not held by history.

The substance of my hips.
The pressure on my lips.
Eternity skips
My beat and takes my trips
With it.

Many a metal may embrace
Upon my wrist, near my face
But fingers bare, around to trace
I’ll be constricted to no place.

I don’t want to be a face at the window.
I love able to come and go.
To not be the same shade as the wall, though
Would be nice to know
How to do.

Am I an open book?
Do I warrant second look?
Who knows what the teasing took.
I’ll never be a babbling brook.

At arm’s length, how do I seem?
Across the room and freeze.
For every dogged dream,
There’s (at least) one demon I can’t please.

I remember, I can memorize
Quite well and just fine,
But there is rarely a prize
I can call all mine

I won’t willingly bare
These things which you are unaware
Exist. There is no way to prepare.
If you ask, you may find them there:

A multitude of moving bruise
Covering a left-out with much left to lose,
Knowing, inherently, those you choose
Are better than this never-muse.

At least it’s no instead of nothing.
At least there’re no hearts to go hunting
For. Better, I guess, than left wanting,
Inclination ignored.”

Modified quote:

“And I’ll never be set free as I’m ghost that you can’t see. If you read between the lines you’ll  know that I’m just trying to understand the feelings that you lack.”
-pieces of “If You Could Read my Mind,” by Gordon Lightfoot

‘You Will Not Relate to this Poem'(new poem)

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

“You Will Not Relate to this Poem
By Maggie McGinity

Ethos before noon
Theory before six
Tuesday after renew
Rescue dress after this

Rehearsal, then rehearsal
Class, then class
A make-up for something
Never meant to pass

Determine destination
All required item(s)
Wheels round and round
Or four just as I find them?

Depends upon my choice
Time spent and the timing
I’ve never known this noise
Will I meld in or be miming?

Jus d’orange, en deux ou trois?
Glaces, long as I carry.
If not, my mannerisms
May become trop scary

Green, green, as the wanton Spring.
No sacrifice, no riot-rite.
Mean, mean, to the power cling,
All flutters, mutters of tonight.

Lay out, laid down, all the days.
Chamomile calamity.
Wander, worried, all the ways
The finished work will find me.”

Quotes:

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”
-Marie Curie

‘Hap’s Hazard'(new poem)

“Hap’s Hazard
By Maggie McGinity

There is not enough of me
For all the me’s there are supposed to be.

My throat burns and stings
Because I had to sing,
Let my voice ring,
Join the multitude and bring
Up the house.

This pointless suffering
I’m no closer to the things
I truly want.
This haphazard hunt.
I can barely swallow
The fell-by-the-wayside tasks I must follow.

And there is no time
No time for making things better
Barely any for getting things done
And the list runs on and on
Forever

There will never be a day
When I have nothing to do
Until my life is through
And even then,
The uncrossed items
Will stay upon the page
Fruitlessly laying in wait.

Oh, but for a brief reprieve
An out-of-body or a leave
Of absence
Just my presence
To not be needed fifty places at once.
This isn’t what I want.
I can barely eat or breathe.
Enough.”

Quotes:

““Those who are wise won’t be busy, and those who are too busy can’t be wise.”
-“The Importance of Living,” by Lin Yutang

‘The Everyday Riddle’ (new poem)

I have a cold, and it’s making me overdramatic. Or I’ve had a life and it’s making me hurt and frantic. Or I was just an emo kid and I never grew out of it. You decide. These words you haven’t heard have their own life.

“The Everyday Riddle
By Maggie McGinity

I don’t know why someone would want to
Come to this tomb,
This wreck of a room,
Where the flowers feel as dead as their master.

I don’t know why someone would dare to
Step foot inside
Where dreams go to die,
Failing faster and faster

I don’t know why someone would wake up
This numb and tattered core
I don’t know what all your words
Are for

I don’t know why I walk like a coffin,
Killing others’ fantasies often.
Why worry about losing my breath
When half my days I feel like death?

