Create Art Podcast

Hello friend, I am Timothy Kimo Brien, head instigator at Create Art Podcast where we help you to tame the inner critic and create more than we consume. Every year in April National Poetry Writing Month occurs, this is a challenge to write 30 poems in 30 days and comes from the NaPoWriMo site. When you participate you are given a prompt every day for 30 days and you can choose to follow the prompt or not. Each prompt has a commentary with it and a style of poetry that you may not be familiar with. I enjoy it because it stretches my creative muscles and helps me organize my thoughts. I also really enjoy a good challenge. There is also an opportunity to read other people's work as they post on their websites and for you to comment on their work, giving them encouragement or offering a suggestion. Care to join me on this journey?

And last but not least, our (optional) prompt for the day. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that delves into the meaning of your first or last name. Looking for inspiration? Take a look at this poem by Mark Wunderlich, appropriately titled “Wunderlich.”

Forthright

We are the Sans Detour

Those who speak plainly

There is no nuance

That is obtuse

When our words are heard

We are understood

So let me speak gentle reader

Without any obfuscation

I came upon my name

Through the one who will remain nameless

What I have taken of him

Is simply the family name, crest

And I am learning to leave the rest

The need to be direct

And not mince my words

Comes from the lineage

That has been obscured

Where others put on airs

Or develop their character

I prefer to go straight for the jugular

Make my point

And then leave you my friend

Not to wonder at what I meant

Not ponder a greater message

You already have one hundred thousand channels

And there is truly nothing on

I reject the one who brought me into this world

But the name survives

The name that defines my identity

The name that I hated in ignorance

But with enlightenment now brings me hope

Now I have a touchstone

That can lad me like he

That can be the example

That can be the father

A name, not a man

So to you viewing these words

Or heeding my voice

Know that if I don’t try to color

The poetry that has given me purpose

It is not for lack of knowledge

Rather,

It is my lineage 

To reach out to me, email [email protected] I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and lets start that conversation.

• Email: [email protected]

Hello friend, I am Timothy Kimo Brien, head instigator at Create Art Podcast where we help you to tame the inner critic and create more than we consume. Every year in April National Poetry Writing Month occurs, this is a challenge to write 30 poems in 30 days and comes from the NaPoWriMo site. When you participate you are given a prompt every day for 30 days and you can choose to follow the prompt or not. Each prompt has a commentary with it and a style of poetry that you may not be familiar with. I enjoy it because it stretches my creative muscles and helps me organize my thoughts. I also really enjoy a good challenge. There is also an opportunity to read other people's work as they post on their websites and for you to comment on their work, giving them encouragement or offering a suggestion. Care to join me on this journey?

Today’s prompt comes from the Instagram account of Sundress Publications, which posts a writing prompt every day, all year long. This one is short and sweet: write a poem in the form of a news article you wish would come out tomorrow.

What Tomorrow Brings

The morning mist had yet to dissipate

Luckily the paper delivery person

Had wrapped the Wednesday edition

So that only the plastic bad was damp

I bought it in for my wife to read

Later in the day

As I went to work in the basement

I could hear her wake up

And walk into the kitchen

Where I had left the paper opened

And ready to read

A few minutes later and a few emails ignored

I heard her quiet scream

She opened the door to the basement

And called down for me

Disturbed from my work

Disgruntled I relented and went up

She held the paper out to me

With her outstretched arms

Telling me to read the headline

Tomorrows news today

I asked her what was the fuss

It seemed to be a stunt, a bit odd

For a local paper

But then most of them still printed horoscopes

She kept pointing at the article

And would no say more

So I began reading it with disdain

As my work now was beginning to pile up

The byline had my name

Strange because I was not a reporter

I was not employed by the local rag

So I read further

Supposedly I wrote in better grammar than usual

That starting tomorrow

Which would be Thursday

I would be writing Fridays headlines

I would not be guessing at the future

Rather I would be the gate keeper

I promised what I wrote would happen

As I would be compiling the news Wednesday night

My wife looked into my eyes

Pleading for understanding

I laughed at her prank

And headed back to my den

She grabbed my shoulder and turned me round

And that’s when I confessed

That the work I was doing

Was not for the job

But because I found a way

To see two days ahead

But on the day I wrote about

I would forget the night before

We both decided since the public now knew

And tonight I would forget tomorrow

That we would up our subscription to daily

Just so I would know what happened yesterday

Or that day

Or tomorrow

To reach out to me, email [email protected] I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and lets start that conversation.

