New Poem: “Unraveling” by Maggie McGinity

Hello friends! It’s the holiday season, and I am very happy about that. I get to go home tomorrow (if the weather cooperates) and I’m very happy about that.

However, there is a tiny voice in my head that likes to focus on one tiny, less-than-ideal part of my life instead of focusing on all of the wonderful things in my life. So this voice and I write poems about our feelings and then listen to jazz standards on YouTube for 2 hours to soothe ourselves. Because whatever is going on in your life, you can be sure someone else has already dealt with it and written and recorded a song about it.(Of course, I write songs about my own life, but I haven’t recorded any because it’s time-consuming and I lost the power cord to my MIDI keyboard. But last night I found the power cord in my teal ottoman, so tonight I’ll see if it works, and if so, that keyboard and I will be spending a lot of time together over break).

I must say, my problem is a good problem to have, so don’t worry about me. I have a friend in Ottumwa who might still have the same good problem, and if so, we can go out to lunch sometime next week and talk about the silly someones in our lives.

Anyways, the poem. Enjoy!

“Unraveling
By Maggie McGinity

It’s a very selfish thing
What I’m doing
Just to keep myself safe.
I like to think it keeps you safe, too,
But are we better off safe?
I haven’t a clue.

I’ve laid myself down on the line
Too many times.
Back when I didn’t have a grain of rice
To light the loss of my life
It was fine
To break this
Time and time and time

But now
Somehow
I’ve gotten everything
And at the same time, nothing.
Am I one, or am I two?
Am I me, or am I you?
In moments of quiet certainty
I fear I only hear me

When my strength needs power staying,
I comfort myself in saying,
‘Everything will be fine.
Everything will be mine
One way or the other,’
And though there are many ways
And though there are many days
I don’t want another.

Alas.
I am impatient
In the messages my heart has sent
But patient thus this far to date
What’s another three months to wait?

This inevitable thing which I now choose
Inevitable for me to lose?
I’ve never been good at saving myself.
I’d put me on the highest shelf.
These scary-sounding words are not.
I am a tangle of feelings and thought,
Too quickly unraveling to what’s inside
Longing to hear, ‘No longer hide.’

But I am too much in this.
Too practiced at pretending
My heart does not exist
So what I do not have, how can I miss?

All things being equal
I don’t want to see a sequel
Of the same story I’ve known and lived.
But I won’t give.”

Lyrical Quotes:

“Like Jack Horner
In the corner
Don’t go nowhere
What do I care

Your kisses
Are worth waitin’ for
Believe me”
-“Aint’ Misbehavin'” by Fats Waller, Harry Brooks and Andy Razaf

“The way your smile just beams
The way you sing off key
The way you haunt my dreams
No, no, they can’t take that away from me

The way you hold your knife
The way we danced till three
The way you’ve changed my life
No, no they can’t take that away from me
No they can’t take that away from me”
-“They Can’t Take That Away From Me” by George and Ira Gershwin

“Oh the heart beats in its cage”
-“Heart In A Cage” by The Strokes

Lazy Whole Song Quotes:

New Poems: “Owls Havoc Didn’t Hold” & “As I Fall Asleep” by Maggie McGinity

Part 2 of the Twinning Posts/Picks. A couple of poems I’ve been working on for awhile, that must be posted tonight, because it’s Tuesday (Twos’ Day).

These poems both remind me some of my poem “Down Wishing Well,” which is largely built around the line “Wish you well, and well is where you hide.” Anywho. The Twinning Twos’Day poems. Enjoy!

“Owls’ Havoc Didn’t Hold
By Maggie McGinity

Open your eyes.

Look for yourself and not for lies.

Draw conclusions, but do not surmise.

Happy is the life uncomplicated,

Always sure and certain, ever-sated.

Bounce back, bring the happiness you’ve found

Into this arena, common crown.

Take deep breaths, for you are not at war.
Stop and remember just what you’re here for.

Darkness comes now, lengthening the tell
I hope you’re staying warm and doing well
Echoes and reverberations of the closing bell 

How do I know if it’s still ringing

And how do I stop this sanctioned singing?

