#48 - My biggest excuse to others and myself was that I had writer's block, as if it was some kind of illness. Mary Garden

A WRITER’S MALADY

Words that used to excite me
seldom do more than bore.
Whatever disease I suffer,
there’s no apparent cure.

A poem locked in my head,
tales that beg to be told,
remain unreleased on paper
from imagery grown cold.

Finding light in the darkness,
escaping talents that mock,
I desperately seek relief from
crippling writer’s block.

#47 - I would so much like young people to have a sense of the gift that they are. Not many of them feel like that. John Denver

ADVICE

A hill becomes a mountain.
The earth becomes too big.
The future breaks apart sometimes,
like stepping on a twig.

But obstacles that hide the way
are not that hard to breach.
The means for overcoming trials
is well within your reach.

You have the power in your hands
to set the world ablaze.
So recognize the gift you are
and conquer stormy days.

#46 - Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order. John Adams

AN ONGOING PROCESS

Hoping for a distribution
from one, single contribution
measures what we deem to think unwise.
Seeking simple absolution
without need for restitution
quickly guarantees a swift demise.

We escape the persecution
through a heartfelt elocution
when our brain releases its disguise.
Minds, intent on evolution,
find the perfect revolution
when we reach beyond what we surmise.

APOLOGY FOR DELAYED POST

I apologize for the delayed post here at The Magnified Muse. We changed internet service providers on Wednesday and the service was not actually up and running until this morning. Ever onward and upward!

#44 - Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. Oscar Wilde (original posting date: 5/12/11)

A FLOWER DIED

Deep in the soil
we planted a flower,
assuming that it would grow
without being tended,
without giving heed
to the life it was eager to know.

Years of neglect
made it wither away
‘til nothing was left to be seen
but the rotting remains
of love that turned gray
from the promise it once held when green.

#45 - In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on. Robert Frost (original posting date 5/19/11)

AND SO IT GOES

It started out like every day
with promises at dawn,
but quickly slipped from my control
as hours speeded on
from morning to the afternoon
and headlong into night.
Before me sat an empty page
with words I’d yet to write.

I argued with my inner child
who eagerly sought play
instead of focusing upon
the writing due today.
But unrepentant, I retire
knowing that with dawn
another day awaits my words
as life keeps moving on.

#43 - I took some time out for life. James L. Brooks

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

I’m a poet and a writer
and the fortress I have built
is in my imagination,
free from time’s consuming guilt.
But when lost in my computer
or imprisoned by a word,
I’m immune to simple pleasures,
with the song of life unheard.

#42 - He who never made a mistake, never made a discovery. Samuel Smiles

MEDICINAL CHOICE

So much in life from which to choose
confuses and bewilders.
And yet when life inflicts a bruise,
we look to our rebuilders.
They put in place a faultless scheme
to overcome our losses.
But blinded eyes ignore the theme
that weighs upon our crosses.
The only way to rise above
a life of disappointment
is finding what you truly love
to be your healing ointment.

AN APOLOGY AND A RETURN

I apologize for my three-month absence from The Magnified Muse. A series of detours removed me from the path on which I had once lovingly walked. Redirecting myself back toward the right road has been less difficult that I thought it would be. It is here, in this magical world of words, that I truly belong. The Magnified Muse will return with a new poetry prompt quote on Thursday, April 28, 2011.

#41 - Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off. Franklin D. Roosevelt

TWO DIFFERENT ROADS

Two different directions, two different roads.
Approaches to life not the same.
Is it just competition that carries our load
or that keeps inner fires aflame?

Two different directions, two different roads.
Expounding on what we believe,
yet panic sets in when our values implode
to which we unceasingly cleave.

From unlikey places comes burning unrest,
discord where once unity glowed.
The embers are killing the need for a quest
to different directions, to different roads.

#40 - Forgiveness is the economy of the heart ... forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits. Hannah More

THE POWER

Held against our breast
like a cold, jagged rock,
anger waits,
ready to be thrown
on a moment’s whim
toward the enemy,
real or imagined.
The cloak of hatred
weighs heavily upon us.
The veil of division
blinds us.
Forgiveness seems
illusive.
But to continue to live,
the breach of discord
begs to be removed.
When hands devoid of fury
reach across the divide,
wounds begin to heal.

#39 - We must accept life for what it actually is - a challenge to our quality without which we should never know of what stuff we are made, or grow to our full stature. Robert Louis Stevenson

REROUTED

New challenges,
far removed the route we charted,
have the power to define us.
We either rise to the occasion
and stay the course,
or we crumble beneath
the whims and fancies of daily life.
Instead of wallowing in the
fear of uncertainty,
we are stronger when
we not only accept the detours,
but gracefully allow them to guide us
in a completely different direction.

#38 - Enthusiasm is followed by disappointment and even depression, and then by renewed enthusiasm. Murray Gell-Mann

EMBRACING TOMORROW

The calendar pages fly in the wind.
Today burns a hole in the past.
The future, unwritten, creates a clean slate.
And although the renewal won’t last,
new memories eagerly wait for the dawn
to give birth to the life that will come.
While some take advantage of what lies ahead,
the route will be challenged by some.
The optimist savors the course of the tide
through prisms sublime and abstract.
The daring embrace both the known and unknown
and adjust in the manner to act.
When life disappoints and spins out of control,
the force of a vision takes hold
and fashions the future around the distress,
moving forward when new becomes old.