Tag Archives: sad

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

The Mucky Muck

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Muckymcuk

The day’s
doldrums drone
on from dawn until
dusk and the mucky muck
lurks.

An insidious thing
the mucky muck,
pulling life out,
removing all
motivation for movement
as the spirit tries to escape
a maze never seemingly meant
to be solved.

With a thrum, thrum
insistence to be heard, the mucky muck lurks
skulking deep,
latched on like a
fat tick needing
to be pulled out,
cut out, or burned!

Mucky muck leave me be
For I swear, with
sword in hand
I will cut thee

And I will see you bleed, bleed, bleed

even ever as my blood

leaves me, running in rivulets

down and dripping off

the cufflinks of my sleeves

You then mucky muck will finally surely

be free of me.

by Philip Wardlow March 27th, 2023

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

All the Happy that Comes

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Happy is never
a permanent state of
mind.
More often than not
it isn’t there.
But it is there
at times.
Oh, most assuredly it
is there.
I feel it
smiling along side
a character in a book, or
lifted by that actor or actress
in a poignantly profound scene.
A hug from across a room by a
friend with just their eyes alone.
To be seen, truly seen when
I speak my words aloud
or write them down
for a stranger I have
never known.
Often times I am melancholy,
weighted, and in disarray
But a shared laugh or smile brings
me back home to me
in all the electric intimacy
life brings,
and I glow inside,
lightened and floating in
the midst of that connection.
Accomplishments, with mountains
climbed, my nature nourished
on the struggles conquered
and obstacles surmounted
that I never thought
would come to pass.
I’ve realized the Happy Comes
when I reach for it,
inviting it in to come
stay for just a bit
until it decides
to leave
and having faith it will
always be right around
the way
waiting to say
hello again.

by Philip Wardlow 2019

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

Tacos and Tequilas

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Sometimes its tacos and salt rimmed tequilas,
movies and lonely couches,
cold beds and cats, tongue twister
and tying up,
a plethora of pleasures in the grab bag
of life
followed by a deluge
of desiccated numb bodies
dumped on your front lawn.

Sometimes its a magical arc of light
swinging in the breeze
by a delicate hand on a dark path

It’s sweet sugar on your lips
tongue licking,
as you slowly, reluctantly
back away from the most
wonderful kiss.

It’s a flurry of heavy punches
to the gut
tickling, because you have been there
before, and you can take it.
Can you not?

So you emit a raucous laugh
at the absurdity
that the day has wrought.
Jaded in your green dreams
you wake to breathe
in new air
to expel the stale.

Grab a Bagel and go out the
door
as you think of the
sweet sugar
that still lingers
on your lips
from the night
before.

By Philip Wardlow 2018

 

 

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

Unprocessed

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I learned long ago
to bury my feelings in every
day life
the highs and the lows.
Why be happy when its just going to be
taken away in an instant.
And why show you are sad when you will
just bring every one down and they
really don’t care anyways.
So I smile. I joke.
I say I’m good, how about you,
to turn the conversation
away from me.
I have always been good at that.

But it builds in me
This tension.
Stresses of the day, anger at people, fears in life, continued failures.
I hold it.
I do much better inside when I let it out.
And I do.
Like reading a book, or watching a movie
I fall away from the world and I am just am.
Pushing my body in a work out, hard, really hard.
Having good sex, really good sex.
A good stiff drink.
Retreating.

But I’m working up to a better version of attack.
Talking to someone I trust to find
the feelings I can’t express or bring to
focus to what’s inside me that hides there even from me.
Like why I feel anxiety about seemingly stupid things I
shouldn’t.
Unresolved anger that I say doesn’t bother
me but does.
Why I fear a future I should love to imagine.
Hitting a punching bag helps,
riding my bike, free, unfettered
in the sun, in the wind
Away from the world.
Helps

But engaging really is the key.
I am releasing that need to
keep that wall sustained
I think it has hurt me way more
than it has ever helped

I want my melancholy to melt
I want my mind to connect
and my smile to flourish
in every possible way.

by Philip Wardlow 2018

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

My Beautiful Dead Girl

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Marionnette

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Haunted eyes

wrapped in misery.

You are already dead,

so why should you feel pain?

 

Pain is your purgatory

little girl, a grand gift

from scales that can never

be balanced in your favor.

