Category Archives: Social Issues

April 30, 2016

Faithless

By Kat Myrman

Social media is a wonderful way to connect with family and friends. But it’s also a place where it’s easy to throw out topics you wouldn’t dare bring up at Thankgiving dinner or in mixed company…not as in male-female, but in the political polar opposites so many of us find ourselves. Differing views, honest debate and discussion, are enlightening…But the climate of nastiness is too much.

I’ve gotten good at biting my tongue (it’s a wonder I still have a tongue!) but I find sometimes I just need to get the junk out of my head. So…I write. Tonight’s poem is one of those rants. My heart grieves over what we are becoming.

Woe to all the frenzied faithless
Wide-eyed, gulping baseless lies
Called to act in fear and hatred
Marching to faux battle cries.

Woe to all the masses blinded
Trusting in only what they’re fed
By charlatans, as they’re reminded
All Hope is gone, their God is dead.

Woe to all the haughty righteous
Building walls to hide their children
Claiming charity, their soulless
Lives beholden to greedy men.

Woe to hippocrates and fools
Who seek their heaven here on earth
Excluding outcasts, changing rules
Ensuring that their rights come first.

Woe to the people who’ve lost their way
Who’ve fallen to idolatry
The truth is just a breath away
For ears to hear and eyes to see.

kat ~ 30 April 2016

13 Comments   |  tags: | posted in Challenges and Writing Prompts, Poetry, Random Thoughts and Musings, Social Issues, Spirituality

April 17, 2016

Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 17 April 2016

By Kat Myrman

A familiar sunny Sunday morning scene…lounging in while my cat, Casey, waits patiently for shadows of squirrels and birds to flutter by. Routine is a wonderful thing. Once entrenched, you hardly even notice it, and when you do it’s beauty and simplicity has a way of calming us amidst the chaos of life.

This week like so many recent weeks has presented with political undertones. But unlike some election seasons peppered with idealistic aspirations for the future, this cycle has been just plain angry.

And I get it. Things are not as rosy as we’d like them to be. Anger is a natural response to disappointment. But sustained, unchecked, venomous, fear-fueled anger accomplishes nothing. Like a raging fire it eventually burns out, but not without casualties.

Our better selves know intervention is called for to minimize the damage. Pure lunacy is adding more kindling and logs to the pit, which current politicians are loath to do. Alas, are beset with lunatics!

This week’s ReVerse is smattered with sparks of this hotbed of incessant blustering. Embers sucking air. But come Sunday I rely on the cool balm of routine. Casey chasing shadows. Sun-streamed bliss on a mattress. A call to pause and breathe. I live for moments like these! And I hope you have a Sunday time and place where you can rest and recharge too!

I would be remiss if I did not pause to remember the victims of recent natural disasters this week…Japan…and now…Ecuador. Peace and healing all.

And so…be safe this week my fellow word-pressers. Flex those word-bending super powers of yours, penning the light as well as the darkness. Each have their place; the light to warm and inspire us and the darkness, exposed, allowing us to release and to move toward healing. And one more thing…don’t forget to breathe.  Peace.

Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 17 April 2016

This I can’t deny
Truth settles on shuttered minds, spinning in sound bites
suffer(ing) no regrets
promises to keep
each twisty turny
I remember when
Sowing seeds, midst fussy plots of weeds, their empty plates to fill
…because EVERYTHING is better with a little Sriracha!!!
It’s too late to regret
There’s nothing left to do but rise
There were a few brave souls but even fewer customers
Intrepid trekkers
engaged in trysts with metaphors
drunken noodles sweating steam
When the rose bush bursts in bloom
Sometimes fear is good.
Politicians count on this.

~ kat

5 Comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Digital Art & Photos, Essays, Poetry, Random Thoughts and Musings, Social Issues, Week in Review

April 2, 2016

April Poetry Month – A Poem a Day #2

By Kat Myrman

Today’s poetry form: Free Verse

* Free verse poems have no regular meter and rhythm.
* They do not follow a proper rhyme scheme as such; these poems do not have any set rules.
* This type of poem is based on normal pauses and natural rhythmical phrases as compared to the artificial constraints of normal poetry.
* It is also called vers libre which is a French word.

I often write free verse at 3 am mid-REM. This is one of those brain-flushing poems, particularly poignant for me. Free form is my raw unfettered side with no boundaries to keep me from spilling out. Its form title, “FREE Verse” echoes the soul of this particular piece. Both of my parents suffered from severe, undiagnosed, untreated mental illness. Each eventually ended their own life to silence the madness. I have chosen life. The lunacy stops with me. I am free.

Childhood Crazy

He was obsidian in a naugahyde recliner,
a red hot cigarette tip, heavy with ash, suspended in the blank space between us,
Inconsolable shell of burdensome flesh smoldering in silence,
clock ticking, refrigerator humming, faucet dripping,
Sepia Jesus scowling from the frame on the wall.

