Thesaurus By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on Twitter)

Worn out
Like tire treads
No alignment

I find the usual haunts
Of my lexicon
Rearing up again

Groundhog day
I’ve nothing to say
I haven’t said before

I desperately want more
The scratched vinyl
Skips, skips, skips

I want to smash
This album
Over my knee

The juke box
Only has
So many songs

My selections
Exhausted
On fumes it seems

I repeat, repeat
Repeat , repeat
Repeat, repeat.
(end)

I also get frustrated with myself when I overuse a word. “Utopia, futile, folly” are some that I get tired of popping in my head every time I want to write.

Oblivious, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37)

Nestled in the carrier
Unaware, unaware
Curled up in balls

Paws on paws
Insomnia, cursed mouse
I move about

Bone white background
Black print taps out
Words that struggle

To come out
I want a subject
To shout shout shout

It won’t come out
It’s locked in
Where ever it is

Muffled, murmur
Cloaked in silence
Chained inside me

And they sleep
Peacefully
Unaware nothing’s in me

Frustration they cant see
When will the next one
Be ready to read?

I hate this retched subject
It’s been too many times
I write about the things

That are not on my mind
My brain, is stuck
In a bind

And they sleep, unaware.
(end)

I get frustrated when I cant find something deep and serious to write about. I start something, then scrap it. I move my mouse around and around like fiddling my fingers. I pop back and forth to other pages hoping reading other things will spark a poem.

And my kittens, content and off in slumber, don’t know how frustrated I am right now. I am putting trinket poems out right now. I like what I am writing but I am not feeling the BOOOOM I have with some of my others.

I wrote this poem at 2am approximately. Insomnia sucks, and lack of inspiration sucks. But my kittens, at least they are happy.

No Other Reason, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37)

It is folly, and futile
To chase utopias
When creativity

Is what you want
The world to see
Your name in lights
On a marquee

It is not
The reason to be
A miserable life

Is in store for thee
If the expectation
Is that fantasy

If you just
Put it down
If you just

Swim around
Somehow, somehow
Someday, you’ll be found

Hollywood and Vine
On dead careers it dines
To never get off the ground

If you sing that note
That makes tears flow
If you write the prose

Who knows, who knows?
It cannot be, the fantasy
You chase for dreams of wealth

It cannot be, the fantasy
That everyone wants
An autograph from thee

Poetry, is at least for me
And will always be
The love of it alone

My payments not cash
Or cars of flash
Or travel first class

For there are millions
Like me, in history
Most unknown

And will never be, famous.
(end)

If you love doing something, by all means do it, don’t stop doing it. But poetry, like painters, like comedians, like sports stars, like actors, like musicians, most do not become nationally famous or world famous or rich.
If you write poetry, you have to do it for the love of if alone, the therapy. That has to be first. Now, maybe someday you defy the odds and some publisher notices you who can put you on the map. But the vast majority, no. That will not happen for most.

So always write from the heart for you, and your readers first. Do it for the therapy first. And if all you can do is write on your off time, or in your retirement and others get joy and therapy out of it. THAT is your first reward, and your most important reward.

How Gems Are Born, (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)

To say

“pens don’t matter”

To say

“Awful poems don’t matter”

To say

“Just move on”

Is to ignore

The imperfect

The discarded

The cracked sidewalk

The perilous cliff

The scraped knees

The constant uncertainty

The discomfort of being

Outside your comfort

Zone.
(end)

I have been told many times over 30 years that my poetry sucks. I always ask that person, “Which one?”. I cannot nor will ever claim every piece is brilliant. But I put every single piece of work out there, good and bad, because it is how I keep moving.

Most artists, be they painters or poets hide their not so good ones, but not me. I want people to see all of my work so that they will be inspired to keep going. It isn’t about failure, it isn’t about fear. It is about putting it all out there, so that people can see that stopping is the worst thing an artist can do to the world out of some sense of insecurity.

The world is imperfect, and to say you have to be a perfectionist in art is to limit yourself and set yourself up for the ultimate failure of quitting. I look at my poetry much like a high speed automatic camera. I just keep shooting and shooting and shooting, and not every picture will be brilliant, but occasionally you take one that people really like.

Indian River Lagoon, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)

If you would not want
Your kitten’s food bowl
Barren

If you would not want
You child swimming
In a dirty pool

Then we as humans
Have to stop ignoring
The warning signs we have

The honey bee
The monarch butterfly
I remember the Native American

Atop his horse
With a tear in his eye
The algae bloom

Killing the sea grass
The gentile sea cow
Is swimming in trash

Desperate they are
Feeding them lettuce
On the brink

We’re causing this mess
If we don’t stop it
We will be next

Coal mine species
Swim in sunshine rivers
Mermaids of gray

We are on our way
To our own deaths
Human’s last breath.
(END)

This poem is about of course, the Manatee in South Florida. Global warming is causing more algae blooms which is killing the natural sea grass of the Manatee, plus our pollution it may accidentally swallow, or our boats hitting them. But this is one “canary in the coalmine” species that is under constant threat, and it is a warning to us, that if we do not stop global warming and stop polluting our planet we will be sealing our own doom.

Toxic Intoxication, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)

If you are

Drunk on Mohammed

Drunk on Jesus

Drunk on Yahweh

Drunk on all the rest

You can make

Any excuse

To claim superiority

To justify

Abuse

That is why

Of religion

I find absolutely no use.

(end)