Red the walls and hallways of my heart.

Down the green walls. Tear them apart.”

“As I Fall Asleep
By Maggie McGinity

What is this?
What is this silent scheme?
Is this my hidden bliss,
The dream I scarcely dared to dream?

Finding myself too far gone for help,
I wrapped myself in my secret deep.
Whispered these words only to myself,
As I fell asleep.

Now I am awake
But I can’t quite believe
These smiles and these miles take
Their sweet time to reprieve.

Now, it seems, once dreams are made
You can have everything that you want
Just not, it seems, I am afraid,
Just not all at once

Moment for moment, day by day,
I just want this to stick and stay,
Neither scare nor take away

As clocks tick and hours fade
Problems and promises blend and braid
As I run myself out of rhymes
Will I run myself out of time?

Oh no. This was supposed to be a grateful poem.
A happy heart in a happy home.
But you all know, I write, I write alone.

We all have a past,
And we all have a future,
But of this present, at last,
Of this present I am so sure

Finding myself too far gone for help,
I wrap myself in my secret deep.
Whisper these words only to myself,
As I fall asleep.”

Quotes: Basically all of the lyrics to this: And a little bit of this:

New Poem: “Bad Reception (The Fuzzy Poem)” by Maggie McGinity

Warm fuzzies. Gray fuzzies. Fuzzy gray. Foggy. Confused.

Not so much anymore, but things written at 3 AM must be shared. Enjoy!

“Bad Reception (The Fuzzy Poem)
By Maggie McGinity

I’m scavenging the Internet
But I won’t find it there

The answer isn’t where

The answer isn’t here yet

Tell me quick, and tell me now

What and where and why and how
This moment finally arrived
I’m scared, and scarred, and I’ve survived

I don’t understand this newfound glory
The sudden twist in the same old story
How can I reconcile what you’ve just said?

Your old words and new words wage war in my head

And I sensed it coming

But I couldn’t trust
That my heart’s hope wasn’t a bubble
About to go bust

Nothing made sense

For all that time

And now, I guess,

Nonsense

I can call mine

I need a clearer picture

Of who I’m supposed to be
No longer the old fixture
But still they think of me
The way I was
The way I am?
My brain is fuzz
My status sham

I should have drawn that moment out
To the length of all I need from you
But instead of stop and sing and shout

I only accomplished the look confused

I am happy, and I am sad.
I am lost, and I am glad.
I am remarkably unchanged,

Yet nothing in this world’s the same.
I am tossed, and I am torn

To throw aside these months forlorn.
Shocked again, and not sure what for,

Am I finally (finally) yours?”

NaPoWriMo #27: ‘Sweet Hands’

To sleep or to actually try to catch up on all the homework I missed with a vacation and 3/24 (that’s 3 concerts in 24 hours) all in one week? That is the question. Maow.

“Sweet Hands
By Maggie McGinity

There is cinnamon
In the beds
Of my fingernails
I am hopeful
My hands will smell like apple pie
For days

My head is full of hairspray
My face is underneath the face
I wore today
I wore tonight
The smile to make things seem alright

And looking back
I can see what they saw
And looking forward
What am I looking forward to?

It’s funny
Little time and little money
Though my songs are sweet as honey
They can’t bring me what I want
What I hunt

But I have pictures
And I am richer for the memories they hold
I’ll have time soon
I just hope I won’t stay cold.”

Quotes:

“My hands are small I know
But they’re not yours, they are my own
But they’re not yours, they are my own
And I am never broken”
-“Hands” by Jewel

“Memory
All alone in the moonlight
I can smile at the old days
I was beautiful then
I remember
The time I knew what happiness was
Let the memory live again”
-“Memory” from “CATS” by Andrew Lloyd Webber

“I want to know if love is wild 
I want to know if love is real”
-“Born to Run” by Bruce Springsteen

‘(Back to) My Ocean Blue’ (new poem)

I wrote this poem while I was falling asleep. It refused to let me sleep until I wrote it down.