He was white deafening noise.
A dizzy streak of laser precision, constructing pyramids of tin,
preoccupied with aliens, reincarnation and escape plans,
dismantling, rebuilding, obsessing over the unfitted, left-over parts,
ever seeking the subtle smiling approval of happy, golden-haloed Jesus.

Terrifying and thrilling, monster and superhero,
doomsdayer, naysayer, cheerleader, dragonslayer,
fragile broken parent figure, angel, demon, candle burning at both ends.
A short-fused powder keg, self-combusting,
disillusioned by fickle wishy-washy Jesus, pulling a trigger to end the pain.

His poison festers in my cells, lethal shards of DNA,
catching waves of white and crimson coursing through my veins, settling in my brain.
A childhood refrain of mania to gloom, neglected, undiagnosed crazy.
Daddy, if we had only known, we might have saved you.
Consoled with pharmaceuticals, severing the chain…at least I can save myself.

kat ~ 2 Apri‪‪l 2016‬‬

28 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Life Lessons, Poetry, Random Thoughts and Musings, Social Issues, Spirituality

March 28, 2016

No More…

By Kat Myrman

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The increasing number of terrorist-driven tragedies has broken my heart. I do pray for the victims, their families…for our world that is becoming increasingly violent. And I also pray that my own heart will never become cold to the horror of such senseless violence. I pray for peace ultimately. I shall never cease to pray for peace…

News of yet another sorrow
Breaks my heart, already bleeding
Hope for peace, to death conceding
Left to fear the next tomorrow.

Hate infuses to the marrow
Hardened hearts that cease believing
News of yet another sorrow
Breaks my heart, already bleeding.

Horror lurches from the shadows
Evil lies in wait deceiving
Pawns emboldened do their bidding
Brazened hearts who blindly follow
News of yet another sorrow
Breaks my heart, already bleeding.

kat ~ 27 March 2016
(Sestet Rondel)

Sestet Rondel Form: A and B are the refrains, with a rhyme scheme of ABba abAB abbaA(B). The meter is open, but typically has eight syllables.

17 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Poetry, Random Thoughts and Musings, Social Issues

January 31, 2016

Sunday’s Week in Re-Verse – 31 January 2016

By Kat Myrman

 

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This is Maxwell who has mastered the art of living life to the fullest! 🙂

 

Happy Sunday to you. I have to admit, I didn’t think I’d find the time to write much this week. Work proved to be a bear…with digging out from the snow to hosting out of town guests for hours of meetings, requiring me to schedule, compose notes, cater lunches and dinners, etc, etc. It pays the bills, my day job, but some weeks it can be quite a challenge to keep my head afloat.

Enter this week’s challenges and verse! Wisdom led me to start the week off cooking a warm pot of soup. It sustained me for several days. Then we launched into a variety of lovely poetry and fiction challenges. Past weeks have presented darker prompts that left me no choice but to tell tales of sadness or to pen poetry deep in melancholia. But this week presented sunflowers and words like sleep (ah lovely sleep), tales of celebrations, and triumph. Oh there were a few less uplifting headers, but I managed through these balanced by the incredible upbeat other verses and prose.

I suppose that this week could best be summarized by the word balance. Or if you want to take a really broad view…LIFE. 🙂 Life has ups and downs, celebrations as well as mourning and choices…always choices. We can choose to be happy no matter where we find ourselves on the journey. And there is something to be said as well for allowing ourselves to be wrapped in exquisite sorry…to give ourselves fully to it. It is so cleansing for the soul!

Because the truth is, every moment, the full piercing emotions of each, are fleeting. There is always another chance at happiness, peace, goodness and grief. The trick is not lingering too long. Life is best lived when we are moving. 🙂

Sunday’s Week in Re-Verse – 31 January 2016

And oh my, it was-a mighty good-a!
It was her moment!
as if it’s a thing one finds
They wait in obscurity
To sleep anywhere…
fits of hysteria,
Maybe I’ll just stick with butterflies.
she closed her eyes and imagined him listening.
All tucked in for another night!
Wishing you sunflowers!
Best viewed from afar.
The track doesn’t end at the bottom.
enlightened pilgrims understand
‘Tis heaven on earth…like a soft morning kiss!
Triumph!
Yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah. Whatever makes you happy!

kat ~ 31 January 2016

If you’re new to this blog, a bit of background to explain the verse above. It is a line from each poem or prose from the previous week. Lifted and placed in the order written. A snapshot review of the week. It helps me to prepare for the upcoming week with a clean slate.

14 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Essays, Poetry, Random Thoughts and Musings, Social Issues, Spirituality, Week in Review