I don’t know why someone would come to
This well-lit grave,
Poor-promise-paved,
Where flowers look as dead as their master.

I don’t know why someone would enter
This storm and strife.
All good things in life
Can’t last here.”

Answer my quote?

“What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?”
-“Hamlet,” by William Shakespeare

‘We Speak of Wolves'(new poem)

“We Speak of Wolves
By Maggie McGinity

Pack leader.
Attack, or heed her
Warning?

Words to the wise?
I wouldn’t wish wisdom upon
My worst enemy.
Well, I would,
But only for my weight in weary.

Were that all her wolves would
Go away
Pray, pray, day by day
To slip, to duck, to roll
Out from under the alpha’s control

And a terribly small pack, at that
All the harder to pull a
Disappearing act
And oh, how she longs to vanish
And fade
They’d never notice if she slipped away

Ah, they.
Outside of the plural
Even when she claimed part of two
She was never a part of you

The world she carries inside
Will never be alive
Again
Nor could anyone wish it to be
But its funny.
Getting out
Doesn’t feel all that free to me

Hunted, haunted, around every corner
Waiting for the world to mourn her
Waiting for another wolf
To carry her away
For, Lord knows,
Only wrong worlds
Will stay.”

Quotes:“We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.”
-Sam Keen
“Homo homini lupus est.”
-Plato

‘Drought’ (new poem)

I once saw a small-scale demonstration of a flash flood at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. It terrified me.

“Drought
By Maggie McGinity

Scrape the bottom.

This started as a choice
To reclaim my voice
When someone had taken it away.
Now you all force it to stay
Every single blessed day.

My words have no impact.
This is fact.
They bring me more pain than promise,
More sorry-to-be-honest,
More difficult truths
I don’t know what to do
With.
From the inside out, I’ve grown sick.

Scrape the bottom.
Gather the few drops left.
When this is finished, what’s there to gain?
Scratches and markings which will remain?

I am still the summer last
I am what I’ve lacked days past
But in the smallest quantity
I am what’s missing in me
What leaves me in misery.

I’m so tired.
I’ve run dry.
But I still can’t say
‘Goodbye.'”

Quotes:

“Tears may be dried up, but the heart – never.”
-Marguerite Gardiner

“Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?”
-Kurt Vonnegut

‘Complete You'(new poem)

Too busy to write a new poem because I’m busy writing a 12-to-15-page “assignment”(I think this professor and I have different vernaculars), so I’m posting something older, which I wrote in August 2012 while showering in my family’s suite(we had a vacation timeshare membership, we gave it up, we’re better off than most but not so rich that “suite” is a usual thing for us by any means) in Valdoro Mountain Lodge in Breckenridge, Colorado.

Pretty, no? I miss it, even though I had altitude sickness a couple days. Quick shoutout to an awesome restaurant: If you’re in need of fast, unusual, delicious pizza in Breckenridge, hit up Extreme Pizza.

Where I write things is very important to me, almost as important as who and what I write about. This is why I include this information. I, like most people I know, get my best ideas in the shower. For me, though, they tend to be poems and songs.

I’ve been many places, and I’ve seen many things, but I’m still looking.

“Complete You
By Maggie McGinity

I can see you
I can hear you
I can feel you
I don’t know you

I can dream you
I can teach you
I can breathe you
I don’t own you

Know you’re out there
But without care
I do not dare
To meet you

For I’m not whole
Don’t know my role
How could this soul
Complete you?”

Obvious quote:

“I promise you kid, that I’ll give so much more than I get
I just haven’t met you yet”
-“Haven’t Met You Yet,” by Michael Buble

A bit more obscure:

“I think it’s very healthy to spend time alone. You need to know how to be alone and not be defined by another person.”
-Olivia Wilde

“It’s so easy to fall in love, but hard to find someone who will catch you.”
-Anonymous

‘A Good Screamer’ (new poem)

If the library was open 24 hours a day, the world would be a wonderful place.