• Email: [email protected]

Hello friend, I am Timothy Kimo Brien, head instigator at Create Art Podcast where we help you to tame the inner critic and create more than we consume. Every year in April National Poetry Writing Month occurs, this is a challenge to write 30 poems in 30 days and comes from the NaPoWriMo site. When you participate you are given a prompt every day for 30 days and you can choose to follow the prompt or not. Each prompt has a commentary with it and a style of poetry that you may not be familiar with. I enjoy it because it stretches my creative muscles and helps me organize my thoughts. I also really enjoy a good challenge. There is also an opportunity to read other people's work as they post on their websites and for you to comment on their work, giving them encouragement or offering a suggestion. Care to join me on this journey?

Finally, our prompt (optional, as always). I’m calling this one “Past and Future.” This prompt challenges you to write a poem using at least one word/concept/idea from each of two specialty dictionaries: Lempriere’s Classical Dictionary and the Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction. A hat tip to Cathy Park Hong for a tweet that pointed me to the science fiction dictionary and to Hoa Nguyen for introducing me to the Classical Dictionary.

The Dreams

The visions kept coming

There seemed to be no end

He would finish a painting

Only to see the flames change the colors

Into something no one had witnessed

He was alone

Hurtling through space and time

Never to be disturbed

To focus just on the work

He was unaware

Of anyone else

And there was no one to view

The masterpieces as they flew

Out from his hands

And onto the canvas of his mind

His entombment carried his name, Pausias

As did the sleeper ship

As he was only DNA fused with silicone chips

There was no body to nourish

He had attained what most artists crave

The immortality to create

Forever

Without the constraints

Without any limits

But after how many millennia

That he lost count

He was ready to return home

And share the work with those

Who had been extinct

Longer than most of humanity had been alive

The number of his works completed

And compiled

Had risen to over eighty-seven thousand

In less than half a second they could be retrieved

But with none to share

His life force faded

The chips could not revive him

From this self-imposed slumber

He slipped to the other dream

That artists have

Escaping the bonds of the cruel world

Into oblivion

Where those he loved dwelt

And it was there

He shared his works

That none would delete

Or disremember

To reach out to me, email [email protected] I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and lets start that conversation.

• Email: [email protected]

Hello friend, I am Timothy Kimo Brien, head instigator at Create Art Podcast where we help you to tame the inner critic and create more than we consume. Every year in April National Poetry Writing Month occurs, this is a challenge to write 30 poems in 30 days and comes from the NaPoWriMo site. When you participate you are given a prompt every day for 30 days and you can choose to follow the prompt or not. Each prompt has a commentary with it and a style of poetry that you may not be familiar with. I enjoy it because it stretches my creative muscles and helps me organize my thoughts. I also really enjoy a good challenge. There is also an opportunity to read other people's work as they post on their websites and for you to comment on their work, giving them encouragement or offering a suggestion. Care to join me on this journey?

This is a twist on a prompt offered by Kay Gabriel during a meeting she facilitated at the Poetry Project last year. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a two-part poem, in the form of an exchange of letters. The first stanza (or part) should be in the form of a letter that you write either to yourself or to a famous fictional or historical person. The second part should be the letter you receive in response. These can be as short or long as you like, in the form of prose poems, or with line breaks – and of course, the subject matter of the letters is totally up to you.

Happy writing!

To Ken and Joe

1

When I heard your voices

On Sunday nights in Chicago

Laying alone in my bed

Waiting for Monday morning

And the start of the drudgery

Before I would drift off to the dreams

You constructed

In the two hours

My attention was never more focused

On the little things you would add

A thought here, a discarded phrase there

What most people who did listen in would miss

Was the crumbs that I feasted upon

I wanted to recreate what you had done

But soon I found that

I was failing to sound like you

And I am glad for that failure

Because I sound like me

Inspired by you

To tell the world how I see them

You both have passed on

Just when this party down here was getting good

So now we are left to tell our stories

Without your voice

And twisted reality

2

Tim

Your voice is enough

Your vision is enough

It is souls like you

That keep us from feeling the isolation

From the creeping madness that chants

No one will understand,

Everyone will think you untalented

You are truly insane talking to yourself

We are glad you are finding your voice

As we have found ours

Since we are missing the party below

Write your open letter to us

Save the really juicy stuff

For no one else alive to hear

And save it for those who truly understand

Those yet to be born and those freshly deceased

PS can we send this to our good friends John and Leonard

We have been playing euchre with them

And are waiting for Tom to come

So we can figure out who reads

Your lines better

To reach out to me, email [email protected] I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and lets start that conversation.

