ammcgee-author

[ammcgee-author]

“There are only two options for a ship: Either to sail to the sea and fight with the waves or rot in a port! The same is valid for the man!”

— Mehmet Murat ildan

[ammcgee-author]

Crows

by Mary Oliver

It is January, and there are crows like black flowers on the snow. While I watch, they rise and float toward the frozen pond, they have seen some streak of death on the dark ice. They gather around it and consume everything, the strings and the red music of that nameless body. Then they shout, one hungry, blunt voice echoing another. It begins to rain. Later, it becomes February, and even later, spring returns, a chorus of thousands. They bow, and begin their important music. I recognize the oriole. I recognize the thrush, and the mockingbird. I recognize the business of summer, which is to forge ahead, delicately. So I dip my fingers among the green stems, delicately. I lounge at the edge of the leafing pond, delicately. I scarcely remember the crust of the snow. I scarcely remember the icy dawns and the sun like a lamp without a fuse. I don’t remember the fury of loneliness. I never felt the wind’s drift. I never heard of the struggle between anything and nothing. I never saw the flapping, blood-gulping crows.

[ammcgee-author]

Nightclub

by Billy Collins

You are so beautiful and I am a fool to be in love with you is a theme that keeps coming up in songs and poems. There seems to be no room for variation. I have never heard anyone sing I am so beautiful and you are a fool to be in love with me, even though this notion has surely crossed the minds of women and men alike. You are so beautiful, too bad you are a fool is another one you don’t hear. Or, you are a fool to consider me beautiful. That one you will never hear, guaranteed.

For no particular reason this afternoon I am listening to Johnny Hartman whose dark voice can curl around the concepts of love, beauty, and foolishness like no one else’s can. It feels like smoke curling up from a cigarette someone left burning on a baby grand piano around three o'clock in the morning; smoke that billows up into the bright lights while out there in the darkness some of the beautiful fools have gathered around little tables to listen, some with their eyes closed, others leaning forward into the music as if it were holding them up, or twirling the loose ice in a glass, slipping by degrees into a rhythmic dream. Yes, there is all this foolish beauty, borne beyond midnight, that has no desire to go home, especially now when everyone in the room is watching the large man with the tenor sax that hangs from his neck like a golden fish. He moves forward to the edge of the stage and hands the instrument down to me and nods that I should play. So I put the mouthpiece to my lips and blow into it with all my living breath. We are all so foolish, my long bebop solo begins by saying, so damn foolish we have become beautiful without even knowing it.

[ammcgee-author]

“The stars, the moon

They have all been blown out

You've left me in the dark

No dawn, no day

I'm always in this twilight

In the shadow of your heart”

— Cosmic Love, Florence & The Machine (Lyrics)

[ammcgee-author]

“Music is the language of the soul. It touches our deepest perceptions of being. Everyone understands music in his or her own way. Even animals understand music and respond to it with deep appreciation and love.”

— Debasish Mridha

[ammcgee-author]

“Life is pushing you toward love.”

— Renae A. Sauter, An Empowered Life: Mind/Body/Spirit Empowerment

[ammcgee-author]

The God Who Loves You

by Carl Dennis

It must be troubling for the god who loves you To ponder how much happier you’d be today Had you been able to glimpse your many futures. It must be painful for him to watch you on Friday evenings Driving home from the office, content with your week — Three fine houses sold to deserving families — Knowing as he does exactly what would have happened Had you gone to your second choice for college, Knowing the roommate you’d have been allotted Whose ardent opinions on painting and music Would have kindled in you a lifelong passion. A life thirty points above the life you’re living On any scale of satisfaction. And every point A thorn in the side of the god who loves you. You don’t want that, a large-souled man like you Who tries to withhold from your wife the day’s disappointments So she can save her empathy for the children. And would you want this god to compare your wife With the woman you were destined to meet on the other campus? It hurts you to think of him ranking the conversation You’d have enjoyed over there higher in insight Than the conversation you’re used to. And think how this loving god would feel Knowing that the man next in line for your wife Would have pleased her more than you ever will Even on your best days, when you really try. Can you sleep at night believing a god like that Is pacing his cloudy bedroom, harassed by alternatives You’re spared by ignorance? The difference between what is And what could have been will remain alive for him Even after you cease existing, after you catch a chill Running out in the snow for the morning paper, Losing eleven years that the god who loves you Will feel compelled to imagine scene by scene Unless you come to the rescue by imagining him No wiser than you are, no god at all, only a friend No closer than the actual friend you made at college, The one you haven’t written in months. Sit down tonight And write him about the life you can talk about With a claim to authority, the life you’ve witnessed, Which for all you know is the life you’ve chosen.

