Embrace The Journey

Inspired by a track off my favourite band's new album, please write a piece that is focused on the phrase "embrace the journey".... you can take it literally, figuratively, metaphorically, whatever.

-1 week!
-No collabs.
-New work only.
-One entry per person.

If you are curious as to what song it is that inspired this competition, click the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1PdUMHQAFE

Previous Competitions:
Hope Is... (Winner: Shinsoku)
Faith Is... (Winner: lightbaron)
Grace Is... (Winner: mikimoondancer)
Will is... (Winner: Kou_Indigo)
Realisation (Winner: lepperochan)
I don't have a gun (Winner: hepcat)
1,000 word fiction (Winner: LobodeSanPedro)

Ancient footprints
In stone descend
The walk hard aboriginal dance
Fearless in mind over changing matter
And environments scream to wear shoes

"Gonna get cold up in this bitch!"

Shouts the Sun
He crosses arms and swears off offerings
For earned deity

Mad at the moon
For being the tall cool one....
The moon shows up whenever it feels nice
In many forms
Pretty face and lace like features
And we stare
Imagine there
And her lovely Moonshine creatures

Humans adored
And her seas
Tranquility
Were explored

We sat sights on
Lunar thrill

The Sun, pissed, and had his fill
The Sun shuts us down
By his self imposed shadow
And laughs
As we famine and fail to feed
His heat dries up
Our need to breathe

Our wanderlust
For discovery
Journey

Cut short
By the Suns need to scream

Footprints In The Sand
(The Journey Thru Destiny)

©All Rights Reserved

Rain that pours, flooding our hearts
With cold freshness, bathing glory
Muddy earth beneath our feet
Heavy steps along the way.
Scorching witness of the sun's watch
Burning the skin, drench in toil's moist
With deep breathing, the lungs fight
Dear life holding on in strand

When the night eats up the cloudy sky
Giving birth to those bright stars
As companion to the dark uncertain path
And a promise of dawn behind the full face of the moon.
Under all conditions we continue to grow
Each phase paints another colour
Rewriting history, marking our journey
Whispering our presence that once had been

The road is long and the dead end
Still unknown, still unpredictable
With every step another mile added
Paving for the next traveller who'd follow our prints
Our life means something to someone else's journey
As we make our path, we named a new street
The detours we created, ease others' traffic
To map the destiny from the other end.

To go on ahead is a kind of joy
Every heartache or every bliss
Deepens our foorprints in the sand of time
As the tide ebbs on the shore of our beach
Our life becomes less abstract and vague
Before the next pull of the moon
And the ocean wash away our being
We could smile before drowning

We made it!
We are done.

Thank you both for wonderful entries. There's a couple of days left if anyone else wants to join. :)

Invictus  (A journey from bottom to top) Inspired by the poem of the same name by William Earnest Henley

‘I am the captain of my soul? What’s this shit?
‘You asked for help.’
‘I meant money mate, spare change. Poetry’s no damn use to me’ said the homeless ex marine. ‘You’re ex-armed forces aren’t you pal?’
‘Yes ‘
‘Not short of a quid* are you?’
‘No.’
‘Then why won’t you help?’
‘I just did’ said the man ‘I was you once, it helped me.’
The homeless man looked bewildered ‘Bollocks.’
‘Suit yourself’ the man turned to leave.
‘Hang on mate how did it help?’
‘You really want to know?’
‘Yeah, I reckon.’
‘It stopped me buying alcohol.’
‘But I need it mate.’
‘Bullshit! Booze only perpetuates your situation.’ The man sighed ‘what unit were you in son?’
‘I was a Corporal,.Royal Marine Commandos  Three tours of Afghan mate, it fucked me head up.’
The man nodded knowingly ‘yeah, the Falklands war did that for me.’ He paused ‘You really want help? Be here this time tomorrow.’
‘What do I do in the meantime’ the beggar wheedled.
‘You stop whining and start shining corporal’ the man left.

Peter McGee re-read the poem then screwed it up throwing it away angrily. Load of crap he thought. That bugger’s either a bible basher or a shirt lifter." I am the master of my fate?" "I am the Captain of my soul?" Utter shite! Yet the words had struck home.

McGee slept poorly that night the man’s granite-hard face kept appearing before him. “If you really want help be here this time tomorrow.”  Well, we’ll see gobshite.

Ex-Para Sergeant Ronald Timperly arrived promptly. ‘Well?’
‘I’ve had enough of this shit life mate. What do I do?’
Timperly smiled ‘Get off your arse and come with me.’ A month later Peter McGee had his own place, a councillor and a job but, most importantly, a friend and mentor.

Twelve years later, now a prosperous businessman, McGee attended Ronald Timperly’s funeral. He was surprised how many ex military types were there. The preacher gave him an envelope. ‘There’s 248 of you’ he said to pre-empt   the unasked question.  ‘Open this and read it aloud at the end please.’

McGee knew Ronald had helped others but was stunned to see just how many.

As the  coffin slowly left they all recited the poem. By the time they got to the last lines tears were flowing freely.  “I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.”

