Tag Archives: life

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

THREE Poems from my younger years – by Philip Wardlow

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Marathon

AT THE MARATHON (GAS STATION)

 AT  THE MARATHON .

CHEWING BUBBLE GUM

MY FORTUNE SAYS I’LL BE ENVIED

BY EVERYONE.

AT THE MARATHON

CHEWING BUBBLEGUM

SITTING AT THE MARATHON

WAITING FOR A FRIEND TO COME

AT THE MARATHON.

WHO’D ENVY ME?

THE ONE WHO OWNS A BROKEN CAR.

AT THE MARATHON

WHO’D ENVY ME

THE ONE WITH A BROKEN HEART

AT THE MARATHON

THE NIGHT IS GETTING COLDER

AS THE CARS DRIVE BY.

AS I CHEW MY BUBBLEGUM.

WHO’D ENVY ME?

AT THE MARATHON.

By Philip Wardlow 1989

(PS.  And yes I sadly had just broken up with long term girlfriend at the time n my teenage years)

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chained-feet

A Brother Far Away

Stomp Clomp Stomp Clomp

Marched the Family of elephants

As they trod the dusty distance

To the watering hole.

A brother far away

Hears the tink chink tink chink of steel  against steel

to announce the arrival of the Big Top to town

A tenderly nudge of a mother’s

Trunk gently directs her curious baby back on

Course.

Brother feels the pokes and prods of the steel

Tipped hook as it lashes out at him when he makes a

Misstep.

The chuckling of the hyenas and the

roaring of the lions nearby incite

The lead elephant to bellow a warning

to keep away.

Brother hears the hoots and hollers of the crowd

Behind the dark circus tent as the lion’s cage  lumbers by

with the great beast still asleep inside.

A west wind blows pushing through the plains , flowing over

The feather dusted clouds encasing the moon which hangs like a

Fluorescent white pearl over the watering hole.

Brother dips his trunk into the bucket and

Comes up with the last drink to be offered that night as he

Strains at the shackles to get a glimpse at the moon.

By Philip Wardlow 1995

something

Nothing & Something?

Nothing

That’s what I feel like sometimes

Nothing

Nothing, nowhere, no how.

When I see sunsets casting purple hues and

pinkish wisps set in a bowl of vibrant golden orange,

It always reminds me that I’m nothing

And something

A nighttime sky, filled to bursting with a voluminous moon

And a menagerie of stars and planets spinning and coalescing in a

Constant rhythm we can’t begin to see. That’s when I feel like

Nothing

And something

A single stolen kiss in the dark with a girl who didn’t know I existed until

today,  soft yet firm, gentle yet wanting. Nothing exists, not even

me.

And yet something…

Clues and misdirection, blind alleys and thorough fares, leads me by a

Leash to nowhere

Yet somewhere will be the end when the journey’s through

I am humbled at times but at others

I am petulant.

I am tired of feeling like nothing

Something sounds good

By Philip Wardlow 1996

GiFs for your Entertaiment, Inquiring Minds

GIFS that sum up my experiences in life.

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WHEN I AM NOT IMPRESSED BY CERTAIN PEOPLE I MEET

Unimpressed

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WHEN HATERS ARE GONNA HATE

Haters

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When FU isnt just enough.

FU

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Feeling REALLY REALLY HAPPY! (This is my signature Dance Move!)

HappyWorm

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I think this often below:

CalvinHobbesGif
“If people sat outside and looked at the stars each night, I’ll bet they’d live a lot differently.”
Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

Pulled – A poem

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Pulledlittlegirl

A little girl stands with arms open wide.

How must it feel to be the rope in a

game of tug-o-war?

Win or lose, it’s all the same,

the pain of strained muscles

and sinew running down to the core;

almost ripping.

Braided rope is much stronger than a little’s

girl mind or her soul that must hold to a

reality that slowly unwinds.

Her psyche is soft and pliable and will

if pulled, stretched, and thinned out

to nary a whisper of herself,  will

harden in the cold stale air and become

brittle and slowly break away in pieces for

all her days to come.

By Philip Wardlow 2012

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

The Fool – A Poem and aren’t we all at one time or another.

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TheFool

The Fool

I left my only picture
of you back on the moon.

I guess I’m screwed at ever
thinking I’ll be getting back
there anytime soon.

I could ask you for another,
but your narcoleptic and
you always fall asleep at
the exact moment my
lips form the question,

as if you’re a priest who
doesn’t wish to hear my
confession.

So sorry Mr. Man in Black
with that trace of white at
the neck that always looks just
a little too tight.

My truths are real.
My passions are true,
And my love, ah… well my love
turned me into fortune’s fool
for you.

By Philip Wardlow 2012

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter – A Poem (inspired by a novel of the same name)

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Sleeping Beauty

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

I am but a dark silhouette back-lit

by your imaginings of what I must be.

My frame of reference is not yours,

nor is your own mine to see.

I cannot hope to know the true depth

of the strangeness that lurks behind those eyes;

the sadness, the desperation, and the longing

cannot be accurately defined as simply measured

by a ruler or thrown upon a scale like a piece

of meat.

Think me misguided, corrupt, or lost?

Think me a friend, lover, or a hero?

You would be wrong on all accounts.

I am simply a solitary soul cast adrift,

striving to find a good home to lift

me up from this cold stone floor and prop

me up next to a nice warm fire and hold

me tight.

by Philip Wardlow 2013

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work, The EROTIC ZONE

Aspects of Her – A Poem

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rainbowgirl2

Aspects of Her

A sunshine smile

dipped in a psychedelic rainbow

of colors that don’t exist

in the spectrum  that

physics would allow.