At first it was about reading. Now it could be about anything. Enjoy!

“(Back to) My Ocean Blue
By Maggie McGinity

I got swept away with the tide
Left beached inside
These sparkling grains of white

The waves laping over my skin
This sand nuzzling up to my chin
Wishing for a flipper or fin

To stir me from this place
This shallow, soggy pace
I’d drown in so little sentient space

But don’t follow to fall
I’ll gather up my all
And to my deep blue crawl

Back to my ocean blue
Back to my ocean true
Back to the depths and darks
And dreary, draining dreams of you

For water is like peace
And waving is like sleep
Letting go of something you
Were never meant to keep

For bottomless and bold
I want my story told
Foraging for gold
In the unknown

And though these lemon lessons
May my populace lesson,
These groans are worth the pain
In which I’ve grown.”

Quotes:

“The problem with introspection is that it has no end.”
-Philip K. Dick

“How shall I ever learn who I am when there is so much of me that belongs to someone else?”
-“The Lune and the Poppet,” by Madeleine Claire Franklin

‘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

What?! A new Poem-a-Day Challenge(NaPoWriMo)??/’Confusion’ (new acrostic)

Did you know that it’s National Poetry Month?

Well, I didn’t either, until a few hours ago. There’s also a National Poetry Writing Month challenge, 1 poem per day all April, so I figure I might as well do that. I’ve done poem-a-day for more than a month before, I can do a month now.

 

Like I said earlier, I just found out about this, so I’ve had limited time to put a poem together. For short poetry-writing sessions, I work well with a set of boundaries, so I decided on an acrostic for today. Enjoy!

“Confusion
By Maggie McGinity

Can I make things more clear,
Or let it show here?
No. Absolutely not.
Finding words for my fix,
Using meanings which mix:
Sometimes, they’re all I’ve got.
Inquisitive eyes
Often find mine,
Never knowing what they’ve wrought.”

Quotes:

“We often confuse what we wish for with what is.”
-Neil Gaiman

“Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.”
-Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“It’s funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they’ll do practically anything you want them to.”
-J.D. Salinger

‘Under a Friend’s Flag’ (new poem)

I’m too late, but by my book it’s still Saturday.

“Under a Friend’s Flag
By Maggie McGinity

I cannot define one
Or claim that I have none.
Don’t know if I’m good or bad at it.
My camaraderie
Is not a commodity
Nor an easy habit.
Quiet girl with ticking mind
The first friendships she would find
Were forced and not their choosing.
So I hope you understand,
All banter is banned;
I cannot risk their losing.

The boys who claimed friendship
Then let their hearts slip
Into something more
These boys who ‘loved’ me
Knew little of me
But have now closed every door
Doggedly led on and let down
My arms around
False hearts and false hopes
Now I see each smile
As just one more mile
Down an ever-so-slippery slope

The world paws and pulls me
The world laughs and lulls me
In every wrong direction
This world, it would take me
This world, it would break me
And I’ve now no protection.
In arms I find refuge
These arms I can’t refuse
Never mind how long the holding
For under a friend’s flag
No chaste finger can wag
Nor offer an honest scolding

Oh heart, settle down
I can’t fool around
His love is not for me.
Dear heart, you’ll survive
We have our whole lives
Left for ‘eternity’
Heart, wait your turn
Oh when will you learn
You’re never meant to be.
Sole heart, soul, and wonder,
We’re still going under.
Treading water’s lost sufficiency.

When one has two
What can I do?
When the world can’t see
What’s left of me?
When two have one
I am undone.
When I’m finally free
Who’ll be for me?”

Quotes:

“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.”
-Elbert Hubbard

“How fickle my heart and how woozy my eyes
I struggle to find any truth in your lies
And now my heart stumbles on things I don’t know
My weakness I feel I must finally show
Lend me your hand and we’ll conquer them all
But lend me your heart and I’ll just let you fall
Lend me your eyes, I can change what you see
But your soul you must keep totally free”
-“Awake My Soul” by Mumford and Sons