This "Incurable Disease"

What’s the use of trying

if no one ever reads.

The problem’s underlying,

an incurable disease.

These words that heal can also hurt

and kill us in degrees

For every point, a counterpoint…

for every line, a critic;
the lack of response disappoints

and often feels acidic.

Perhaps the stories that I’ve shared

were better left unsaid,

Yet I can say at least I’ve dared

to share what’s in my head.

To all my fellow writers,

all those I have not met–

aspirant hitchhikers

and fellow dissidents:

I gave up so long ago

on catching your attention..

we travel on this path alone

and friendship’s an invention.

Please note that I understand

you’ve better things to do…

truth be told, I do not care:

  I do not write for you.

© Ginny Brannan 2026

"You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's burning inside you, and we edit to let the fire show through the smoke."

- Arthur Plotnik

"I write to give myself strength. I write to be the characters that I am not. I write to explore all the things I’m afraid of."

- Joss Whedon

“Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It’s about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy”  —Stephen King “On Writing”

Be Careful What You Wish For

 

Setting pen upon the page

thoughts a-jumble in my head

I cannot write for fear that you

will judge me by my simpleness,

the insufficient words I choose.

There is no ‘grandness’ in my speech

no eloquence from bygone years

no flowing lines inspiring awe

to elevate the common reader.

I fall somewhat short of Yeats

more Seussian in awkwardness.

The script inside this muddled brain

is clamoring for liberation,

yet just as fast as it arrives

it twice as quickly dissipates

inside of failed imagination. 

I will never soar to heights

with such a feeble grasp of words,

and there is little I can share

that won’t offend a finer writer

Guess that makes you the “better fool”

to entertain this hopeless mess

as an equal, or at best

a dalliance for entertainment.

Whatever reason that you choose

I feel it best that I disclose

you’re also here at my behest,

sharing your thoughts, unopposed

because you pique my interest.

              

Beware this humble scribe you see

for there is much that waits for thee.

© Ginny Brannan 2026

Searching for Balance

 

Writing needs more than an idea...

it needs fertile ground to grow

a bit of sunshine 

a measured amount of rain

balance.

Tip the scales and chaos ensues.

Inspiration dries like the lawn 

under a hot August sun

or is choked in a jungle

of tangled weeds, hiding a flower

that you can still see

but no longer reach.

© Ginny Brannan 2025

On Hopes and Wishes, Beggars Ride...

Sometimes I’ll read the words you write

each turn of phrase, each metaphor;

the choice of words within a line

wondering if I might learn

if they were put there by design.

I’ll fall into their ebb and flow,

each intimacy you reveal…

How is it that you know my thoughts?

How is it that you read my mind?

And in that moment, we are one,
such is the power words can wield.

And lost inside this reverie,

each flaw exposed for you to see.

you hint to things we’ve never shared:

how each of us has lived with pain,

felt the clouds burst, walked through rain.

If truth be known, 'tis but a dream

in a time when dreams have gone.

When life is shattered, torn to shreds

sometimes we grasp onto the threads,

the remnants of some tapestry;

and I am drawn to meet you there,

inside this broken frame we share.

                  ~ ~ ~

And in this place where poets bond

    I still listen for your song.

© Ginny Brannan 2025

  

Only a Fool

   

Am I a fool to think that I

might share a month of poetry?

I don’t know…I guess I’ll try.

Am I a fool to think that I

without a writer’s pedigree

would seek such opportunity?

Indeed the fool to think that I

might share a month of poetry.

©Ginny Brannan 2025

Kind of a 'bastardized' Triolet. Certainly not my best, but a start!

Unfinished Pages

 

We’ve always had rapport, you and I–

a tongue-in-cheek way of coming at something,

an understanding based on similar youths 

in dissimilar settings. We seem to share so

many parallel congruities (but perhaps I project 

inside of my own wishful thinking).

Romance is alive and well in that damaged heart of yours

filled with the angst of lost love from long ago

and the dream of some connection that you hope to find.

I, too, seek connection as I read between the lines.

Yet I am pragmatic; it’s doubtful that someone like you

would ever pen a word or two with someone like me in mind.

We create our stories using subtle vagaries, 

meting out those tiny bits that we wish to share.

But somewhere in the margins

                                         or deep within the fold,

perhaps another story’s waiting to be told?

 

I have often wondered of this image that you paint

–the broken man still searching for redemption–

someone always seeking/never finding what they need,

inked in words of vagueness and ambiguity.

Is this persona that you share just some fantasy?

Has it been a lie from its inception?

Leaving me to ponder of my own uncertainty

or if there's something more in our connection?

Another blank page lying here between us–

       What shall we write?

 

© Ginny Brannan 2024

Just another tale filled with vague references, plot holes, unrequited feelings, and no happy ending.

 

Drug of Choice

 

I’m filled with conjecture 

yet at a loss for words–

the ink’s run out the well’s run dry

this is where it ends.

But it’s like a bite that itches

waiting to be scratched,

a muscle twitch I can’t control

and sometimes, it’s a high.

Mostly it’s my drug of choice

the pen is my syringe

a blank page waits in front of me

and I begin again.

 

© Ginny Brannan 2024

NaPoWriMo Day 30: Read that it's about beginnings and endings, or endings and beginnings. This is where my words went with it.

Bastard Child

 

I’ve written a sonnet once or twice before, though

not one without strict meter and format that

speaks more like a conversation. Is it prose?

Or is it poetry? This bastard child without rhyme!

It’s funny where the words go when we let them

run free; thoughts all a-jumble on a page. It kind of

sets a stage. It frees the mind from rhyme, although

mine tends to fall back into old patterns, despite

my best efforts not to. Old habits die hard. Yet 

we all know that poetry is in the eyes of the beholder. 

Not the writer who births the words, ever trying to express

something, always feeling she’s made a mess of  things.

If one credits where credit is due, so too should go ‘blame’

After all, they’re pretty much the same, aren’t they?

 

© Ginny Brannan 2024

 

NaPoWriMo Day 27 Prompt: Today we’d like to challenge you to write an “American sonnet.” What’s that? Well, it’s like a regular sonnet but . . . fewer rules? Like a traditional Spencerian or Shakespearean sonnet, an American sonnet is shortish (generally 14 lines, but not necessarily!), discursive, and tends to end with a bang, but there’s no need to have a rhyme scheme or even a specific meter.