Tag Archives: hope

Inquiring Minds, Poetry/Quote of the Week

My Snowman

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Snowman

I find that I can sometimes be a slow learner at things pertaining to life in all its facets, my life has been much like building a snowman  where you have to make three sections to it.

The bottom comes first and by far the most arduous to make….at first, it starts as just a small snowball in your hands, then you slowly begin to pack more and more snow on to it, as it grows in size, you begin pushing it around  the yard to fill in any cavities around its circumference, now its getting even bigger,  you roll and roll again  to get it bigger until you get it to the size you want. You pat and pack, pat and pack, over and over to just the right rounded beautiful shape.  You take great care in its preordained geometry you see in your mind’s eye ahead, and you smile at your growing  conception.

But then, perhaps some asshole bully at this time walks by and  runs straight at you and then jumps as high as he can into the air to come down crashing on your  growing creation…destroying your nice round ball entirely…

You look  down at your mangled ball of nothingness, then up at the wide proud grin of the bully and you kick him in the
balls…. HARD.

****PAUSE LIFE****

Decision time….do you repeat the process all over again or say fuck it  and go inside for some hot chocolate?

You decide to forge ahead, but this time in the back yard away from all the asshole bullies in your fucked up neighborhood of hypocrites of mom’s and dad’s who created such a monster of a bastard.  Pissed off, you finish that bottom ball, righteously bitching the whole time and then move on to the second.

Then comes the middle portion and if you make it perfectly like the first  in shape but slightly less in size for it will compliment the bottom in proportion for the illusion of a very good looking snow-body.  Now,  if you were very ambitious and had rolled a very large bottom ball, then the second ball of snow will be very heavy  to lift on top of the bottom one. But you must lift it …. because you have to put the head on after this.. Because you need a head.

Well most people in life do anyways but some do seem fine without one. They must bump into a lot of walls on a daily basis for without eyes to see you cannot see. Never see.

So if you are strong, yet careful  it goes up easily,   but sometimes its just a bit too heavy and you drop it , or perhaps you hold it just a little bit too tight and the ball crumbles apart in your mittened hands. Now you have to start all over.

FUCK! you yell in the backyard to no one.

Your mother open’s up the back door and sticks her head out, “Did you say something dear?” she asks, clutching against the cold coming through the door.

“No, I did not mother. A raven flew by, yelling it’s opinions at me,” I said.

“Oh, that’s nice dear, have fun.” She said, and popped her head back inside and closed the door.

You smile inwardly. Because your mother can be an annoyance but she checked in on you and that makes you feel warm even on this cold day

So you finish your snowman, humming all the while, with no cussing at your mistakes or your misgivings of the process you just are building your snowman and having a good day.

By Philip Wardlow July 5th 2023

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

My loose change

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Ah melancholy you, melancholy me.
Twins of pains throughout our separate travels
in lands and time blown away by great
distances and choices right or wrongly
made.

You clutch dearly to your past like a child does a doll
all tattered and torn since received from her inception 
from the womb that bore here into this world.

Myself in that journey I took. and of which
I am still on, I fumble  in my pockets, fiddling with the
 loose change of memories I have always kept close
and collected throughout time.

Both predilections  in the way we cope in our
own entanglements are  either 
a solace, a penance, a nuisance, or
constant curse.

Why not us both seek a new  habit?

You throw down your doll 
I shall let my change fall
through my fingers as I grab
your hands tight in mine
and  continue 
our travels
together.


by Philip Wardlow  March 29th, 2022
Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

Flowers Growing

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The cold is creeping
as the flowers start
to grow thanks to a weeping sky that often never lets up
Yet the shy sun peeks
eye intent then
runs away as the clouds fly and dissipate their desires and the flowers grow
as the cold still creeps.

Warmth rides the skin, plays
with it, hugs the soul, the
world sees potential in
the what-if, but the cold
creeps into their bones
as they grab and hold tight to
frayed blankets full of holes
But the flowers are growing, can you see the buds, the ground birthing green?

Many beautiful rich colors to come even if the bold cold wishes to persist.

By Philip Wardlow ~April 2021

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

You think you have me all figured out

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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

Two Sides to Me

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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

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work, Stories and Story Excerpts

Order is in the Bar

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A cold fire burns within and without in the world I dwell in, and they all dance on a head of a pin while I sit wondering why they dance at all, and what tune is playing as they dance, and do they even hear the music that they dance to because it’s god awful.

