I’m Really NOT Trying 2B A Player: Revolutionary Romantic Blogging Free Verse Lament

Great.
I try
to be nice
to a woman.
I talk
to her.
I’m interested
in her.
I try
to find common themes
we can connect on.

I probe
not to manipulate,
but because I’m interested
in people,
especially women
would might
be right
for me
eventually.

I’m kind.
I don’t try
to string them
along.
I simply try
hard
and harder
and even more
to see if
there might be
some way
we connect.

When,
at last,
we don’t connect,
not really,
I try to be honest
and direct.

Maybe I’m not direct enough.
Maybe I need to say
“Thanks,
I’ll see you around,
but I won’t be asking you
out any more,
because I just don’t feel
“it”.”

But I don’t,
maybe because
I don’t want to hurt
her.
She is,
after all,
a daughter of Heavenly Father.
He loves her.
I wouldn’t want my daughters
to be hurt,
so I try to protect
all of God’s daughters
from that hurt.

That doesn’t make me
a playah.
I’m not trying to manipulate
or seduce
or lie
or be sneaky.

When she calls me
a player,
especially in my
Church’s culture
and society,
it’s like me
calling her
a slut,
a skank,
or worse,
(which is something
I would never do).

Yet she seems to think
it’s okay to warn others,
to tell them
that a month or two
of long-distance phone calls
(because I was thousands of miles away),
followed by two dates
that didn’t go well,
is somehow misleading,
is somehow wrong,
is somehow stringing her along.
That such actions
somehow make me
a player.

It doesn’t.
Because I can’t help
the way she felt.
I can’t help
what she thought about.
I can’t help
what she dreamed of,
or what she imagined
our future would be
together.
When together
doesn’t happen,
it doesn’t mean
it’s my fault.
It just is.

Now I have
a reputation
I don’t think
I deserve.
I have women
who won’t go out
with me,
because I
inadvertently
hurt a fellow
single woman
by not falling
for her.
All I can do
is write,
complain,
whine,
and ask other women
to come see
for themselves.

Oh, and to all women
who brag about how sisters
protect each other,
it might be wise
to get facts straight.
What you are doing
is gossiping,
and it doesn’t look good
on you.

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Unexpectedness: Revolutionary Blogging Free Verse Poem

?

When you unexpectedly/
visit an unexpected place,/
you may find/
unexpected diamonds.

Creating Found Object Art: A Draped-Wall Recipe — Revolutionary Blogging Free Verse Poem

Blank Canvas

Location:
A grafittied and windowed
cement, brick and adobe ruined wall
in a ghost town
in Central Utah.

Ingredients:
A several foot long
orange and black
polyester rope.
Two 5-inch pieces
of bailing wire.
Several pieces of old blue tarp,
starting to dissolve,
twisted, torn
and actively ripping.
A used square red 4-holed brick.
A used broken yellow clay brick.
Two pieces,
one yellow,
one orange,
of baling twine
pulled off rotted hay bales.

Installation

Throw the rope through
the Eastern-most,
partially bricked-up
window,
Cask of Amontillado-like,
toward the snow-covered,
sunset pink mountain peaks
in the distance.

The black-orange coral-snake
now hangs over
the graffitied north wall
of the adobe and cement house ruins.
Take one end of
the largest piece
of blue tarp
and twist-tie it to the rope.

Unravel the frayed blue plastic
until you find the strongest
and longest
terminus
opposite the rope end.

Tie the open end
to another end of frayed blue tarp.
Repeat the process,
laying the tarp lengthwise
along the base of the cement/adobe wall,
until it reaches the far western wall.

Twist-tie two pieces of bailing twine
to the end of the frayed blue tarp piece.
Take the other end of twine
and run it
through a center hole of the red brick.
Tie them together.

Raise the red brick to sit on the edge
of the far West window.
The frayed blue tarp will rise.
Unfurl and untwist
pieces of blue tarp
so they are extended
as far as possible.

Final Adjustments
In the center,
raise a triangled piece
of frayed blue tarp
to the sill of the third window.
Place the yellow brick on the tarp,
holding it in place.

The blue tarp will now be draped
over the wall.
Push the red brick
through the western window,
so the tarp raises higher
and is taut.

In the center,
find a grommet
in the blue tarp.
Take a piece of baling wire
and twist it through the grommet,
leaving the wire’s end
extended.

Raise the blue tarp and grommet
as high as possible.
Insert the bailing wire
deep into a crack between the bricks
in the middle bricked-up window,
insuring it is tight.

