They offered you a penny for your thoughts as she played a dress up game of implication
Non sequitur
Non sequitur
Non sequitur
You chant
Offer refused
To fray dwindling strings of a puppet regime
Turn off the T.V.
You are none the poorer
The Puppet Show has been cancelled
Reach Out Stay Here
Tomorrow marks the anniversary of losing a very good friend to a volatile combo of painkillers, alcohol & depression His wife is my best friend & their son is my Godson.
NAMI, National Alliance Mental Health have a 24 hour helpline 800-950-6264
If you or anyone you know is struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts, reach out. There can be better days ahead.
I woke up reimagining a Lion King where Scar & the pack of hyenas have no roles in the movie.
A new casting call for positive thoughts to start creative days.
Kindness runs thorn-free
The self-righteous pricks of hashtag moral Monday are not of or within her universe
(c) s l jennings words & art
I read an article the other day in the New York Times about apples and I really didn’t understand the point. A bad cop is a bad cop why bring apples into the discussion. Apples do not kill people. People, particularly black people, get killed by bad cops using brutal tactics. A rotting apple hardly compares with the true autrocity of these incidents. A rotting apple disintegrates back into the ground or becomes a part of a compost pile. A bad cop, often walks free & receives a punishment that is disproportionate with the crime that he or she has committed.
September leans into October
And I remember you and me
Feet wet walking misty orchards
We’d find our one perfect tree
Fresh scent of red apples above us
Your shoulders broad and strong
You raised me to higher boughs
As we sang our cheerful song
♪♫ “Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me” ♪♫
♪♫ “With anyone else but me…anyone else but me” ♪♫
You made a world within our reach
Where apples tumbled free
On perfectly crisp mornings
Apple picking – I remember you and me
As apples now fall from heaven to earth
Angels carry you home to me
And I wait sitting under the apple tree
For my first love you will always be
My precious Daddy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Post Note: I wrote this simple poem on 09/27/2013 & share today for #throwbackthursdaypoetry
I always remember my late father around this time of year. Every year, he would load all six of us children in our family van & drive us miles away from our city home to the apple orchards in the countryside. Here we became free to shake & climb the apple trees ~ and, if we were too small to climb, he would lift us up to pick apples He and my maternal grandmother were fond of singing the song “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree” from the 1940’s; a song well before my time which I will forever carry in memory of each of them.
I hope you all enjoyed this walk down memory lane
(c) 2013 Sandy Jennings “Under the Apple Tree” poem
photo: courtesy of my Mom
Lyrics quoted from “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree (with Anyone Else but Me)” as performed by the Andrew Sisters
Gratitude Rhymes with Attitude
What are you thankful for?
I’m thankful for this vibrantly colored flower that I witnessed inside on a winter’s day.
A mindful little lift of life & light reminding me, at the time, spring would arrive soon.
Telling me: each day is one more day of life gracing our presence.
Someday soon we’ll be able to commune in open spaces beyond whatever the new normal becomes…
The Coronavirus certainly presents uncertain times.
I hope this note finds you all safe, healthy and well.
Reach out beyond where there are anxieties or fear. As cliche as this sounds, we are all in this together.
Please take care.
Photo credit: s l jennings
I wish everyone a happy new year filled with
peace, love and perseverance.
I am starting the new year here with an older
poem & a snapshot of one of my favorite places.
The Missouri River in view, I am standing at
the top of the hill on my grandparent’s farm;
near the Santee Sioux Reservation.
There is a tributary I have chosen to call Indian
Creek, which feeds into the Missouri, where I like
to do one of my favorite things:
Fly Fishing
And, for me, this poem is simply about the
happiness found while fly fishing. The “arc
of line” is like a moment of meditation. There is
no parallel to anything in my life or anyone else’s life.
There is only this purely pleasurable moment when the line is circling in air.
For a normally Type A person, like me, fly fishing is both an artful & refreshing diversion.
Now onto the poem & a New Year…
Fly Fishing
White Feather Trail descends rock-ribbed mountain
Indian Creek sleeps thin in her valley
Dragon tongues shape leafy ferns underfoot
Leading me to her glistening bounty
Cool waters awaken discovery
My feet in rubber boots sink into her
Eyes searching gentle currents for treasure
Fly tied, my line artfully circles air
Rod whipping and bending the line to arc
I release myself in each graceful cast
Slowly submerging into her water
nimph bait awaits hoping the fish will pass
The line tugs hard as a salmon breaks free
As this creek becomes an endless brown sea
And my line once again lasso’s in air
My heart in each cast, I haven’t a care
For to never catch a fish would be fine
Like poetry, I live for arc of line
poem (c) 2016 s l Jennings
Post note: in a moment of artistic liberty,
I called the hills in the picture “mountains”
because that’s what the hike there is like ;}
Trump recently cited his own “great and unmatched wisdom” regarding Turkey and his decision to pull back troops in Syria. Yesterday, Turkey attacked Northern Syria. Trump’s complacency allows Turkey, unchecked, to carry out acts of genocide primarily against Syria’s largest ethnic minority, the Kurds.
Trump believes his mandate is from God and prominent evangelists support Trump in this belief. Inside Trump supporter, Pastor Paula White Cain, said in her Jim Bakker show video “The True Story of Donald Trump” that she believes that the first settlers landed in America and were “blessed” to put their “white crosses” down on a land that would become “a lighthouse” for the world. She goes on to say that Trump will help take America back because the nation is tired of “the 5% dictating to the 95%.”
And just who are the 5%?
Trump exceptionalism infringes on democracy, marginalizes minorities and, in many instances, violates the spirit and letter of U.S. constitutional law.
His lack of action in Syria is an extension of his overall inhumane treatment of life, the earth and its inhabitants.
This satirical poem I wrote several years ago came to mind given the recent events.
One Nation Under God
Twisting propaganda, choking humanity’s aorta;
The leash of compassion’s constraint,
worships nationalism’s professed God,
My country’s will be done, here on earth –
You who are forsaken, you who are diseased;
You are not me; You are not the fortunate one.
Thou shalt not kill Uncle Sam,
Love one another, An eye for an eye –
One nation under an omnipotent God,
“The righteous will live by faith;”
Deceitfully waging contempt’s warfare;
Infinitely marching onward –
Holding faith in esteemed position,
Love within geographical boundaries;
Life on Earth as it is in Heaven –
My Heaven; not your’s.
(c) 2014 s l jennings
I don’t believe a benevolent God supports hatred. My ultimate hope is that we can all work together to create a world that promotes caring for and support of all humanity. Buying Jim Bakker freeze-dried pizzas will not cure this epidemic. Trump’s impeachment will certainly be a beginning.
Uncolored wind flies open skies
Indigo rivers flow primitive rain
Lush fresh air kisses our breath
Boundless seas greet our thirst
Sweet liberation fills our being
Precious equilibrium to exist
Evolving Here and Now Creation
(c) s l jennings 2017 poem and photo
Spirited Poetry 