* Quid, British slang for the pound. (£)

" Invictus" by William Earnest Henley

“Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.”

 

Embrace The Journey

Unlearning has taught me most things
takes dying in darkness
to be reborn in light
I end up running miles
to gain an inch of distance
notoriously doing it wrong on repeat
before I get the understanding

I often hear the universe laughing
as I scream out in anguish
Who writes this shit?!!

I do the next right thing
take turns like I'm an avatar
waiting on the next battle
knowing I'll get there in the end
I play life like poker
as long as I can ante up
It aint over

I keep in mind I'm starring in a comedy
albeit sometimes tragic
I embrace the journey
expecting to get lost
and end up
right there where I meant to be

©mikimoondancer

Ω OMEGA Ω

Where did it come from,
before my own existence,
gender not withstanding.

The freshly minted self
defied carbon dating,
while shadows paced in circles,

recalling newborn legends
with old souls honing in on
piercing cry from birds of prey.

Rememb'ring times
desert seas alive with whales
became the cliffs of bone,

raised from trails of dust,
pulled down what was mine
carried me 'till the next chase

with nature's way, my DNA,
not the will of my pursuers,
their scratchings set in stele.

Unbowed, with instincts
through life's brief returns
to stalk the self-proclaimed.

No casual strangers allowed

There she was sitting beneath a decaying    
Magnolia tree,  
Whistling the lamentations of the discontented,    
Absent mindedly flicking empty beer bottles into a arsenic pool,  
Hiding her soul from the pestilant sun  
And the bitter hope of yet another false dawn,  
   
I knelt beside her beneath the poc-marked    
Black boughs.  
And watched the ripples dying a painful death upon the stagnant water  
So skillfully posioned by man's skeletal hand  
   
   
I pleaded    
" this is no place for one so young who has the privilege of time dancing at their feet.  
These dung hills this poisoned land of wishful thinking and demented dreams    
Is only for lost causes, disappointed truth seekers and the battle weary who fought the world,  
Who spend their days taking obscure roads    
To pointless destinations.  
You must return to paths narrow and straight,  
Where bitter words shrivel and wither beneath the radiance of a fulsome moon"  
   
She wants to speak but I say,  
"Please don't tell me your ills my wisdom is    
As deep as that toxic pool.  
There is no cure no hidden medicine upon    
This parasitic breeze"  
 
But she weeps,  
"Why can't they leave me be to my rhyming    
And my poetry,    
I was obedient you see believed all the lies  
They told me never realised they're reducing    
My life to office cubicle mediocrity    
And now they want more,    
Body beautiful is what they say, a perfect life with white shiny teeth,"  
   
   
I sigh " the world is what the world is they    
Will never be satisfied "  
   
I take her gently by the hand and lead her back  
To the mist that  poets and madmen cannot  
Pass  
 
I kiss her on the cheek and hand her a tattered copy of Yeats 'The land the Heart's    
desires '  
I whisper "your  pasture will be greener    
Your sky the deepest blue and you will bathe in crystal clear springs of the mind,    
Your soul is for you alone"  
   
As she vanishes into a haze I hope she gone forever and never returns to this empty God forsaken land.  

Thank you everyone for the great entries so far. It's going to be tough to pick a winner!

PILGRIMAGE
(a sonnet)

Ending to beginning, what’s in between
A single seed that drifts from branch to ground
To see beyond the way that can be seen
Escapes to newer life without a sound

With every step awakening in mind
Another life left drifting in its wake
With pain and joy we leave a life behind
Its spirit, matter, time, and space forsake

The ones who would condemn this pilgrimage
Who would have us believe its worthlessness
Who spit their words in blinding panic rage
A simple truth dispels this heartlessness

Belief that grace is found in journey’s way
And life extends beyond our journey’s stay

Your own Odysseus

You better stop being nostalgic for the arrow years
what doesn’t exist anymore, cannot fit in the eyes,
dance for a while and raise up your head
believe in Odysseus' journey and you’ll see
this delight will be the one to save you some day

and if pain and joy, deeply preserved you,
and your desires remained parched trees
decorating the sand castles that you used to build,
this delight will be the one to save you some day
truth doesn’t survive in front of a blurred mirror

the noise of this pain is not yours
fears are flying above the parched trees,
take care of your desires as much as you can
in order to understand that the delight
-inside arrow years- became your own Odysseus.

along the way

Tromping in the mud
drop to roll around
Driving 55 miles an hour
brake to sniff an orange bud

Open up your nostrils
don't miss that wind
Close your eyes and open
again to see a red head's curls

Trip down a flight of stairs
it will hurt, and
it won't be the last time
you'll gain a scar to compare
with all your earthly cares

This was very tough to choose. Honestly the winner and runner up were so close they could have easily interchanged.

Congratulations miki on winning the comp. Jade and hepcat, congrats on placing also.

To everyone else, thank you very much for participating. :)

Thank you for this great journey Unique!

Congrats to the winners and all the poets!

Hasta la proxima!

Art

thanks so much, uniqueshaky.
there are many good entries here indeed.
Congrats to Jade and Geoff too :0)

As Art said, Hasta la proxima!