 

Haunted eyes they may be,

but I see defiance, strength,

lingering deep, always

ready to rise to the surface.

 

Never did death look so beautiful

A perfection in form chiseled

from stone beaten up and torn

down by the elements.

 

You wear your cloak well,

dark and tear stained, wrapped

tight around a body that

still flies free.

 

You are my beautiful dead girl.

with cold hands clenching tight around

a warm heart

that beats just for you.

by Philip Wardlow

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

AT THE MARATHON (GAS STATION)~

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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

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

Eeyore’s quiet Sad Rage – A poem

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This poem is for all those who have ever felt left out, unloved, neglected, uncared for or ever underappreciated…we all have been Eeyore  at least once in our lives I am imagining –

 

 

Eeyore_1

 

Eeyore’s quiet Sad Rage –

 

Pooh has Piglet, tight friends to the

end.

Roo has his mum and oft’ times Tigger’s

bouncing annoying presence.

Rabbit has his attitude of

self-importance.

and Owl, his arrogant wisdom

as he sits in his tree.

Christopher Robin visits, but rather

infrequently.

The Hundred acre woods are a lonely place for  a donkey.

Thistle only comforts so much.

The wind whistling through the trees

is a pale companion.

I have much poetry to recite,

much I wish to say, hugs I wish to share

and smiles to give.

Perhaps my worth shall be found

one day by eyes

that see more than past the noses

on their own heads.

Until then I will meander and mope

because that is what is expected

of me.

 

by Philip Wardlow 2014

Gloomy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inquiring Minds

So Happy I’m Sad via the Kloipy Project

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HappySad

A fellow blogger who runs the blog, “Kloipy Speaks” whom  I follow and who incidentally follows me  recently asked fellow bloggers and  passerby to his sight to name two things which make them happy while at the same time makes them sad. He called it The Kloipy Projects: So Happy I’m Sad.  Go check him out and see what he’s about if you would like. (but not before you finish this damn blogpost…me first)

He got me to thinking  –

Hmmm,  I wondered….what the hell possibly makes me sad and happy.  Is it eating a bowl of ice cream and then suddenly that bowl of ice cream is empty? No, that does not make me happy and sad. Just happy and wanting more. So happy and pathetic was not the question.

So I thunk and thunk and thunk  (picture Pooh bear tapping  paw to head)

Eureka…!

Via the ice-cream  skewed analogy above.   I discovered that most things which make a person sad and happy are things that were good in the past but came to an end or morphed into something other than the original happenstance or experience. So really for me, it results in nostalgia for something. So here are my two happy/sad moments which I always continue to have…I will also preface that the  happy outweighs the sad by a factor of ten for me.

Experience #1:

When I first walk into a comic book shop and get a whiff of the old musty smell which inhabits the nooks and cranies surrounding every corner. It fills my senses and induces a slight euphoria in my being and makes me at one with the world for a moment.  Yeah, heavy stuff I know. But that’s what I feel. It feels so good to be in a comic book store…the synapses in my brain fire and bring about all my childhood memories growing up, delving and diving into a fantastic world of make believe and mayhem. It takes me back…then I’m sad just a little because I’m not that same person…I’ve grown up. I have a family, responsibilities, obligations…I can’t be carefree anymore…I have to engage in this thing called life.

ComicbookA

Experience #2:

My wife over the years – and I have known her many years – has made mixed tapes and mix CDs for me as I did for her. Its one of those romantic gestures you make when your in love. Its a tribute to your  relationship and your acknowledgment of how much they mean to you.  Every once in a while, I will pop one in and listen to it…

I am of course happy because the world seemed a simpler place. A fresh world of new possibilities and  burgeoning experiences to be shared with a new love. Fresh raw primal passions (sexual)  to envelope yourself in. Then I am sad a little, because some endearments can get lost or morphed from what they once were…not in a bad way just different….and some things you realize can never be the same but you find in that difference a new richness grows.  There in its place is something more special that can only happen with time tested events and the chaos that life brings.

HeartMixedTape2

So there you have it…I hope you enjoyed my little trip into my brain….make sure to  scrape your shoes on the mat before you leave. I don’t think you would want to be walking around with my thoughts on the bottom of your shoes mucking about in your world.

Feel free to share your own thoughts on what makes your sad and happy at the same time. I would love to hear them.  Cheers.