Go to the other side
of the Eastern,
partially-bricked window,
and pull the rope
until the tarp
is completely raised
and taut.

Finished.

Is It Art? What Is?

Christo trucked in
fabric sheets
and ran a fence,
draping miles
of Nature’s perfect
California coastal
mountainside scenery.

They raised The Gates,
which stood
in Central Park,
stopping folks
wanting to bike
and play
on the lawn.

In 14 days,
the mono-colored
Tibetan Prayer-Flag-like
piece
won’t be taken down.

The fabric
and the ropes
and the walls
and the creators
won’t have grant money
given,
or books written about,
or Life Magazine photo essays
shot
extolling.

Yet who is to say that
groupings of found objects,
similarly hung
by unknown creatives
on the side of
a mud-slide destroyed
ruin
in a Utah railroad ghost town
once known as Thistle,
isn’t also art?

The Backside And Inside Of My Sorrowing Heart: Revolutionary Blogging Free Verse Lament

To all the people
(mostly women)
who I’ve hurt
through
my lies,
deception,
falsehood,
selfishness,
ignorance,
stupidity:

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry for
the pains
(known and unknown);
I caused you
the anquish,
the distrust,
the confusion,
the worry,
the misdirection,
the doubt,
the self-degredation,
the far-reaching impact,
that my actions
had on your life
and the lives of those
you care about.

I am not sorry
because I got caught,
because I had to change my life,
because saying “I’m sorry” makes me feel better,
because it relieves my guilt,
because I want to stop hurting,
because I have to say it to get forgiveness,
because I want to excuse myself,
or because it’s the right thing
to do.

I am just sorry.
You have opened my eyes
to the pain I’ve caused,
and given me
the sorrow
I deserve.

My heart hurts,
but I’m not saying I’m sorry
to make it stop hurting.

I want it to hurt worse,
if that will help you
feel better.

I want you
all
to rip my heart
apart,
to scream at it,
to spit in it,
to cry salt on it,
if doing that will help
your hearts
live again
and heal the deep wounds
which pierced them.

My heart does not hurt
in its frontal chambers,
with the hope your forgiveness
will make it feel whole.
My heart hurts
all the way
to its back side,
and through its inside,
for no selfish reason,
just for the truth
of knowing that
I hurt you.

If I can take your pain
that I caused,
and jam it
roughly,
in my heart,
and heal yours,
please let me.

Other than that,
I know of nothing more
I can do
except let you look at
the aching backside of my heart,
and beg Him
to heal yours.

I’m sorry.

Hurt Instead Of Help: Romantic Blogging Free Verse Lament

Don’t you hate it when
you try to help,
but hurt instead?
And leave her
standing on the curb,
or staring at her phone,
or leaning, hands limp, on the keyboard,
or slouched in her chair,
or sitting in her car,
or slumped against the doorway,
crying,
suffering,
heart breaking,
and wondering:
“What the hell
just happened?”

What IS My Job? Revolutionary Blogging Free Verse

People ask “What do you do?”
As I ponder,
I think of life stories.

I read a young girl’s poem
and move her family to tears.
I take a husband’s writing
and change his wife’s life.
I reformat a grandma’s funny ditty
and create a “What is a Grandparent” model.
I list “things to do at the Lake”
and make an old man weep.
I dance, top down, music up
and bring smiles to weary travelers.
I comment on a friend’s lament
and remind her of a brush with greatness.
I edit a colleague’s cultural rebuttal
and give her courage to share her voice.
I argue, gently, with my daughter
and uplift and inspire others who suffer.
I take people on walks and floats and rides
and make them see what they’ve been blind to.
I express my feelings and observations
and invite others to relish the Spirit.
I see how people write and draw and express
and let them say “WOW! I did THAT!?!?!”

I, I, I and I see
with eyes
others haven’t yet opened
and give them strength
and insight
and courage
and power
to change the world.

Your Christmas Gift, Part 2: Revolutionary Blogging Poem

Read
my words.
Hear
my voice.
Remember
feelings
I wove
through your life
with thoughts,
touch,
smell,
sound,
taste,
and every
sensory
perception
possible.

Count the bubbles.
Feel the goo.
Recall how
you were lifted,
elevated,
made to feel
and laugh
again.

You’re gone:
Out of touch.
Out of reach.
But not out of mind.

So, this Christmas,
all I can give you
is what I gave you.
I only ask
that you
remember.