 

Slide your hands down your hips,

feel the silk threads float over

your soft cashmere skin;

you always liked  touching yourself

more than me.

 

 Eyes look away when I speak to them.

I can’t quite catch their color; evasive

as a fish in a warm running stream.

 

Sad, reflective, in denial of your

desperation as you try and fit into

a dress that’s just a little too tight.

 

You are a free spirit that confines

herself behind a waterfall of wishes

that will never see fruition.

 

This is you, all the aspects, all the incarnations,

All the pages yet to be written, all the pages

torn out and tear stained and written over again

then forgotten..

 

This is you and I have known

them all.

By Philip Wardlow 2013

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

Ivory Towers – A Poem

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IvoryTower

Ivory Towers

A thousand ivory towers sit clumped

tight together.

They fill up the valley below and

spread over the plains of grass as

the river cuts through.

The tops reach higher than the birds

can fly,

Deep into the clouds they pierce

until they scrape the moon as it slowly

passes by each night.

Standing next to a tower

I look up from far below.

Alone.

With a hesitant hand I reach out

And touch the ivory wall.

So smooth and slick like glass as

my fingers run up its length.

Not a crack, not a crevasse

To reach a finger into.

This wall cannot be climbed.

Who dwells in such a high place?

Do they converse across the way,

or do they ignore each other as much

as they do me every day?

Such a lonely place to call home.

These towers seem to me more

like an escape from  the life below.

Where I stand.

If they only understood.

Fortune favors the fool.

by Philip Wardlow 2013

Inquiring Minds, Poetry/Quote of the Week

Courage – A quote for the Year, Month, Day, or hour whatever it takes….

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CowardlyLion

“Courage! What makes a king out of a slave? Courage! What makes the flag on the mast to wave? Courage! What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk? What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage! What makes the sphinx the seventh wonder? Courage! What makes the dawn come up like thunder? Courage! What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the “ape” in apricot? What have they got that I ain’t got?” 

“Courage!”

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First of all give yourself a break from what you didn’t accomplish last year….and then give yourself a pat on the back for all the things big or small that you did accomplish this year.

NOW…find the courage to do it all over again….I’m not talking about resolutions….just the courage to try….if you fail in that trying then you tried in that failing…yeah yeah I know you heard it all before….but have the courage to fail…..or even the courage to succeed…

Stick your neck out….ask that girl/guy out that you have been eyeballing,  write something of substance, jog down that street, lift that weight,  deny yourself that donut (at least for this week or month), join a cause that’s been prickling you, express an opinion or participate in a constructive dialogue with another, travel near or far to a new place you have never been.  Give someone needed encouragement…be less selfish (I do need the occasional back rub…:) .  Be kind to yourself and don’t beat yourself up over your failings…guess what, your human.

Perfection is relative  but the world likes uniqueness so find the uniqueness in you and share it with others  and exploit yourself…in a good way I’m saying …I’m also good at sex but I’m not gonna be a Gigolo..or maybe I can be…:)

I found the perfect thing while I was shopping this weekend to help me get to that place this year….it called out to me from the store shopping shelf like a clarion call on the battlefield….read the label carefully below.

oldSPICEFRONT

Who wouldn’t want to smell like COURAGE!…Well I tried it and it smells good…..I’m not sure what real Courage smells like…but its a good start for the year..My wife likes it, so that’s good enough for me!

So go out and find your courage….:)

Inquiring Minds, Poetry/Quote of the Week

My NOW PHILisophy…

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The NOW only happens once, seize the NOW before it goes away never to return.

If you miss that NOW, know that a new NOW may  present itself but you must be ready and spring upon it with claws extended because you are pushing the odds my friend.

If you find yourself in a NOW moment, slow down, taste it, relish it and remember it wholly wrapping yourself up in it like a blanket.

Don’t be afraid of the NOW; embrace it like all challenges that life flings at you  wrapped in that loathsome word called fear.

Above all, NOW is in you  whether you know it or not. You just have to let it come out and play…:)

by Philip Wardlow

 

Inquiring Minds

Inspiration …and pulling yourself out of the quicksand

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I never liked the phrase “writers block”. It always seemed to much like an excuse for saying its okay to give up.  But sometimes I think a writer can get stuck in the mud or in a bog of quicksand in their writing.  To get out of that quicksand sometimes you gotta look around at your surroundings and look for something to pull you out….a  rope, a vine, a ladder, a stick, a friend, a distraction of inspiration.

So here are some of my distractions of inspiration. In this era of the internet some can be found in various places on the web..they may be pictures, poems, videos, music, etc…now of course you are not regulated to just the website…talk a walk, look around ..look at the stars,   talk to a friend about the story you are working on. Bring up what ifs and  scenarios and let there mind tangle with it like yours can’t seem to do at the moment.

Studies have shown that the oddest places bring up spontaneous ideas…the bathroom is such  a place, So  go to the bathroom, or take a shower or brush your teeth.  A small nap in bed no matter what the time…walking your dog, petting your cat. Try consciously thinking of the thing that is causing the sloooowing down of your writing before you began your routine.  Then forget about it and let yourself be distracted and see what happens.

Maybe some of these things will give you some inspiration…see below:

Credit above pic to:  http://apolonis.deviantart.com/art/Deception-315967675

OR

OR

What inspires you?