IN MY TIME…

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Too many kids today

Have straight teeth

But crooked morals

People caring too much

Almost obsessing even,

Their little Jimmy-Joe lacks the perfect smile

Little girls getting manis and pedis

When they’d rather be making mud pies and playing in the sand box

Little girls competing in beauty pageants

HOLD ON!!

Wait a damn minute!

If I were from the past

And suddenly awoke from the grave

Come back to earth for a brief spell

What would I think?

The world has certainly gone mad

In my time, famous was the man whose children loved him

Now fathers and children are practically strangers

In my time,the family you built was the legacy you left to your children

Now, families aren’t built with that purpose or intent-they aren’t even built…

In my time, home was where life made up its mind

Now, people live in grand houses surrounded by every creature comfort their hard-earned money can buy

But they forget a house filled with hate,strife discord and anger is hardly a place fit to call home

Eva Santiago copyright 2013

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Write Something Terrible and Feel Great!

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Let the poem write itself

Let the words flow through your pen

Open your mind

Let your thoughts come out to play

 

Let the story write itself

The plot is there

The characters already live

Just pluck them from thin air

 

Let the wound heal itself

Give it attention

Give it great care

Let it breathe in fresh air

 

Let the puzzle sort itself

Don’t pick up the pieces

You’ll just make a mess

Don’t worry, time sorts out all puzzles

 

Let the song compose itself

Words have wings

Marry your words to the harmony

Words don’t always need music to sing

 

Be a canvas to the whole world

Let children fill in the emptiness with their vivid imaginations

Let amateur painters blot out the darkest corners with their unlearned brush strokes

Let seasoned artists mold,shape, create

Something from nothing

Definition out of thin air

 

Write something terrible and feel great about it

The best art

Comes from many attempts

So at first when you grab the pen, the paper

The paint brush, the canvas

Don’t worry if you’re gonna fuck up

Truth is, you will

But don’t let that keep you

 

How did we learn to walk?

By first falling flat on our faces

Well, go on then!

Write something terrible and feel great!

Sing and hit the wrong note

And don’t yourself hate

Paint,paint,paint

The canvas doesn’t ever worry

Whether you’ll make a mistake

The stage doesn’t care that you tapped out the wrong beat

Or that once, you had two left feet

The blank pages in the book don’t care about grammatical errors

They trust the writer knows what to delete

So, what are you waiting for?!

Eva Santiago copyright 2013

 

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INCIDENTAL

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Life is incidentally,exponentially accidental

Two people meet

Two worlds that were apart now collide

Driving down a long stretch of ribbon like high way late at night to clear his attic of all the messy cob webs; they talked over the air waves for hours about everything and nothing

Her voice kept him awake

Her voice gave him hope

Her voice soothes his raw nerves, frayed from dealing with life’s random, haphazard incidents all by himself

Why did these two meet?

Who the hell cares!

What matters is that they did

So much is spoken one soul to the other through unspoken expressions

Life is incidentally, exponentially accidental

What if these two had met 5,10,20 years ago?

Would the spark be the same as it is now?

Maybe. Maybe not

5,10,20 years ago they were both very different people-

With different goals

With different drives

Time is everything

If there is a big bang theory;these two should receive the Nobel for having created it

Life is incidentally,exponentially accidental

Look for it

The BEST things in life come about through happy little accidents.

But are they accidents?

Or is it perhaps the universe just having a good time aligning your stars?

-Eva Santiago copyright 2013

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TWISTED

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Life is amazing everyday! When you  have a holiday though, it heightens expectation levels. This year I am glad to say, I spent the most wonderful Thanksgiving Day with some of the best people . Being that everyone who came by to share in the turkey meal, is a writer we gathered together after the meal and we played writing games. New friendships were formed, old friendships were reinforced and all of us in my living room felt not so  alone for those few hours. I love being a writer and having the opportunity to open my home to others is a plus; having that many writers together in my home for such a special day, well this will go down as one of the most memorable Thanksgivings I have ever had! Today’s post comes from that great evening.

He would fuck with her mind, day in and day out. Over the years this wore on her much like a a slow nagging head ache at first, that eventually turns into a blinding migraine. She never knew where she stood with him and that’s how he’d control her;or at least he was under the impression that he was winning in his wicked, manipulative games. Every damn word she spoke, he’d twist. You know that silly childhood game,Twister? Well, he invented the mind twist. He was the master of it. Just when she thought  she was standing on the yellow dots, he’d flip the card board spinner and she’d be fooled once more.

At times she thought she was losing her mind and that’s how he liked it. Then one day after umpteen years of living  with the Twisted Mister, who tried to turn her into a Twisted Sister, she woke right up; and decided to flip the old card board spinner on him.. Oh shit! He was sorely pissed when he caught on. Oh hell, she’d broke his spell and now he was truly lost. She walked away one fresh spring morning with her head held high. Her smile, that radiant smile that Twisted Mister tried to permanently vanish  from her pretty face, was  back on for good. She didn’t have to paint it on anymore-people who saw her could tell she smiled and meant it now. The glimmer in her dark brown eyes had returned too.

She twisted him up all right. Now he stood there tied up in knots like an old, stale sour dough pretzel. He wore on his face a grim expression. He hated her more now than when they first met.

EVA SANTIAGO copyright 2013

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Honesty in a poetry performance

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If you perform your poetry or are thinking of sharing it in public, please read this thought provoking post!

