Kaleidescope

Happy 3rd Saturday of 2016! Please enjoy today's post.

The road turns as does the picture
Every choice, a nuance
Every moment, a fractal
The picture
Will never again
Be what it was before
Now is now
Always new
Staying in the past is like
Asking your wings
Dry and strong
To fold up
Hold up
While you figure out
What you're trying to be
Reflection is good sometimes
But you've got flying to do
Hills
Valleys
Mountains
Water fountains
Dancing with the air
Every beat of the heart
Of the wing
Creates a new thing
And the old will never be
Again

With words, songs, and prayers,
Tiffany V

Consider the Dragonfly

Happy New Year! 

In lieu of a Saturday Post, here is a New Years promise, kept and keeping.

You rarely hear dragonflies 

Coming or going

Resting or moving

Not unless they are very close

Intimately close

Their song

Scary as the portents of

a new year
a new choice
a new life

Amazing

And unapologetic

For being

Quiet OR beautiful

They don't talk mess about 

how bam is their glam

No need for marketing

They don't puff up

They just show up

fly

be beautiful 

As they are

Don't need a billboard

to label them

beautiful

Their wings

Don't need

a million

Social media fans

Don't need merch buying followers

to increase their value

or premium

make them relevant

make them stronger

Don't need to be anywhere

Because they are

In front

On the sides

Behind

Beneath

Holding it up

Holding it down

Loud as the truth is scary

With barely any sound at all

They are free

to be heard

or ignored

Have you ever?

Let's do the dang thing. It's 2016.​

With the Old and the New

Goodbye 2015, here is a post to consider on the way out!


This 1

Blackbird
Bluest Eye
Bone straight hair
Skinny thigh
This is not I
This is part I
This in part I
This impart I
Winged creature fly
Dragon
Fly
Dragonfly
This is I
This is why

One of the good parts of 2015 - one of the lessons...

 ***

 This 2

This is the time

To sit, to sip

To look, to listen

This is the space

For pondering, for dancing

For writing, for singing

This is the joy

Loving, giving

Hoping, living

This is the work

The owning, the learning

The changing, the earning

Thank you for the trip 2015!

***

With words, song & prayer
Tiffany V

Brown Round Things - For Somi

You India me
About my hair
I am not it
But you've tagged me
Calling me out
Sliding down my beloved ringlets
I'm it now
Finally home
After Celtic journeys
Those knots
Not my nots
My nots are no longer my knots
I am a yes now
I own it
I say it out loud
I am the black fae
Hidden from me
By my own self
Til
Recently
I
My own wicked stepsister
But now I've saved them
Save my brown round things
No longer for sale
I've apologized
And now I'm planting seeds
I stand hopeful
Cynical
With my sisters
And brothers
Us sistas and bruthas
Us Fae
Not African
Not American
But here nonetheless
And thanking you
For calling out
The brown round things
For sale



With words, song & prayer, TiMo

Two Gold Lines

Hey hey! Here is your Saturday Post!

This is my time, to sit, to sip, to look, to listen
This is my space, for pondering, for dancing, for writing, for singing
This is my joy, loving, giving, hoping, living
And learning
Let's not forget that

***

I am tacitly mindful of the length of my posts, and weight of my words. Someone taught me, I think it was Mom, that words are like toothpaste - once out of the tube, they can't go back in. I've been failing, and succeeding at that whole "keep it in the tube" way. Even the bible talks about it - "The tongue is a “small part of the body” (James 3:5), yet Proverbs 18:21 says it “has the power of life and death.”" There are a great deal of self-help books and gurus who basically say the same thing, "watch what you say...", and I just want to shout out to the writers... WATCH WHAT YOU SAY! Watch it grow, change people, start or stop wars. King David was a psalmist. Solomon was a song writer. I am a griotte! I claim it. I own it. I walk in it. And I share the joy of it. As you may or may not know, my first solo book of poetry has been published, and I can't be more humbled by the hard work that so many people put in. Thornton Sully, CEO of A Word With You Press, saw me at one of his writer's group dinners, and became my friend and mentor, even though he's admitted to lacking weight as a connoisseur of poetry. But for my non-poetry works, he's a beast of an editor (in the best way), and someone whose criticism I truly respect.

A Word With You Press has a contest with a 7.00 entry fee and a 350 word limit. The contest ends this coming Wednesday. Even though my book is now in their catalog (with more to come!), and I will never win because I'm basically staff, I submit a piece every time there's a contest. I will always participate, not just because of the awe-inspiring feedback, but because I believe in the mission of this publishing house - to put gravitas on a low carb diet. As the type of poet I want to be -  well, gravitas comes with the pen and paper. Yes, tech aside, I have journals everywhere...

​I digress.

The following was edited out of my submission, but it's so fun to write, and every time I read it I smile to myself... Enjoy!​

Mama has been harpin’ on Brook to “cover her cooty cat ‘fore the smell of her in heat attracts all the Tom cats from Dana Point”. Maybe if I dressed like that for Kimber, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Yeah right, my sexiness was never an issue. It always came back to the kids.

If you would like to read the full piece Two Gold Lines, please click here...

