Usurped Emotions

Usurped Emotions

Anger is the Queen of Misrule
Until she's denied - 
Shoved aside - 
Diminished, 
Like a distressing damsel
Overcome, but not becalmed.
Impotent Rage, dark
Grief will serve 
Her only companions.
Locked in her stoic tower cell - 
Stubbornly, she swallows the key,
Eats her feelings,
Thinking their power 
Usurped. Denial 
Her warden; Contentment 
Her lady's maid.
Joy pours through open windows
Drenching cold stone
In golden sunfire.
Anger would draw the curtains,
If she could. Hang tapestries
Against the dawning light.
She smothers Hope
Lets it languish
Drowning, in a tub
Of gray and tepid water.
Persistent Joy flashes warm:
Pink, orange, and yellow roses
Cast at the Queen's bare feet
Before the purpling dusk.
Joy launches an assault - 
Demands white bedsheets;
Till Anger, laughing 
Surrenders, at last
To happy Dreams.

Unfeeling

Dammed up for half a life, 
Denied, so many salty drops 
Uncried refuse to flow. 
They called her cold - 
Unfeeling. Unaware
The faintly beating heart 
Still beat within 
Though dried up, brittle
As her mother's fragile
Skin; a parchment
Page unwritten
Waiting to be placed
Upon an empty shelf
Forgotten
As the feelings 
Of a hollow vessel.

Today’s Poet

Wislawa Szymborska

– a Polish poet, essayist, translator, and recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature “for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality.”

Wisława Szymborska – Poetry – NobelPrize.org

April is National Poetry Month. This year marks its 27th year. NaPoWriMo – 30 days of writing poems – is poets’ answer to National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).

This coincides with the A to Z Blogging Challenge, now celebrating its 13th anniversary. Some participants choose a theme; others wing it. Doesn’t matter! The real challenge is to build a practice of writing daily. I think I stuck with it…once. You can see the list of participants – I’m sure they’d love it if you’d visit and comment on their blogs.

This month, my goal is to:

1. Write a poem a day and share it – uncurated – here; and
2. Highlight some poets you may be unfamiliar with.

I encourage you to click the links to read about them and their work. I plan to choose a diverse array of classical and contemporary poets – indigenous poets, Black poets, women poets, LGBTQ poets – that challenge us to see the world differently while also tapping into universal themes and emotions.

Remember, too, that comments and conversation are always welcome here. (Spammers, on the other hand, will be tossed into the moat or mocked, so before you leave an irrelevant comment or drop a link, consider that it’s fair game!)