GiFs for your Entertaiment, Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

In your Dreams

September 18, 2020 Philip Wardlow Leave a comment

Let me close my eyes
and softly sink
into you,
my mind intertwininng,
weaving
amongst
your own tangledness.

I wish to sift through your dreams,
pushing away the debris
to see all the fallen wishes
and struck down desires.

I wish to ride the sorrowful
storms of a life stolen,
lost to the whims of the
Others, those demons
which rode you down and snatched
it all away, laughing,
as if your pain
was just a game.

I want to see all of it,
each and every dream,
everyone,
witnessing it with you
in a tight embrace.

Holding you, I would whisper
that it will all
be alright,
For you are home now,
and your dreams are
safe for I hold them
as dearly as I hold
you now and until
the end of
all time.

by Philip Wardlow September 2020

Inquiring Minds

Weakness is a great thing

September 13, 2020 Philip Wardlow Leave a comment

Let everything that’s been planned come true. Let them believe. And let them have a laugh at their passions. Because what they call passion actually is not some emotional energy, but just the friction between their souls and the outside world. And most important, let them believe in themselves. Let them be helpless like children, because weakness is a great thing, and strength is nothing. When a man is just born, he is weak and flexible. When he dies, he is hard and insensitive. When a tree is growing, it’s tender and pliant. But when it’s dry and hard, it dies. Hardness and strength are death’s companions. Pliancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being. Because what has hardened will never win.

By Andrei Tarkovsky from the 1979 movie ” Stalker”

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

The, I am Rights

August 25, 2020 Philip Wardlow Leave a comment

I have met them,
The, I am Rights,
They give you a sidelong
glance and a chuckle
as you present
the realness
of you and of them,
of feelings simply
felt with no malice.

Yet they seem to be
able not to respond
with a kind word, but
they instead double down
in their derision.

It’s as if they have
already made up
their mind of what they
will say before you
ever uttered a word.

I am sorry the world
broke you.

I am sorry life can’t
be a perfect scenario.

I am not your keeper
I can’t heal what is
broken in you.
That’s on you.
I can listen though, I can learn
I can open my own heart
So I in turn can
see the rights and wrongs
of it all in your world
and you can perhaps see mine
too.

by Philip Wardlow – August 2020

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

Why is Snow White the most beautiful?

July 31, 2020 Philip Wardlow Leave a comment

No one is the MOST beautiful. Most and Beautiful do not go together except in the subjective sense. If you believe Snow White is the most beautiful, then she is…if I believe she not the most beautiful, then she is not. Maybe you like her voice and singing…I do not….maybe you like her fair skin and dark hair color, and I perhaps prefer a blonde with a tan. Maybe I prefer a girl with muscles who takes care of herself in a fight, and you prefer a damsel in distress. With no prejudices behind it , maybe I think Cinderella is prettier….Beauty in something is a personal thing with many layers at times ….preferences that speak to you. Even something “ugly” can be beautiful…simply because it speaks to YOU.

Simple as that.

P.S. The Evil Queen besides being very vain and being naive for listening to a magic mirror was also very insecure… don’t be an evil Queen.

by Philip Wardlow July 2020

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

What is meant to Be

July 7, 2020 Philip Wardlow Leave a comment

She’s a fiery one,
that Red, a true warrior,
if there ever was one to grace
my path.

She carries with her a lighted voice
honed by a heavy, passionate
empathetic, mystical heart
pumping true,
so be wary
of her tongue
when directed at you,
best you go run and hide little man
while you still can.

She won’t say sorry
when she feels the truth
of a moment deep in
her bones,
but all the same
when they turn away
not seeing their own blame,
she will shed a tear,
for every battle for her
against those she loves
is always a loss.

Apathy, ignorance, and
a darkness
sinks deeps within many
a soul she might call
friend or family, and it’s a
cold, cold day
when she has to
bring that kinship
to its’
final end.

The backlash cuts deep
shoves her
moves her
to stay,
to do,
to be heard
to fight
to show the world that
you can’t shut her up
She will tell you what you
need to hear.

It was always meant to be so for her,
for she has always
been a Warrior.

by Philip Wardlow July , 2020

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

You think you have me all figured out

July 2, 2020 Philip Wardlow Leave a comment

A man tells me he knows me,
has me all figured out.
He has got me all encapsulated
in a little box
Man, I don’t even know me,
so how do you?

So please just shut up
just shut the fuck up
Telling me I shouldn’t see color
Shit man, I can only be blind to color
once the world allows me to be blind to it.

I am black, I am a brown, I am white,
whatever shade you would like,
whatever hue, whatever tone,
please ascribe.
Define me, ridicule and deride me,
you will never know the true me
beneath my skin let alone
what’s in these old bones I call my home
because you haven’t held them
and walked in ’em
feeling the full weight
of ’em.
You haven’t begun
to figure me out
But you will one day
as will I.

by Philip Wardlow

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

May the Journey you Take

June 25, 2020 Philip Wardlow Leave a comment

Let us all embark on an adventure in our lives,
no matter the fog that shrouds our path,
tread with eyes seeing, stalwart in nature,
as we find the lightness in
every rich discovery that
we may be lucky enough to unearth
on our grand journey
in the magical realm
called you.

by Philip Wardlow June, 2020

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

Clarity comes to Us All Eventually

June 22, 2020 Philip Wardlow Leave a comment

Am I such a threat,
such a fear to you?
That my place in this world
must be abated and subdued?

Do you fear me less
when I articulate
myself better than you
or do you fear me
more, in certain circles,
because I am finally
on to you, and I know
just what to do,
to make it all
untangle.

You try and wrangle my words
and even my thoughts to
fit your disposition, as if
by smiling at me, it will cause
me to smile back
in submission.

First you blinded me,
then asked me why I was blind,
then stole the cane
from my hands, struck me, stripped me
then tripped me,
sending me on down the
road, to do my time.

Yet I endured, and even though blind,
I saw with a clarity
greater than the sighted man,
ever could
and came to pity him
and the thought processes
he called an enlightened mind.

Pitied him for the man he
thought he was.
Pitied him for the dark legacy
he had wrought
and the future
to come from it.

Pitied him that he would
never know a moments rest

Pitied him because anger was
all he knew.

Pitied him for the surety of
his place in this world
and at his disappointment
when his end finally came
and my tolerate
smile turned
into
a triumphant grin

by Philip Wardlow June 2020

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work, Poetry/Quote of the Week

To Breathe

June 9, 2020 Philip Wardlow 2 Comments

by Philip Wardlow June 2020

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

Two Sides to Me

June 5, 2020 Philip Wardlow Leave a comment

I was told today to be decisive.
I was told today that my response
to stopping racism was the typical
answer that would never work and
has never worked.

I was told that my ideals were not enough

You don’t think I want to do a Boston Tea Party
on all their asses,
to burn and pillage, boycott and tear down
all the apathetic institutions and cold corporations that
turn a blind eye to the
many colored man,
to turn my back on authority while giving the middle
finger to it all?

Fuck yes. Every damn day.

Yet, I don’t want my world to burn
around me even though
it burns from within.

I don’t want a black old man crying
in the streets because his
business burned to the ground.

I don’t want a white old man
bleeding profusely after
being knocked to the ground.

I don’t want death, I don’t want destruction.
I don’t want hate. I don’t want fear.
I want compassion
I want cooperation
I don’t want division
I don’t want disdain
I want respect.
I want justice.
I want inclusion.
I don’t want any more Martyrs
for the cause.

There has never been indecision in me,
only the resolve
for all the world
to finally
wake the fuck up.

by Philip Wardlow June, 2020