People emerge
to pursue paradigms
of synergistic systems
office and technology
compete and eat
multitasking corporate identity
vision, position, mission
maximizing moments
winning bread
for that competitive
little monkey
that rides their back
begging them
to neglect everything
in pursuit of it all.

Brenda Warren

Practice optimism
disseminate it
through your pores.

Salve adversity.
Dance and sing.

Positivity plagues the pessimist
illuminating darkness
reverberating deep in bones
unleashing the eternal.

~bw 22

Like a psychedelic memory
a raw electric experiment
a junk dream
her life approaches grace
as if it were the vivid silhouette
of a dazzling half-drunk angel
an absurd shimmering miasma
lost in inner space.

Brenda Warren

This is an older piece that I reworked for today. My muse is resting.

om mani
pardon me
your breathing is distracting me

could you,
maybe

do it over there?

 
Brenda Warren 2017

Into the couch of your grave I fly,
never questioning why to your eye.

I watch you die.

Day by day
machine play
in never-lounge cushions.
Cards against humanity.

A symbol-grinding ending to the groove of who we were.

Echoes of flies
fill time’s windows.
A volume of buzzing collides
with words set fire.

You are almost gone,
like syllables stoked to ash.

Brenda Warren 2016

Visit the Sunday Whirl

For Elizabeth’s Creativity Challenge Day 5

They hide in the house of my soul,
these stones—
ragged and heavy and thrown.
Igneous monsters
churning their grit
thick with inevitability’s spit,
they become increasingly intimate,

and so I sit.

Practicing maitri, polishing stone,
befriending my body,
befriending my home,
with its stones of anger,
its stones of shame,
its stones of loss, betrayal, and gain,

breathing in, I sit.

Becoming intimate with stones—
ragged and heavy and thrown,
bringing my monsters closer to home
raw with energy seething
befriending my spirit
befriending my soul
in an intimate act of breathing.

Breathing out, I sit.

Exhaling self-acceptance,
possibility opens—
shining and spacious and free.

Brenda Warren 2016

Arlee 2015        b.warren

Elizabeth’s Creativity Challenge Day 3 asked us to explore the word acceptance. After reading one of Elizabeth’s pieces, I decided to explore acceptance through the Buddhist lens of maitri. Maitri can be defined as loving kindness towards oneself. It takes practice. To really love yourself, you have to face your demons. When I turned my monsters into stones, this piece resulted. The ending feels abrupt to me. I may play with it later.

Reclining,
the curve of me
savors the weight of your
warm beagle self
nudging breath beneath
my neck,
filling my body’s nest
with you.

Brenda Warren 2016

For Elizabeth’s Creativity Challenge Day 2, where the word is “love.”

Len & Berkeley                      b.warren