Gratitude

cascadiabound

MrTs barmaid
Joined
Aug 11, 2015
Posts
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Challenge:

Write a poem about gratitude or being grateful. It should convey not just a feeling but a circumstance or a story-line.

It can be rhyming or not and in the form of your choice. 15-25 lines.
It is Tuesday morning now. Due this Sunday - midnight your local time. Go.

Last one to submit gets to pick the next challenge topic and rules.

Cascadia:heart:
 
MRE (He knows what this means)

I'm grateful that you came into my life.

You held me up and savored me,

Cutting through my soul like a knife.

Pain and pleasure colliding down

Deep within me, swirling around,

Ripping, tearing, and destroying my gown.

I now stand naked under moon and stars,

Not shivering, but embracing this universe

And all that could and will be ours.

I look to you feeling gratified

For all that you've shown me

On this weird, wild, bumpy ride.

I look forward to dawn's first blush

When we are as one,

Tangled together and feeling so lush.

Thank you for giving me the real me!

She was buried in my recesses.

You coaxed her out for all to see!

Now each day is shiny and new.

So much happiness awaits,

And I owe it all to you.
 
Challenge:

Write a poem about gratitude or being grateful. It should convey not just a feeling but a circumstance or a story-line.

It can be rhyming or not and in the form of your choice. 15-25 lines.
It is Tuesday morning now. Due this Sunday - midnight your local time. Go.

Last one to submit gets to pick the next challenge topic and rules.

Cascadia:heart:
...
Going to have to think on this a bit, nice :)
 
Jada59

Loved your poem:) (Even if you don’t like me -lol :(. Congratulations!

Prof. Gav
 
For AS

GRATITUDE
You were the first
To look at me
You were the first to warn me
To make me look beyond the opening gambit
To ask who are you, why are you posting, why me?
You were the first to ask the awkward questions
That I hoped no-one would ever ask.
You were the first to sense my pain
To see beyond my blustering profile
To stare into my soul
question my motives
And bring me from that brink
Of desolation and utter despair
You stretched out
Grasped my hand
Held me tight
Consoled* and comforted me
Saved me.
It is a gradual process
Thank you
 
For AS

GRATITUDE
You were the first
To look at me
You were the first to warn me
To make me look beyond the opening gambit
To ask who are you, why are you posting, why me?
You were the first to ask the awkward questions
That I hoped no-one would ever ask.
You were the first to sense my pain
To see beyond my blustering profile
To stare into my soul
question my motives
And bring me from that brink
Of desolation and utter despair
You stretched out
Grasped my hand
Held me tight
Consoled* and comforted me
Saved me.
It is a gradual process
Thank you

Very nice!
 
Gratitude

Gushing over things isn't my thing,
really it's not,
as anyone will be more than happy
to point out to you;
in fact, usually I am so close-mouthed that
'taciturn' would be a most
undeserved descriptor--I'd have to speak a
damn sight more than I have
ever before. So, I'll say 'thank you', and be done.

:cool:
 
Thank You, Nolan

You won some contest in Houston
run by a widow whose money was used
until the money ran out.

Yankee frugal I am not,
but still I leafed a poem or two,
before I paid my dollar,
marked down from five,
down from three.

And I’m glad I found you, Nolan,
whatever few pennies you got,
so here’s a little ditty
to thank you for a little vers libre,
some Spenserian sonnets,
two ballads, and a triolet,

and for saying something about
the worth we find in poetry
is more than three cents a pop.
 
Please write fresh. But feel free to post prior poems that fit also on this thread.
It'll be nice to see it. :rose:

Fresh then it is.

PATISIA-ATHENS
Thursday very early morning
8/11/2018 (European format)

SUCH PROOFS

"I think, I owe some gratitude,
reaching the age of reason,
by changing my attitude,
rip out a paper prison.

The gratitude is only due,
to ghosts in passing tales,
and I will try to prove them true,
whatever it entails".

Such gratitude is due to me,
for as a ghost I'm talking,
my traces faded by the sea,
no proof that I'm not walking.

My voice silent still remains,
to those who cannot hear,
my soul desires, my heart abstains,
such is the proof I'm here.

In town or in Avra bay,
haunted but trying to quit,
no matter if it's night or day,
haunting a battle of wit.
 
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Gratitude: Nothing But

It was perfect last night,
well not perfect but a'right,
words laid down like velvet,
rhymes subtle, plot developed,
a slick exit, no edit...

A voice began, insistantly.
"Wake up, wake up; write this shit down!"

'Course the Loo was the first stop,
pissing away fresh drops of inspiration then,
dripping phrases as the page opened to file,
paper and pen in the meanwhile, desperation,
not a good writing tool but Damn.

In the end nothing is saved,
just a quest for fifteen; only the last line.
Good Boy!
 
