Have You Ever? #submission #iamwriting #publishing

So you’ve submitted an article, a story, your masterpiece to X, Y, Z publishing. It’s your 1st, 10th, 100th…. submission.

Anxious, nail biting, calm resolve like after the first date. Will I get a call? What will I do while I wait?

It’s a good story. No Great!

It’s not the money (never has been). The story it’s one that needs to be heard. She lived it, she suffered.

Day by day, I wait to hear back. Will the publisher see the value in a woman’s suffering? It does not change the worth of the person who lived through it.

She’s Ugandan and the story embodies a time when most young women in the North were sex slaves to a guerilla army.

The story is the same…

the geography alone changes.

And women continue to survive some of the worst treatments men can inflict.

Her story will be told whether I write it or not…

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Not Under The Tree #Emmanuel #Christmas #Hope

 

 

 

 

On this dry orb called earth, women continue to beg for peace, hope for their children to survive, and yearn for love. There is one love that seeks to save and heal the lost His name – Emmanuel.

I hear the beat

dry, fruitless dirt

soldier’s cruel boots

echo on the earth

***

We beg for peace

our limbs weak, torn

Messiah we wait

free us from scorn

***

Emmanuel

we await the day

that you will drive

world’s hate away

***

We beg for hope

our babes they die

cruel these times

no tears left in our eyes

***

A child born

who knew His pain

God’s son broke

death’s eternal chain

***

Emmanuel

we await the day

that you will drive

world’s hate away

 

 

Go Deep #devotion

I just read an article about tears and that they are good for us because they open our hearts! Maybe this poem will make a clear visual:

Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water; But a man of understanding will draw it out.

I woke in burning pain today

the searing drew me to my knees

tears wash over even now

and I can only pray and plead

My heart heard  nudging from my Lord

“people are suffering all over the world

let pain wake you to the need

petition for the lost, your words I’ll heed”

I woke in burning pain today

I dropped sobbing to my knees

“Oh Lord children suffer it is true

they’ll burn alive without you!!! ”

Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water; But a man of understanding will draw it out. 

Proverbs 20:5

Should I focus on my own suffering or on that of others? The Bible says we will have trouble in this life but isn’t it what we do with the “suffering” that makes a difference? I was reminded as my pain has been escalating of  a time when I chose not to use narcotics to stem the tide. The pain would crash over me in the night and I decided I might as well pray. This went on for months (then years). I learned by praying for others that my pain would lessen and like an analgesic I would (eventually) fall back to sleep. These are troublesome times – Do we anesthetize our lives or do we walk on hot coals with fellow sufferers? May ours tears soften our hearts to hear the cries of those lost in the night…

“More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

Romans 5:3-5

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

Romans 8:18

“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. “

1 Peter 4:12

Sharing this with Godinterest today.

All I Have Are Ashes #Akhmatova #poet #societalcancer

 

I’ve cried for seventeen long months,
I’ve called you for your home,
I fell at hangmen’ feet – not once,
My womb and hell you’re from.
All has been mixed up for all times,
And now I can’t define
Who is a beast or man, at last, 
And when they’ll kill my son.
There’re left just flowers under dust,
The censer’s squall, the traces, cast
Into the empty mar…
And looks strait into my red eyes
And threads with death, that’s coming fast,
The immense blazing star.

~above is an excerpt from “Requiem ” by Anna Akhmatova*

Tears mingle in the dirt
whose ashes are these?
they look familiar
momentarily my tears sparkle in the mud
“oh yes that was my first love
he died at the hand of Lenin
my son is still awaiting my tears”
the ashes have worked their way
into the fabric of one shoe
clinging to memory
“please God  give my frailty a purpose”
this shoe I ask that they not take 
I must cling to it for warmth
when the winter breezes dry my once fresh skin
kiss my cheek with remnants of him…
~mdw

(my echo of a poem to this Russian woman who knew such pain)

Anna Akhmatova is known as one of Russia’s finest female poets. She lived during a time when freedom of artistic expression was unwelcome. Her losses were many…

This is being shared with Poets’ United Midweek Motif the topic Cancer.