If my laptop had the software I need, I could keep a decent pace.

But these things are not so wherein. Their absence against my work’s demands’ presence wears in and on my face.

Therefore, poem.

“A Good Screamer
By Maggie McGInity

All I want to do is sleep.

Go away for a few months
Or just breathe.
Overall, I can’t keep up with a million things.
Doing not all, though, not good enough.

Sometimes, I think, if I had a
Constant source of strength and support
Reality wouldn’t press so hard on me.
Everything wouldn’t feel like a bad dream.
All the days I’ve of my life I’ve looked for
Membership, a magic cure.
(while) Every role, every goal, asking, “Who will complete?”
(lands) Right here, where there is always, only me.”

Quotes:

“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”
-“On Writing,” by Stephen King

“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.”
-Bruce Lee

Threesome(new poems “Intro Poem,” “6 Days,” and “In this Time”)

“Intro Poem
By Maggie McGinity

We’re going to play with font today.
I hope my words don’t scare you away.
But if you dare or choose to stay,
You may see beauty on this page.

Three poems ripe and ‘ready-read.
Three poems floating through my head.
Born out of dread,
Then hope instead,
Today.”

 

“6 Days
By Maggie McGinity

Let me tell you about my life.
Turns out everyone else was right
And I was wrong.

Let me tell you about my years,
Wasted in faults and fears
For far too long.

Assumptions can be the most dangerous thing
When they force you to live your life dangerously
In love with strange conditions and rules.

Crazy? Or lazy excuses to stay?
Watch him take your breath away.
Die (inside), a lover’s fool.

If I had a time machine,
I’d un-see the things I’ve seen.
Know their truths before they become my only one.

But the hardest chapter past,
Its poems and songs made to last.
Can I regret what has been done

To me? …

… couldn’t see …

… jokingly …

… can’t breathe …

Yes. Yes, I can.
Though tortured artist, prolific, honest, I am.
Please, please don’t steal my breath.
I loved your life. (Please) Don’t leave me death.”

 

“In This Time
By Maggie McGinity

In this moment.
In this time.
I am in love with my life.

Happiness is never (too) far away.
It can be bought with food
Or a rainy day.
And if I’m happy for reasons I shouldn’t,
Being wrong I wouldn’t
Mind. I’d never choose
Right over laughing with you

Let the past be past,
Though it will last
In my heart, and in my mind.
But fading, ever fading
Fast.

Let the future remain unseen,
But pray it’s comfort and ever clean.
My heart is evergreen
Forever seeking
To make my future exactly what I mean
It to be.

Caught here in the in-between
Smiling is my only dream

And happiness is never (too) far away.
It can be bought with food
Or a rainy day.
Though it’s not mine,
In this happiness I find
Such relief
So sweet.
Down this line
I don’t mind
Not being right.

For in this moment,
In this time,
I am in love with my life.”

Citations d’inspiration:

“I’ll snap my fingers to show I don’t care
I’ll buy me a brand new dress to wear
I’ll scrub my neck
And I’ll brush my hair
And start all over again!”
-“Many a New Day,” from “Oklahoma”

“There now, steady, love,
So few come and don’t go.
Will you, won’t you,
Be the one I’ll always know?”
-“Look After You,” by The Fray

“Be in love with your life. Every minute of it.”
-Jack Kerouac

‘Poem of 1/10/13’ (new poem)

I’m too tired and busy to write a new poem, so I’m posting an old poem, which I wrote during Spring Semester training at the Iowa State Daily. Enjoy!

“Poem of 1/10/13
By Maggie McGinity

There is so much to be doing.
There is so much to be done!
There’s no time to squander, ruing
Over what is past and gone.
The future is ensuing,
And pursuing, on and on!”

Quote:

“Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.”
-Guillaume Apollinaire

“The best way to predict your future is to create it.”
-Abraham Lincoln