How many years
slavery raping rights
before laws catch up?
How many years
fears and prejudices persist
until humanity catches up?
(For Reena’s Exploration Challenge:Juneteenth. Image mine.)
Author: V.J. Knutson
Permission to write, paint, and imagine are the gifts I gave myself when chronic illness hit - a fair exchange: being for doing. Relevance is an attitude. Humour essential.
Keep Compassion Alive
Hope’s a robot
marching along
endlessly sourced
Compassion is flame
ignited by love
kept burning by care
Fear annihilates
dampens the flame
darkens the path
Hope persists
follow her lead
keep compassion alive.
Willful
Cage me..
watch me grow…
my essence is strong,
my will fierce…
cannot confine
brilliance…
destiny
Challenges rub,
ruffle feathers,
discomfort short-lived,
we are meant to soar –
obstacles don’t define
response does.
(For Eugi’s Causerie Weekly Prompt: brilliance. Image my own.)
Urgency
I weave words
with alacrity –
on a mission
Foreign forces
infiltrate brain
cells scrambling
Must write
till ability wanes
thoughts hang
Disconnected
brushed away
like cobwebs
(Tuesdays I borrow from Twitter @Vjknutson. Image my own.)
Quarantined Thoughts
Oh, the plans I make –
swept up in sudden quietude –
art, writing, books to read –
creativity leaps with excitement
And yet, there is a somber tone
ringing in my head – an anxious
whirring – reframing solitude
as social aberration…
And in this dance of light and dark
how shall I weave the threads
braid together a semblance of order
find a balance I can live with?
(Inspired by the prompting of Reena’s Exploration Challenge: quarantined thoughts. Image my own.)
On Common Sense
Can common sense be taught –
friendly snapshots coercing shifts?
Novices proclaim innocence,
blame their peers, but remember
When humanity is a foreign concept,
and sensibility a second tongue
The underdog suffers, and
who knows what is to follow?
(For Eugi’s Causerie weekly prompt: underdog. Image my own.)
In Dreams, She Awakens
I dream of a woman
Mother-centred
grey-haired essence
oozing strength –
a vessel, rain focused
decoding political lies.
Leaders are locked
targeting anxiety
selective stances
patriarchal bedmates
ending unsafe
Rioters blow up
martyr consciousness
metamorphosis in throngs
chemicals insignificant
when innocence ignored
temples violated.
What is next?
A future gatekeeper
spouting personal freedom
recalling pleas, charming
ghosts of the past?
We need
discernment,
a woman
Mother-centred
grey-hair wise
leading the way.
(I dreamt of a goddess figure, and attempted to capture her in the pencil drawing featured. Working on that dream, many things have emerged. The poem above is just on example.)
I Am Shadow
I am shadow
darkness clouding light
sun’s alter ego –
I speak of hidden
truths, altered lies
guard broken places
Crack my surface
I am ice, will thaw
reveal patches
I am shadow
fear me not –
a path to wholeness.
(Tuesday, I borrow from my Twitter poems @Vjknutson. Image my own)
The Show Must Go On
Waiting in the wings
absent an audience
what play will unfold
when the next curtain rises –
and who will hold centre stage?
(A tanka for Reena’s Exploration challenge in which she references Shakespeare’s: “All the world’s a stage….”. Image my own.)
Notes of Change
Earth plies her paintbrush
under heavy cloud cover
sun perseveres
wind carries a secret tune –
notes of change on horizon.
(Image my own)