This recent poem Winter’s Accusation deals with cancer the disease. I write occasionally about it but I usually try to stay clear of those doors.

Memory of Spring #haiku #photography #poem

 

in memory of

the spring now passing
I drew
the long clusters of wisteria
that move like waves

 

© Masaoka Shiki

In cold, grey embers

my fingertips, eager seek

memories

of golden springs long past

nature fragrant songs it sings

~mdw

 

The prompt for today at Chevrefeuille’s Carpe Diem is the poet Shiki a man who understood suffering and pain.

Tanka traditionallyis 5 lines written in 5-7-5-7-7 syllables

Ripples of Life #poetry #photography #lifeslessons

You have to fall in love

and lose it

to really know love at all

you have to wish on a star

and hold it

to understand that stars fall

you have to give

with your whole heart

in order to embrace the weak and small

you have to be pierced

through the middle

to understand the power of pain

you have to live life

to the fullest

to understand loss and gain

you have to throw caution

to the four winds

to dance with life’s love in the rain

Listen to this poem read by Justin Germino over at Wander Thoughts and @dragonblogger

Photography: ” Ripples of Life” by L. Moon copyright 9/2012

O Holy Night #poetry #Christmas #loss

Oh Holy Night

The Stars are brightly shining

The moonlight is catching the tears on my cheek darling

It is the Night

Of our Dear Savior’s Birth

Long lay the world

The News isn’t good dear

In Sin and error pining

it’s spread through my entire body

til He appeared and the soul felt its worth

I have three or four weeks

the thrill of hope

the weary world rejoices

for yonder  breaks a new and glorious light

my love will be a distant star

Fall on your knees

I have no strength to stand

Oh hear the angels voices

I will be singing with the angels next Christmas darling

oh night divine

tonight we have each other

oh night when Christ was born

Oh Night Divine

Oh Night – Oh Holy Night

It won’t be long – hold me against the impending dawn

Senseless #poetry

Awaken???
I have seen far too much
To want to be alive
Inhale?
You ask me to breathe the air
There is none to breathe
Look?
See again the horrors
My life has seen them all
Feel?
No – My heart was broken once
My skin peeled back
Leave Me!
My world without feeling
Is better when you are gone

Thanks to Fee Easton for the sharing your photography with us at One Shoot Sunday today. The above photograph is just one sample shared with One Stop Poetry

What Home??? (#homeless #poetry)

I’m a tall brunette

what do I do?

I’m looking for work

in  worn leather shoes

***

Each day at nine

I come from my home

a neat cottage , not mine

I’m the one on the roam

***

I eat at friends shower some too

darkness draws  nigh

it’s me in the car

kitty clothes and I

***

you’d look down your nose

yes you would if you knew

I’m homeless I know

what’s it to you?

***

I have to breathe air

the way that I can

I don’t have money to pay

for  my meals of spam

***

I scrimp and I save

no there’s never too much

my cat, car and I

we live life and such

There is real irony in this picture. Why? The car I lived in as a homeless young woman was this exact model car. My car did have a window. People don’t always realize there are homeless who live off the system and there are those striving to live. I never held a sign saying “homeless”. I had a job. The money wasn’t enough to pay my college and car loans and pay rent; food was a luxury. People were kind to me – maybe because I wasn’t dirty or scraggly. I understand the plight of these sufferers. It is a painful, empty, looking in at the world  from the outside,  kind of existence. Then I am reminded, my Saviour understood a suffering far greater.

Don Hankins shot this car http://www.flickr.com/photos/23905174@N00/409496188/

Not So Silent Night (#Oneshotwednesday)

“Save me” said in anguish

“oppression make it cease”

words chanted in the night

alas no days of peace

*

A world mired in deluge

fists full of abhorrent pain

A light sent into the world

groping for the common man

***

A love light was unfurled

delivered through  his hands

a desperate call into the skies

to breach the sorrows of man

*

the least tallied as a friend

a child was extolled

he came on that barren night

to save the weeping soul

Please join us at One Stop Poetry as we celebrate poetry and the holidays.

Thanks to Creative Commons and Yorkville for the photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/yorkville/32958917