Talicha J.'s avatar

I attended a workshop a while back on honesty in a poetry performance. As writers, we tend to put the truth or as much of the truth as we can inside our work. As poets who perform, at times we get on stage and somehow the meaning of our writings gets lost in our presentation. The audience doesn’t feel the emotions we are aiming to bring forth because there is a disconnect between what we are saying and the way we are saying it.

The workshop facilitator, RJ Eldridge, asked us to define what honesty is. Among the various answers, someone stated something to the tune of “honesty is fact” (now, that is not word for word because I have terrible memory, but that’s what I got out of their statement). This prompted someone else to point out that honesty is not necessarily restricted to facts alone (and again…

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Fly the Friendly Skies

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Have you ever looked up at the sky

There, way up high

Miraculously suspended

The Most amazing of inventions

Held together by nuts and bolts

Painted with pretty logos

Air buses

Taking us here

Taking us there

Taking us everywhere

Tiny windows all in a row

Heads the size of pins looking out

I see you up there

So jealous of you

Looking down at me sitting here

Stuck on the ground with nowhere to go

But you!

You get to fly!

You’ve got your wings

You are free!

I look up at you

Whoever you are

Right now you shine brighter than any ‘ole star

For you have what I desperately want:

Wings to fly

Where are you headed?

Who the hell cares!

At least you’re going somewhere

A funeral?

A wedding?

You just got divorced?

Starting a new life someplace new?

Perhaps you’re headed for college?

Or maybe a long deserved vacation?

Air travel

What a marvelous feat

When I fly

I lose myself in the clouds

Once I wandered into a great white forest

Stayed there for three hours

Another time I played hide and seek with a rainbow

I remember dancing with angels

Careful not to step on their wings

They don’t take too kindly to that

I have ridden on elephant’s backs

And followed the course of my wild imagination

I was six when I first flew

Nothing in life back then made sense

Until I stepped into a jet plane

And there was where I got a clue

That day so long ago

I remember thinking:

Angelic beings were my friends

For the first time in my short life

I felt like a real princess

They served me the food I liked

They gave me nice smiles

They gave me a pillow

Even held my hand when I got scared

I fell in love with the friendly skies

I told the creatures in the clouds:

“I will always come back

So long,

Fare thee well

I’ll return!”

And time after time

Though I wish to fly more often

To the friendly skies

I have kept my word!

EVA SANTIAGO copyright 2013

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The Displaced

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To be homeless is nothing more than to be displaced. They are no different from those of us who have a place of our own. They wake up the same as you and me. They need love and affection like you and me. What is to be displaced?

Is it a choice a person makes?

Is is a curse?

Is it random?

Does it choose you?

Do you choose it?

I’ve been close to being homeless at one time in my life. I was kicked out of somewhere to land on some one else’s door-step;only to find out  I was not welcome there either. I  literally had no place to call my own during that brief time. I was displaced because  of my family‘s lack of concern for me. Who of you are bold enough to admit   you’ve been home less at one time or another? It could have lasted an hour,a day, a week , a month or even a year. No matter the length of time,,or for whatever set of circumstances, you know what feeling homeless is like.

The United States of America is The Great Land of Pretenders. When I was displaced, I held a full-time job, I wore nice clothes, I ate everyday. I just lacked my roof. I went to work and wore the same happy face; no one knew of my plight. I pretended all was well with me and kept going because well, that is what one does in the land pf pretenders.

To be homeless mean so much more than to lack a roof over your head at night. In my view, to be displaced is to be without family. Family tossed me out;I ended up living with a bunch of strangers . I was cut off from my rightful place and role in my family. So I struck out on my own;left all those people behind because that’s when I knew I had to forge my path and find my family.

Displaced people wander about looking for acceptance and connection. I sure did. You can be a wealthy person and still merit the title of  displaced soul only because you’ve no family, no ties . No true bonds to family whether it’s your blood or family made of close friends. You can own the whole world and all its treasure but if you have no true connection to another soul, you’re a displaced soul. I have met many in that plight who  were so full of the pride of life and the total sum of their possessions. Yet they had no one who checks up on them at least once a day to see if they’re ok.

In the land of pretenders they teach children everything about the value of material things and nothing about the value of life. Generation after generation children are not shown to pursue love and to attain peace at all costs.

EVA SANTIAGO copyright 2013

Blind Man’s Braille Part 4

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We are all such spoiled brats

Never content with what we have

Always wanting more and more

Seldom appreciating what’s at our fingertips

Always taking for granted what’s in the palm of our hands

We yearn for this, that and the other. If we really took in a flower’s scent in our own backyard;feel the delicate petals, velvety and rich on our fingertips

We’d certainly know we’re all royalty awaiting the great awakening

Show me

Show me

Show me heaven

Yeah, it’s all around

Look in my eyes, you’ll see a glimpse of it

The prince and the pauper

The princess and her toad

We’re all royalty awaiting the great awakening

My beauty healed your beast

Your kiss awakened me from a deep coma like slumber

Run away with me and immerse yourself in the unseen

Behold the light of my torch and you’ll no longer be blind

Run away with me and immerse yourself in my dream

Behold the light of my torch and let me blow your mind

When we first kissed I whispered ,” I wanna lose myself in you…”

Inundate yourself in my being

Indeed, we’re all royalty here!

EVA SANTIAGO copyright 2013

 

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