2024 Official DUP NaPoWriMo Challenge

29/30

Finding Purpose

It’s what matters most
What motivates us and pushes us to go forward
As we go about our daily lives
Listening to that inner voice
Calling to us…

It’s the internal compass that drives us
From ordinary every day decisions
To those significant and important milestones
Tipping points and shifting paradigms
Where building a more secure foundation
Becomes the priority

It’s the sense of duty laid out before us
Committed and steadfast
So that the intrinsic rewards gives us the fuel
To keep sailing through the hardships of life

Finding purpose gives us a better vision
To make better informed decisions
When it comes to reaching objectives
It gives better insight into making choices
When it comes to growth and well being

Let’s find meaning
And realize our true potential

90 Unique
130 Total

29/30

Magico-Poetico/:/Seals

Carved precision/s - Implement/s making: Incisions
Formula of universe –  Symbiosis of symbols & Verse
Dispersed – Across the universe – Crossing over time and space: Embossed

Whatever was lost I found amongst the vast & lost: Lost/&/Vast

How things happen so fast – At – Speeds that are stealth
Shooting stars – Orbs: Interdimensional explorers

Mechanisms of stars: Twisting shifts of shapes waves magnetic scapes

***

Search
Surface
dispers/ing:

Surfaces

Silk

Ilk/Ilk

Poetico-Magico/:/Milk

29/30

Cold Comfort-Third Scoop

Working as a scooper
on Winter school
and weekend nights.
was often tedious
and sometimes perilous.
Especially on the
dark, cold, four-mile
ride home on a bike.

Insert your favorite
“Idle hands” aphorism here.
It's not hard to perceive
That when three or four
teenagers are bored, playful mischief is near.

After the infrequent customers left
and all the clean up chores were done.
like “Cat In The Hat” there was nothing left to do
but have fun.

The loudest volume was required
when to the favorite
Rock ‘n’ Roll station
the radio was tuned.
If a song like “Free Bird”
pumped out of the box,
you had to grab a broom,
that transformed
into a Fender Strat
And then to me
the next move was clear,
I'd rocket out the
door,
straw guitar in hand,
and, with a giant leap,
onto a tall, cement
trash bin I'd land
and there continue
my solo jam.
That is until
one fateful night
the store owner  paid a visit,
spied me atop the bin
and when he drew near,
angry he bellowed
“get the hell outta here”

An occasional
whipped cream battle was a blast
but a can of that stuff
is emptied too fast
and the cleanup
was rough.

All merriment aside,
My most cherished remnant
of my scooper employment
is life-lasting friendships formed
within the walls
of that ice cream store.

Unique word count: 159

#29

The Patchwork

Once upon a time, tiptoeing, in
Honey cordial lies so soothing
Amidst festering animosity
Truth seemed as lemon to sore
But, on, stress cracks creep up
We, vaseful of decaying daisies
Their hearts have grown withered
So, I cry becuase no one else is
My eyes have not crumbled to dust
With a teary love hard talk blend
A rough spackle concocted to mend
Time's proper pressure sets glue
When sometimes, often, on occasion
I view such patchwork futile
See there, leaking through the chips
I find I'm too close to the shards
Pause, step back till we're in full view
See, our vase still stands together

30/30

One Man’s Savior Is Another Man’s Devil

Do I rehash these former wounds
What benefit does it serve
When it can be far too easy to think
On the terms of what seems fair and what we don’t deserve

When truth stands to reason
Our scale is a skewed bias
Everything through the filter of our partial sense of pious

No entitlement to bitterness when we are the forgiven
Nevertheless we can all relate for the ways we’ve been betrayed
Our hearts recall the daggers for the ways we’ve been filleted

No claims to monsters lives
When we bear the blade of our own knives
We are guilty of our own share of treachery and treason
When we are both the conned and traitor in slight
We’ve all got our own demons that feed us a reason
Every friend is someone’s adversary in this fight

Personalizing the scope I zero in
After I weigh out the ways that I have hurt
Who am I to feel the way I do at times
As I excavate the fossils of this pain beneath the dirt

Nevertheless I digress in repulsion of this haunted past
As it all reopens and I become un-clasped
A question lingers like the stench of what pulls in me to vie
It remains a mystery but still I ponder why

Yet I cannot broach specifics
As I let the dead dog lie
I find no value in revisiting the splinter for the log in my own eye…

29/30

Serpent of the Night

Wicked eyes of flickering amber
White scales, sickly slithering
Coiled all around
The defiler, the thief, the liar
Taking up residence between organs and flesh
Many years, the snake resides
Attractively so, in undetectable stillness
There is silence, there is nothing
No color, little light
Wrong and right melt together into an ugly mess
As days shorten, as light dims under the eyes
So do the teeth of venom arise
Powerful under the skin, yet powerless
Cry out and repent
Authority is removed, be gone!
You have been cast out
Serpent of the night.

29/30

Once More Around The Sun

Sunset held inside my desert palms
Skin cracked from the heat
Profain in ways that I cannot even think

Until it dries my lips
Begging for an oasis of my mirror
If I could only reach myself, I could hand it off

Burning until blistered
I will not let it go
Second hand clasped over
Unbearing light that binds me

Welded in a perfect bead of sweat
A pool not for drinking
But for reflection
....is this what I've become?
A Guardian of flame and fear
Eclipsed from the rays that pierce my soul

Sunrise flies free from my scorched fingers
Charred skin now free from the light
In the daze we've made it through another night

30/30

RAINBOW HOME

The slightest bit of psycho I can’t stand
disturbs my mind for days and weeks and years …
The Rainbow is my home, my go-to Land

The River is my Solace here on Earth
a place where other people rarely go
it calms my mind for days and months and years

The gurgling sounds of water seem to show
how deep ancestral pain, and hope, can be
a place that other people rarely go

The world enslaves and yet we would be free
to count the day-blind stars which twinkle bright …
how deep ancestral knowledge used to be

I don’t know why my soul lives in the night
I want so much the lightness of the day
to see the day-blind stars still burning bright

A ton of bricks fell on the child at play
the psycho part I will not, cannot, stand
I want so much the lightness of the day
where Rainbows are my home, my go-to Land.