I press my ear to the wall in my hotel room and I hear their gibbering muffled words coupled with occasional laughter. The snatches of conversation never seem to come into focus, never revealing anything but more mysteries of a world that I could never truly see. It’s one of lofty laughter and sick sorrows, and fears reflected off a dirty black mirror sucking in all the known. In that room, desires are unfurled, as regrets are thrown to the floor, forgotten, with lessons never picked up and put in their proper place upon the shelf.

Chaos reigns in that room as Order has a left a long time ago and gone for a drink in the hotel bar down below.

I pound against the wall, over and over.

“Hear me!” I yell at the peeling paint.

“See me!” I yell through the thick crumbling plaster.

“Let me into your party!” For I need talk sense to you savages, or at the very least strangle you all completely so I can finally go peacefully to sleep.

The music abruptly stops. The mumbling, murmurs, and gaiety subside.

Have they heard me? All is quiet.

Then there is laughter all around, and a banging back upon my wall as if by a hundred, a thousand, no a million hands, and one clear word shining through it all of being called a “FOOL” right before the music resumes, louder and more raucous than before.

My fists clinch, eyes becoming intense as dark deeds flood every particle of me. Destruction reigns, blood rising as my blue view begins to fade to a pale red creeping to a dark hue.

Then comes a knock at my hotel room door.

I walk over, looking through the peephole and it’s Order, eye to eye with me.

I fling open the door ready to give him peace of my mind.

“I thought you might need a friend,” Order says, grinning with whiskey in hand as he walks in, bringing all his new found followers, never ending, flowing in, filling my room complete.

Order’s smile is infectious and I smile back as the cold fire within, burning, begins to warm.

I laugh loud and hard, bringing out glasses for everyone, filling them, with Whiskey, passing them out fast as I fill them

“A toast, a toast” I say, with a flourish of my glass, “To Order, my friend, for your time shall come as will our own, so drink, drink and turn the damn music up and lets have some fucking fun!

by Philip Wardlow Feb, 2020

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

The Red Queen

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She once sat a throne of bones
and violence, of endings
and beginnings unwinding,
while always seeking a home.

I found her to be funny, frivolous,
fraught, extreme, and sublime
all in a few heartbeats
of a day.

She seeks the happy,
as she delves for the pride inside
of her and the precious life
that resides in the self.

All her shimmer
rides a rail of magic,
all her gold glitters
at the end of a lost rainbow.

Her beauty often touches
on another world,
where mysteries come alive
and mesmerize
only to slowly fade away.

She has made a home of me,
and I am grateful in that
choosing, for there is
no other place I wish
for her to be.

For she will forever in a day
be my Red Queen.

by Philip Wardlow Jan, 2020

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

Paper Airplane

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Need to catch that paper airplane
to the next place,
ride the updrafts
of the four winds
where ever they may carry
I just gotta go
don’t you see?

My tickets been punched
my seat is waiting
for me and
it ain’t free
I’ve saved
a lot for this trip
down to the last penny.

So don’t trip
telling me I got to stay
when you’ve already traveled
so far away
from me.

Not much time,
they’re calling my name
through the intercom
Sun’s dipping
down to the horizon
and they don’t
wait for no one.

So let me catch that
paper airplane and be
about my way.
And you may hear
from me one day
or maybe you won’t
That’s never easy
to say.

But I’ve got a flight
to make that’s gonna
take me far,
whether through desolation or
an adventure
its all the same
along as it’s away from here.

I’ve got a destiny
with the sky tonight
and ain’t nobody
taking that from me

By Philip Wardlow 2019

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

The Day

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The sun is shining
yet,
I woke up today to clouds and rain
I woke to a dismal day
but now the sun is shining
and I can’t find a thing that causes me to complain
because I woke up today
and it was drip dripping so I went back in
and closed the door
tight.
But later when I looked back out
the sun was shining
and I couldn’t shove
the smile from my face.
by Philip Wardlow 2018
Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

Contentment

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Contentment, they say,
is synonymous with happiness,
satisfaction, fulfillment
and more;
more words of
peaceful denouement leading to seeming
roads of blissful ends.

Perhaps and perhaps not.
At the most I would pluck
“satisfaction” from that pile
of useless defining words that they
try to ascribe
to life
of whats and what nots.

Satisfaction at knowing
you tried your best,
and still failed at it all
in the end,
satisfaction that you don’t
give a damn to fight that
fight anymore
no matter how much they implore
that you should.

That you smile in satisfaction
at the day that greets you,
whether the weather
is bleak and cold
or
sunny and warm.
You appreciate the day
for just being the day
Here, now and forever
more.

by Philip Wardlow 2018