With words, song & prayer
TiMo

Thorn & Me - The Day He Saw the Book 

P.S.
Blackbird
Bluest Eye
Bone straight hair
Skinny thigh
This is not I
This is part I
This in part I
This impart I
Winged creature fly
Dragon
Fly
Dragonfly
This is I
This is why

Strength To Fly Away

Good day to you! Here is this week's Saturday Post:

Geode Dfly Love

December 2013 © Tiffany Monique

Strength to Fly Away

I didn't want to leave you
Little loves
I didn't want to dream of you
Apart from me
But you killed me
Tiny murders every day
You encapsulated my dreams
And tried to swallow them like pills
Digest and discard
I didn't want to leave you
Little joys
I didn't want to imagine the feeling
The absence of you under my fingers
But you hardened my heart
Until I became a geode
With a dragonfly inside
A dragonfly that was never meant to
Be fossilized
Let alone fit inside a crystal rock
Even one as beautiful as yours
I didn't want to attend the funeral of us
Little ones
I didn't want to open my arms
To release you
But I was a lie until I let you go
And now I am true to me
Unashamed of my failure of us
I didn't want to bury you
Too young to understand my departure
It is a sacrifice to rebirth
The only way for me to live
Is for us to die
And I will mourn you
Even as I fly with metal wings
Wings you gave me

With words, song & prayer, TiMo
www.timobe.com
www.pmeqme.blogspot.com

Onward Looking

© Tiffany Monique February 2014

Saturday Post 3.15.14

My Friends
I am blessed with a wonderful circle of friends.
Some closer than others.
Some more artistic.
Some speak into my soul.
Some speak into my workplace.
Some speak by not speaking.
For example
Sarah reminds me artistically, intellectually, and spiritually to be myself and push my own boundaries.

Sarah: "You may forget it sometimes, and that's okay, but you are in a womb of love, care, and concern of which you cannot measure the height, width, or depth. It is also living. It moves, breathes, and flows with you. It is here for your protection, for your comfort, and to help nourish you as you grow and develop. I am humbled that I get to be a small piece of it. I am also proud. In the short eternity I have known you, I have watched you love and fight. I have watched you win and lose. I have watched you sing and dance. All of that, it was you spinning a cocoon, and making that change. You were beautiful and strong before, but when you emerge, when you see the dragonfly you have become, you are going to be so splendid you will barely recognize yourself any more. All of those things that tripped you up before, when you were living life on the ground, they ain't gonna matter no more, because baby you is gonna have wings, and you is gonna soar!"
Another example
Deborah is one of those friends I lost touch with for almost a decade, and when we got back together, we cracked up laughing like it was lunch the next day. I commissioned a painting from her, and she completed and delivered it seven years later. The story of our friendship is as magical as the creation of the painting, and I even wrote about it in The Examiner.

Read the story of "The Seven Year Painting" on Examiner

These are just TWO.
I'm so blessed by the friends I have.
They post notes on my life journey.
Some with their presence
Some with their story
I am weighed down and given wings
By their love

With words, song & prayer, TiMo
www.alwaysalreadyalright.blogspot.com
www.pmeqme.blogspot.com

Onward Looking - February 2014

Saturday Post 1.18.14

1.4.14

We chased dragons into the sky
We gave them no quarter
In the desert
In the city
In our own minds
In politics
In social comments
In our bedrooms
In the mouths of others
And baring sword teeth and truth
We banned them from our hearts
We chased dragons into the sky
We gave them no quarter
We freed ourselves
In laughter
In touching
In forgiveness
In letting go
In hope
In joy
And baring sword teeth and truth
We banned them from our hearts
We chased dragons into the sky
We gave them no quarter

1.4.14 Galleta Meadows, Borrego Springs, CA

I am a dragon slayer. Are you?

With words, song & prayer, TiMo
Here's where you can read me:
www.alwaysalreadyalright.blogspot.com 
www.pmeqme.blogspot.com



Friday Poetry 5.17.13

Cycle

I am not sure what is happening...  

Could I be giving birth or something?

Or maybe I am just awakening myself

Awakening to myself?

The sleeping dragon everyone seems to see

But me

I am this

I love this 

This me

But I am only barely aware of how to

Be this me

Even as I am experiencing the being

Of this me 

This strong

This powerful

This dragon 

This queen feminine

This woman

In me

In other women

In little girls

I see dragon seeds in us all

Some sleeping

Some unborn

Some stillborn

My seedling is shining in spite of my self-understanding

Contraction

Upon contraction

Awakening

Level by level

Dream by dream

Muscle

Bone

Fire

Stone

Heart

I have been giving birth to me my whole life

I suppose I will never stop until I die

Image subject to copyright

So Honored

I saw a smile today that lit me from inside

A warm fire of a thing

A secret untold

A kiss

Not yet given

A white dress

A warm hand

A loyal heart

I saw a smile today that lit me from inside

Despite myself

I burning hope

A touch

Promised to promise

To please

To protect

To honor

I saw a smile today that lit me from inside

A beautiful tear

Joy on the move

A child

Or perhaps, children

A clan

A truth

My own

~~~   ~~~   ~~~    ~~~

On Self-amputation

Self-amputate if necessary

Cry

Write

Cry

Cry

Write

Cry

Cry

Then I smile.

Because you remember

Healthy plants get pruned

Then cry some more.

THAT CRAP HURTS!

But then you look

And see it is growing back...

(c) 2009 Tiffany Monique