Tag: inspiration

poetry, writer, writing

winter soul

Kelly Rogers

I am the last piece of tinsel clinging to the fir that’s about to return to the earth

I am the first bud fighting activation by the sunshine I know is forgetting the last snow

I am the shade, the single cloud, the arch of a tree, providing respite from the dry heat

I am the first leave to turn on the branch and the last to fall, stretching on the way down towards peace on frosted ground

I am the first crystal to form in the sky, willingly joining other crystals, ready to find my place in a snow angel

I am a winter soul, an arctic fox, a counter of stars under the frigid night sky

musician

Tired

Kelly Rogers

When you are the kind of tired sleep won’t fix

And your second hand is stuck but it still ticks

When you’ve lost your bookmark in a breeze

And you need a prayer after life has brought you to your knees

When you try to drive forward while in park

And you are in a story that has no discernible arc

Look up to the sky, you are kissed by the sun

Look down at your feet where two puppies run

You are here now, a gift, tired or not

Breathe it in, breathe it out, give it all you’ve got

banjo, musician, poetry, story, writer, writing

The Banjo Cure

Kelly Rogers

A banjo is an excellent story writer. It’s a 5-string choose your own adventure. It’s a thriller. It’s the romance writer of stringed instruments. Go down the neck, and you get some science fiction and fantasy sounds…the bard of a space court. It’s African poetry. It’s a medical drama about a woman needing a musical cure for a rough week. The banjo is a story, and it is the cure.

musician, poetry, writer, writing

The Storm

Kelly Rogers
“When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”    ― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

It starts with the rhythmic tapping of the first drops

On the roof from which you touched the stars

There is a grumble in the sky, a call to action on the horizon

And electricity traces the line of your quickening pulse

Today will be different. Today is the storm.

The dark clouds are now pushing up to your horizon,

Making you search for shelter in the eyes of the unaware

They are in their own storm, unable to bear witness to yours

You yell out while knowing you have to be your own shelter

You were made for this. Today is your day.

Now comes the torrent, the lightning, unforgiving noise

The deluge hydrates the landscape of your soul

While eroding the surface, a runoff of who you were

Your foundation shakes with each strike and boom

Today is terrifying. Today is your storm.

The minutes pass, or maybe the hours, or the years

The storm chooses how long it stays and batters what was

And your choice is to weather it, a stalwart sailor, or wash away

When you think it will stay forever, sunshine finds the crack in the clouds

The storm is done. You are the sunshine, begun anew.

musician

Winter’s Wind

Kelly Rogers

A thousand black-winged dots above the horizon

Cut through the clouds

On an icicle blowing wind

Forming glass of water, nature’s sculpture

Shall they reach the sun above five more horizons?

Or shall they fall into the winter of the soul ?

Their dark wings collapsing in peace

For respite in the silence minus the whistle of that very same wind

poetry, writer, writing

It Cannot

Kelly Rogers

It cannot take the glow of Spring’s first warm light on my winter skin.

It cannot tilt my heart on the axis it spins.

It cannot lay claim to the adventures of my mind.

It, therefore, will not win.

It will lay bare our faults and our fears.

It has no soul. About nothing it cares.

It will ravage the old and young the same.

It will expose our mistakes and immortal shame.

And when it’s darkness towers over us, and a last stand remains,

Rush boldly we will, shedding its chains.

It cannot, it will not, it should not transpire,

A dimming of our humanity’s fire.

It cannot, it will not, it should not conspire,

For we are glass blown into steal, forged from this same fire.

musician, poetry, writer, writing

Today

Kelly Rogers

I can still feel the sun’s heat on my face,

even when fear wrestles with grace.

I can still see love in another’s eyes,

while facing the darkness of demise.

I can still water a flowering bud,

as my emotions get swept away by the flood.

And I can still believe today will be tomorrow,

when my heart mends from subsuming sorrow.