[ammcgee-author]

322. The Gods of Destiny & Destruction

There’s no such thing

as “God,”

There’s only me —

And I’m the God

of my own

Destiny.

— A.M. McGee

(Notes & Commentary: Despite its simplicity, this poem isn’t about the philosophical existence of God or gods; but about the nature of God and the Universe; and the influence beliefs, both positive and negative, have on your life and self-perception. It’s about taking responsibility for your actions instead of blaming external influences; except for when those external influences become internalized as negative self-talk or self-doubt. It’s about believing in a God that works for you, rather than against you; not by punishing your perceived transgressions, {perceptible only in our own minds or the minds of others} or by blocking your path; but by illuminating your creativity, vision, and virtue. It’s about sorting out our own intuition from the voices or opinions of others.)

[ammcgee-author]

321. Hard to Please (Song)

Your mother misused you,

Your best friends abused you;

Your father he tried his best, but he says

“You ain’t done nothing yet!”

Because he’s hard to please

Hard to please

Hard to please

Hard to please

And he’s hard to please

Hard to please

Hard to please

Hard to please

[ammcgee-author]

they need to start making clothes out of material that can clean glasses well again

[ammcgee-author]

Kissing in Vietnamese

by Ocean Vuong

My grandmother kisses as if bombs are bursting in the backyard, where mint and jasmine lace their perfumes through the kitchen window, as if somewhere, a body is falling apart and flames are making their way back through the intricacies of a young boy’s thigh, as if to walk out the door, your torso would dance from exit wounds. When my grandmother kisses, there would be no flashy smooching, no western music of pursed lips, she kisses as if to breathe you inside her, nose pressed to cheek so that your scent is relearned and your sweat pearls into drops of gold inside her lungs, as if while she holds you death also, is clutching your wrist. My grandmother kisses as if history never ended, as if somewhere a body is still falling apart.

[ammcgee-author]

Ice Storm

by Robert Hayden

Unable to sleep, or pray, I stand by the window looking out at moonstruck trees a December storm has bowed with ice.

Maple and mountain ash bend under its glassy weight, their cracked branches falling upon the frozen snow.

The trees themselves, as in winters past, will survive their burdening, broken thrive. And am I less to You, my God, than they?

[ammcgee-author]

Missed Time

by Ha Jin

My notebook has remained blank for months thanks to the light you shower around me. I have no use for my pen, which lies languorously without grief.

Nothing is better than to live a storyless life that needs no writing for meaning — when I am gone, let others say they lost a happy man, though no one can tell how happy I was.

[ammcgee-author]

“The most important thing you can do for yourself each day is to create (in and around you) an environment that keeps you constantly inspired because when you’re inspired, there is absolutely nothing you cannot do.”

— Mensah Oteh, The Good Life: Transform your life through one good day

[ammcgee-author]

“You have been the summary of my entire existence; my biggest weakness, my greatest strength. The weathers of my life start and end with you. You complete me.”

— Sapan Saxena, Unns-The Captivation

[ammcgee-author]

320. Not A Victim (Song)

I’m not a victim of the system,

Of the world, or any demon —

I just go my own way,

I’m further behind than I was yesterday;

And I know, that you know,

That you and your friends

know all the best places to go —

But I just go, my own way;

I’m surely more lost than I was yesterday —

And you know, I have to go,

So please don’t give any more reasons to stay.

And I know, I have to go;

Other friends have already reached out to me,

We have opportunities and responsibilities,

I burned bridges behind and in front of me;

They’re all taking (all taking) you back to where

You have to be,

So fast and far from me;

And it’s lonely path, for sure —

But I know I’m free.

— A.M. McGee

(Note: This poem is about acknowledging your own role in the way your life played out, for better or for worse. It’s about taking the long road or the lonelier path, if you know that path is for you; while also acknowledging the kindness of friends you met along the way. In essence, it’s about understanding that while your life may intersect with many others, each of us is on our own road. Our own journey.)

[ammcgee-author]

Left all alone

With a sinking feeling

Inside a broken home

Where there is no healing.