It's All Been Done Before

Image: Flickr Trini 61

There are no words 

that haven’t been said

in a thousand different ways

by a thousand different poets.

There is no turn of phrase

that hasn’t been used

to describe the complexities of life,

the turn of the seasons,

the turmoil within.

We write to capture the unique

in the every day,

to say something old in a new way,

searching for the note that sings,

and perhaps for a moment, we’ll soar

until the next poem is born.

© Ginny Brannan 2018

Unfiltered

I don’t understand a person who thrives on controversy,

who taunts the leaders others fear;

insults the norms and twists the truth.

They say all that you do comes back to you…

I see a dictator behind a reality star

a bully behind a would be leader.

You reset the way things have always been done

set your own rules, then change as you go.

Are you brilliant or crazy or somewhere between?

Unfiltered, unbridled you hang on your fame,

a puppet or master who thrives on extremes

as you stand on your laurels while branding your name.

© Ginny Brannan 2018

Threadbare

All the things we left unsaid

forgotten dreams and ‘I love yous’

are held in trust inside my head

All the things we left unsaid

old bridges clinging by a thread

abandoned by the life we choose

where all the things we leave unsaid

are scratched and scrapped as i.o.u.s

© Ginny Brannan 2018

All the Pretty Little Horses…

This is not my first rodeo;

I rode long before those boots of yours

ever saw a single stirrup or scrap of mud.

Yeah go ahead, ask me where

the bodies are buried…

if I tell ya, you might just be joining them.

Knowledge is power, power tends to corrupt;

absolute power corrupts absolutely.

So please...write your epitaph

and leave it by the door

—and don’t let it hit you on the way out.

© Ginny Brannan 2018

The Problem With Loving a Writer

Loving someone who writes

demands a certain kind of stability:

you never know which way the wind will blow

on any given day. There is no insight

no understanding the writer’s mind

It requires giving up your privacy;

her words may be direct or metaphor—

about you, or someone she once knew some years before.

You must become a willing casualty

to these thoughts she weaves, her poetry

—if they don’t incite an all out war!

A writer often feels things differently

they sense the moods of others, good or bad;

and when writing’s on there is rapport

but if it’s off, the reader will get bored.

Once again the writer takes her seat

with ideas flowing free, she’s in the ‘zone’
focused on the words and how they fall;

her mind adjusting inward till complete

no point of interrupting till she’s done.

You get to know her mood just by her tone

 then once again she leaves you all alone.

© Ginny Brannan 2018

This Little Light of Mine

Image by author

Being on time is not my forte

no land speed records

will ever be attained by,

nor would you set your watch to me.

But life is not a race—

we, each of us, must set our own pace.

If you choose to leave me in the dust,

      So be it!

I will stand up, dust myself off

and set my compass

back to my own true north.

Time is not important

only the journey is…

and our own light shines so much

brighter when we aren’t trying

to hold the candle up to anyone else’s.

© Ginny Brannan 2018

Burying the Bones

I no longer fit into the format

that was once reserved for me,

the “Why aren’t you doing something constructive?”

goes unsaid—the look—enough.

...Guilt, the gift that keeps on giving.

You claim patience, say you don’t care,

    but those sighs say otherwise…

    our one bone of contention

    in this otherwise perfect union.

© Ginny Brannan