Posted in Poetry, Social Commentary

Be Kind

The contentious tango between older generations and the young has been going on since the birth of Cain and Abel (parable characters used purely for symbolic reference). The only difference is the technology that is used to facilitate the discourse.

I’m posting this poem, Be Kind, by Charles Bukowski, for my beautiful millennial children because it is an exact replica of many of our conversations about the way millennials engage older people and their view of the world. It begins with my refrain and transitions to their honest, brave and resolute responses. This generation does not go along just to get along, which is what previous generations did and I truly admire that. I’m actually cheering them on even though the end goal is not completely clear. I just hope that their englightened rebelliousness leads to a kinder world where values are shifted to people rather than things so that we can correct the course we’re on which, for all intents and purposes, is continuing old and creating new unnecessary suffering and loss.

This poem exemplifies why I–love–poetry! The genre is a fully focused magnifier of absolutely everything.

Be Kind

By Charles Bukowski

we are always asked
to understand the other person’s
viewpoint
no matter how
out-dated
foolish or
obnoxious.
one is asked
to view
their total error
their life-waste
with
kindliness,
especially if they are
aged.
but age is the total of
our doing.
they have aged
badly
because they have
lived
out of focus,
they have refused to
see.
not their fault?
whose fault?
mine?
I am asked to hide
my viewpoint
from them
for fear of their
fear.
age is no crime
but the shame
of a deliberately
wasted
life
among so many
deliberately
wasted
lives
is.

Bukowksi Image by Ulf Andersen / Getty

Millennials, Save Us All Please!

Posted in Poetry

Sonnet 1


Thankful

Some days we refuse to be thankful cause
it won’t hold up its end of the bargain.
The granted objects shrink themselves too small
The hunger for what’s not grows and demands
to be pursued. A Goliath of need.
If only seemingly, it strikes the same.
We set off into a reality
filled with bitter dried fruit and sugar cane.
The occasional dandelion begs
to be wished upon. Pray, a miracle
brings us back from the unforgiving edge.
Into the ignored and humble, ten-fold,
where there is plenty of plain and simple,
but only in veil. We return thankful.

©Shonda Taliaferro 2021

Posted in Poetry

Free Verse

Sister

be guarded with your mind, a precious thing.
Jumpstarted by connections constructed of nature and nurture.
Ill-fitting garb for most. We make the best of it by looking away,
by thrashing about, by cutting, dismembering, and reshaping,
just for the honor of saying–this is me.

©Shonda Taliaferro 2021

Posted in Poetry

The Fractured Family

Silence holds the family in pieces.
It’s the brutality of blessings
that splinters all to avenues of frost
and the unseemly snowy wood.
When hush is broken by some tired soul,
we melt and pour ourselves into convenient sewers.
Thirsty for the ocean and thirsting for a new beginning.

Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized

My Favorite Poem

I have a lot of poems that I love but this one poem is my life. I think it’s many people’s lives. Living is not always an easy thing to do, but if you hold on to the truth that you are, indeed, the master of your fate and the captain of your soul, you can weather all things.

Invictus 

BY WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY

Out of the night that covers me,
      Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
      For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
      I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
      My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
      Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
      Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
      How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
      I am the captain of my soul.

Posted in Poetry

The truth is

I am not allowed
to split you open
climb inside you to
learn your secrets

I must maddeningly deduce
Negotiate with sensitivities
Navigate around trigger lines

My skin — camouflage
My hair — bush
My eyes — ink
My mouth — contort

I talk to myself out loud
so that my heart knows it’s me — not
some mad woman caught
in the wilderness of a lover’s secrets.