It Kind of Is.

It Kind of Is.
By Tosha Michelle.

Miley and Nietzsche had it right.
It’s all about the climb.
I’ve charted many a mountain.
Hanging only by a thread.
Hope found in a spider’s web.
My limbs have felt like lead.
With bloody knuckles and knees.
Bruises for all to see.
I’ve ran into jagged impermeable stone.
Yet I rose higher and higher.
Fighting against the hourglass.
And dreams lost
I climbed.
Dragging myself toward the light.
Testing my worth.
I reached the summit in time to see
The dawning of the sun.
The breeze reborn, fresh as a new day.
I breathe in the substance of faith.
Exhaling doubt.

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Fields of Gold.

My cover of Sting’s Fields of Gold.

Choice

By Angela Morgan

I’d rather have the thought of you
To hold against my heart,
My spirit to be taught of you
With west winds blowing,
Than all the warm caresses
Of another love’s bestowing,
Or all the glories of the world
In which you had no part.

I’d rather have the theme of you
To thread my nights and days,
I’d rather have the dream of you
With faint stars glowing,
I’d rather have the want of you,
The rich, elusive taunt of you
Forever and forever and forever unconfessed
Than claim the alien comfort
Of any other’s breast.

O lover! O my lover,
That this should come to me!
I’d rather have the hope of you,
Ah, Love, I’d rather grope for you
Within the great abyss
Than claim another’s kiss-
Alone I’d rather go my way
Throughout eternity.

Fatigued

Thank you for the invitation
But I really must decline.
Please don’t call.
My heart is not at home.
I just want to be left alone.
Sometimes the reason
Doesn’t match the rhyme.
My love for humanity has taken a ride.
Verbal exhaustion
Mental fatigue.
Disconnected.
The number you have reached
Is no longer in service.
Please try again later

-Tosha Michelle

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Winter Wasteland

I step out into the winter of my mind.

Glancing around at the desolate architecture

Of walls with no doors.

Windows with no views.

Wrapped in sanity loose scarf.

I constantly beg for its touch.

My extremities crave its clarity and warmth.

The harsh chill of insecurity and doubt taunt me.

The frost of fear lingers in the air.

I expose myself to the elements.

The biting wind of change chills my static bones.

Forcing me to move.

The grey day is getting shorter.

I must find a way to make it over the frozen mountain of uncertainty.

I will not be a victim of my own circumstances.

The glow of resiliency lies just beyond the steel cages of my hypothermic mind

-Tosha Michelle

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Transparent Shell

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He hides his coldness behind a mask of charm.
His true intentions only to disarm.
Lies escape his lips
That never tell.
He plays the game so well.
He is an obsession
A handsome vision
With one glance you’ll be smitten.
He’ll wrap you up tight in his contradictions.
Fanning the flames
Of your incineration.
-Tosha Michelle

On and Off

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On and Off

This last year was like Gilbert Gottfried’s voice.
Annoying and hard to forget.
Well-meaning, I suppose
And quite a funny darling to some.
This last year was akin to reading Kant
Difficult to understand and once learned
Excessively demanding in its requirements.
No lesson comes without pain.
There’s renewal in regret.
I run away from self-loathing and apathy
into stirring truths and shameless living.
And a new year made up of only sexy, sassy things.

-Tosha Michelle

 

Random song. This takes me back to London and the O2 The year-2009. There’s a story there. Next time.

 

 

 

 

 

Winter Solace

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The soft snow blankets the ground.
I stop along the road.
Reaching toward the sweet bliss falling down.
My soul gets lost in the winter wonder.
Skipping like a child across a mystic white river.
Carefree, Basking in the invisible freedom
Dancing as the trees smile in the stillness.
I bow to a December moon so clear and cold
The icy hands of time forces me to keep moving on.

-Tosha Michelle

Jon Stewart, Jimmy Fallon, and Who????

Tomorrow (Thursday) at 7:00EST, I’ll be a guest on my own podcast. That’s not weird at all, right? My co-host and friend Niles, aka James, has decided to interview me about my new little book of poetry, Confessions of a Reformed Southern Belle: A Poet’s Collection of Love, Loss and Renewal. I’m honored.  If you don’t have anything more pressing to do (like cleaning your dryer filer or rearranging your pantry), we’d be happy if you tuned in. I have it on good authority Jon Stewart and Jimmy Fallon will be calling in. That’s if you consider my cat “good authority.”

You can click the link below to listen.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/laliteraticarpelibrum/2014/12/05/la-literati-celebrates-tosha-michelles-new-poetry-collection

Gratitude

There is power in gratitude..It can transform and change lives. It can turn a defeatist attitude into a “Yes, I can” It can turn chaos into peace, an enemy into a friend, heartache into joy, an ordinary day into something extraordinary.

I’m grateful, today, for the love of family and friends, the soulfulness of music, the beauty of nature, and the solace that books can bring..

May gratitude live in your hearts; peace and love abound. May your turkeys and bellies be stuffed, the wine and love ever flowing.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Be Thankful

“Be thankful that you don’t already have everything you desire,

If you did, what would there be to look forward to?

Be thankful when you don’t know something

For it gives you the opportunity to learn.

Be thankful for the difficult times.

During those times you grow.

Be thankful for your limitations

Because they give you opportunities for improvement.

Be thankful for each new challenge

Because it will build your strength and character.

Be thankful for your mistakes

They will teach you valuable lessons.

Be thankful when you’re tired and weary

Because it means you’ve made a difference.

It is easy to be thankful for the good things.

A life of rich fulfillment comes to those who are

also thankful for the setbacks.

GRATITUDE can turn a negative into a positive.

Find a way to be thankful for your troubles

and they can become your blessings.”

~ Author Unknown

Dancing with Words.

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Three of my favorite poems. Yes, I am a romantic.

“since feeling is first,” e.e. cummings

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
—the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

“If You Forget Me,” Pablo Neruda

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

When You Are Old

By William Butler Yeats

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.