It happened many years ago
and I'm grateful for my fight,
for somewhere in the darkness
you see I died that night.
An unknown virus knocked me down
and my body gave up trying,
but looking down beside my bed
I saw my husband crying,
I couldn't leave towards the light
although it tempted just ahead
I saw death, but I fought back
and was guided by the thread,
that held me still to you dear
the man who cried from love,
for I wanted to be back with you
than any promise from above.
 
poppy-page-001.jpg


Plastic Poppies

They’re closing the downtown
Legion soon, taxes are too high,
what with gentrification and
only a few of the regulars are vets.
The younger associates, whose
parents or grandparents served,
can drive to the new place out
on the Watson Parkway.

But most of the old ones don’t drive
anymore and it’s a long bus ride.
Not that it matters, the associates
are just there for cheap beer and
don’t want to hear rambling stories
from senile old vets and anyway.
it’s now one hundred years since
the “war to end all wars” ended.
Christ, even Wicki notes that
the phrase “originally idealistic
is now used sardonically.”

Yet I’m glad to give my toonie
to the shivering cadets
outside the Farmer’s market
and double pin the plastic poppy
to my coat, hoping that it will
last till November Eleven.

To show for a brief while that
I remember.​
 
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Found this one in my vault just now.

GRATITUDE

he repairs to a chair and there
watches her scanty panties drop
then bare to the world she poses
his nose just a tongue length away
scents her musk while hands in hair
urges his face closer, hears him say
'have I thanked you for being my girl today?'
his breath shudders her reply and sigh
'no baby, but you're about to.'​
 
A clean white open room
ready and waiting.
To think. To dream. To create.

She knew this was a promise
that she would not regret keeping.
Underscoring the value of such sacred space ~
Dedicated to her artwork, and yes, to her.
Inviolable and
offering more than she could have dreamed.

Great expanses of work surface
Riotious piles of fabric
and spools of thread
too many to count.
Indigo Girls singing:
"The hardest thing to learn was the least complicated"
under ever changing sky-light framed skies;
Diligently working day and night
every moment filled with gratitude.
 
my gratitude poem

Some Holiday


That Summer we all smiled
Looking forward to rest of our lives
Hope, adventure, the thrill of living

Autumn came and went
A season of seasoning and laughter
Followed by the darkest of Winters

I argued with her, over money
And then she was gone
Murdered in the night

My cup was filled with sorrow
Abandoned and alone in a great city
Two cents to my name

And that one holiday came
They called it the season of joy
I worked so hard to live

My dearest friend came to me
Shared his family's holiday dinner
And I cried, with tears of gladness

And a gratitude I cannot describe
For my friend and his heart
Who taught me that there is still hope

A hope of light in life and living
When darkness seemed my fate
Perhaps even I could dream again
 
I have gratitude in the dull aches
of my joints
because for now they're still working
still powerful enough to pick up a fridge
and walk up two flights of stairs
heart thudding against the cradling bone
of my rib cage
I smile sardonically at a newspaper article I read
of women proudly proclaiming they're as good as men
because four of them with a sack-truck
managed the exact same feat I did alone
with no mechanical devices

every-where there are signs that
this is wrong
that what I am
is not what I should be
the pressure immense
even from those I love and respect
to become something different than my own perceptions of masculinity

I dare you to try turn that word these days
without the phrase toxic jumping to mind, unbidden like
a ghosting pink elephant
seething its ridicule

how are we supposed to be
when everything we are is under attack

because all judgement is bad
all signs of the strength that
dragged us from dung huts
hunted off the largest predators
that designed a meritocracy
such that we now have full bellies
and the fattest poor in human history

competition that tamed lands
drove us to the brink of insanity
to climb rungs in words and deeds
bloomed ideas that overturned centuries
of slaves and masters
ushered in a world of choice

bringing in the diverging forks of
competence separated from strength
but not devoid of it

balance on a precarious edge

I am grateful that
my daughters will be able to choose
more so than any other generation of women before them
I am grateful that I have not been sent to war
so I have the chance to see them become
more than they were
teach them that my job as their father is not to protect them
from their mistakes
but to try and impart enough wisdom that they
make less of them

grateful to hold my boys
tell them I love them
to explain that their tendencies
for violence and aggression
can be integrated and it is not the results
of their inherent evil nature
but an evolutionary process
designed to help them choose right from wrong
because the meek are not those
too weak to bare their teeth

but those so strong in character
and integrity they ripple with their
shadow controlled

I have gratitude
that I am
that I exist
in a time where we as humans
have it better than any other time in history
grateful that I can pass on what I deem as
true masculinity to my boys, and my girls
 
The Tony Award


Not far from Broadway's theatre crowd
Willy walks with hands in torn pockets
on his way to his favorite alley
to feed on a customer's disappointment.

Tony sets a table for Willy
when his patrons leave for Les Mis
everyone will rave about
after the play with flutes of champagne

their host will replace since Aubrey said
even Cosette would have found the bubbles
trop plaine.
 
Thank you to everyone who posted on this challenge!
What a great variety of poems and ways of considering this expansive topic.

This thread will continue to be open for posting :rose:

However, the initial challenge is complete and it appears mrtenant was the last to post and to post a poem within the challenge constraints. He now has the honor of offering the next challenge. I look forward to seeing what he comes up with. :kiss:

cascadiabound :heart:
 
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