29/30

circle

I was sitting inside
four walls, tired
what is happening,
how do I get out of trouble?
I was surrounded by all these questions

how will I be able to pay
electricity bill, water bill, home loan
how will I be able to find
a way out of this confusing situation?

tried many times but
could not catch the butterfly
I brought the entire garden home
in the hope that
she would come and sit on my hand

impatience passed me by
I saw it staring at me
with her jewel eyes

I had lost my  patience by now
by now everything is broken
broke my ears,
broke my leg,
broke my chairs
I am losing patience now
my mind was marinating in a
batter of restlessness and anger.

I don't know what happened suddenly
time passed, breathing as if inside a black hall
my patience surprisingly brought me peace
I started walking patiently on the sands of patience
a big thing came down the stairs of the mind...





30/30

dictatorship

Due to raw experiences
calamities used to come
and everything became
disorganized,

many plants were planted
in pots but all of them
were eaten up by the soil,
not a single flower bloomed
because there was lack of skill,

coming from dazzling light
to darkness did not happen
immediately,
It can be understood,
first the eyes have to
be adapted to the darkness,
to understand the darkness
one has to be completely
in the dark,
one has to drown in the darkness,

and I did that,
I never gave up,
kept trying hard like
all living beings maintain
their existence,
and I became strong
again by finding all the sources
of my strength.

The throne changed,
time changed,
cigar smoke started blowing,
I was laughing and
other people were working...



Yesterday by mistake I posted my 29th poem in the prompt comp, so today I am reposting it here.. sorry for my mistake...

30/30

Pancakes

I laid in the grass, longing;
the morning sky illuminating  
the earth beneath me;
the world pressing upon my skin
in bittersweet memory;
I can still taste the pancakes
leftover from last night’s breakfast,
can still see your face
peeking slowly through the clouds
lingering just a moment;
I pull them all towards me
hoping to see your smile
once more before noon;
again and again before you’re gone  

30/30


Feral Furphy


In the scientific realm
of impossibilities,
2 sides of the coin
exists for this thought …

I wonder if animals, pets
formulate opinions

As sentient beings,
they definitely have
likes and dislikes
a wide range of feelings
some, even
complex emotions

But what would it take
for them to have
an opinion!

For humans,
most of our tastes
are stuck in our
mouths





52 unique words

30/30

Letter to Me

You don’t have to earn it.

Not by impressing people
 with your heartfelt writing or singing
 your physical feats or keen observations
Not by making them laugh
 with your silliness and charm
Not by helping them out
 with your professional competence
 or deep-diving intellect.

You have all these things
   (yes, you do)
 but they are not tools
 to earn love and connection.
They are results of the fact
 that love is already there.

Your only job
 is not to hinder it with your wounds
 to let it flow freely
 and to marvel at the connections it brings.

You don’t have to earn it.

30 of 30


confessing need...


maybe it's considered distasteful
admitting this...
but what the hell
I'm just gonna own it

it won't be the first time...
my undiluted truth spilled out
leaving a stain upon the ground
for uneasy eyes to scuttle around
it's just how it is...
I've accepted that

I have a need...
to be heard...understood...
...dare I say it...
...seen

to have confirmation
that I matter in some manner
even in the slightest capacity
...in an external context
outside my own head

thing is...
...I can never seem to remember
...from one day to the next
confidence slips

& I'm huddled in a corner of my mind
reliving the ugly
just as I have a thousand times
never sure of my welcome
hunting an elusive sense of belonging

I know...on a slippery kinda level...
...I'm no less than anyone else
yet I feel so incurably invisible
my voice coming out
...puzzlingly mute

so I grab my pen in desperation
start scribbling with frantic concentration
trying to make sense of it
to touch someone I've never met
hoping they might return the favor
...& see me

therapy tells me...
it's a trauma response
problem is...
how it feels doesn't change
...with that knowledge

30/30


Book of Life

My hair
is being pulled
by the winds
of time

Stories
once written
in this book
of life

For every
other page
there’s a
raging storm

The paper
soaking wet
raining tears
that transform

These chapters
of my life
that I made
it through

Lessons
repeated
until I found
the truth:

I am
the author
I see all
the patterns…

That day
the
hourglass
shattered

XXX

Elysium of Poetry

Never forget  
a literary seed roots
in our chest cavity
waiting to burgeon  

A million mad bees
 escaping spring’s nest  
link our destiny  
 of porcelain words
to each Universal orb  

We are . . .

rogue wildflowers
 growing from cement
arm-in-arm with weeds  

an ocean of salt water
tempered by rose petals
 and innate madness  

infinite enigmas
 harboring salient secrets  
haunting and mysterious  

ripe bouquets
  of individual aromas
plucking our petals  

a jumbled purpose  
  of arranged notes
composed of silence  

utter catastrophes  
without need for pardon
            or immunity
 from our insanity—

We are Poets  
 without apology  
    in this
      our Elysium of Poetry
.