• Email: [email protected]

Hello friend, I am Timothy Kimo Brien, head instigator at Create Art Podcast where we help you to tame the inner critic and create more than we consume. Every year in April National Poetry Writing Month occurs, this is a challenge to write 30 poems in 30 days and comes from the NaPoWriMo site. When you participate you are given a prompt every day for 30 days and you can choose to follow the prompt or not. Each prompt has a commentary with it and a style of poetry that you may not be familiar with. I enjoy it because it stretches my creative muscles and helps me organize my thoughts. I also really enjoy a good challenge. There is also an opportunity to read other people's work as they post on their websites and for you to comment on their work, giving them encouragement or offering a suggestion. Care to join me on this journey?

• First, find a song with which you are familiar – it could be a favorite song of yours or one that just evokes memories of your past. Listen to the song and take notes as you do, without overthinking it or worrying about your notes making sense.

Mancave Mansion

Pulling the platter out of its sleeve

My old friend begins his meditation

I move the arm over and nirvana is soon promised

There is no movement

There is no sound

Devastation on a Sunday mornings rest

I being to weep

Is there no justice in the world

Is there nothing to spare me

I look to the side

And see the treasure chest

Full of discarded dreams

Sifting through the wires

And connectors of dead technology

I find the connection that promises resolution

The power flows through these metallic veins

The disc begins to turn

Warm tones flow out of the horns

The meditation begins

Sounds from the outside recede

And I am renewed for another week. 

To reach out to me, email [email protected] I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and lets start that conversation.

• Email: [email protected]

Hello friend, I am Timothy Kimo Brien, head instigator at Create Art Podcast where we help you to tame the inner critic and create more than we consume. Every year in April National Poetry Writing Month occurs, this is a challenge to write 30 poems in 30 days and comes from the NaPoWriMo site. When you participate you are given a prompt every day for 30 days and you can choose to follow the prompt or not. Each prompt has a commentary with it and a style of poetry that you may not be familiar with. I enjoy it because it stretches my creative muscles and helps me organize my thoughts. I also really enjoy a good challenge. There is also an opportunity to read other people's work as they post on their websites and for you to comment on their work, giving them encouragement or offering a suggestion. Care to join me on this journey?

Our (optional) prompt for the day is to write a poem in the form of a “to-do list.” The fun of this prompt is to make it the “to-do list” of an unusual person or character. For example, what’s on the Tooth Fairy’s to-do list? Or on the to-do list of Genghis Khan? Of a housefly? Your list can be a mix of extremely boring things and wild things. For example, maybe Santa Claus needs to order his elves to make 7 million animatronic Baby Yoda dolls, to have his hat dry-cleaned to get off all the soot it picked up last December, and to get his head electrician to change out the sparkplugs on Rudolph’s nose.

Dealer Day Planner

The coffee percolates and sputters

As it fills the carafe

The promise of bitterness permeates the room

As he opens his eyes

The sun is about to rise

But its still too dark

to see much out his window

Turning on the phone

And awaiting the avalanche of messages

To arrive in his inbox

You’d think that if he took a straight job

There would be a rule against

Pilling on the work so early in the day

But then wearing a starched shirt

Designer ties

And an alligator belt

Has never been his style

Eyes still recovering from the dream

That he had to leave

In order to get a jump

On the ever frantic day

Customers are always annoying

With their need to feel like

You owe them something

Just because they have the cash to part with

And you have the supplies they can’t live without

Doesn’t mean you are their man servant

He looks with bleary eyes

Wiping the sand from last nights

Ever present visitor

And stares at the blank pages

Of the nondescript calendar

Figuring out the day of the week

He then focuses on his memory

And the entries are filled

Only visible to him

Never write down a name

A number

Or an amount

The messages flood in

Most marked as urgent

Coming from those who don’t know

How to handle their addictions

And need to find another habit

Dad has the most

His most frantic and wealthiest customer

But it isn’t his Dad

He cut ties with his father years ago

And Dad, well who knows if he actually has a father

But that is the one he needs to reach out to first

So he pours through the 23 messages since midnight

And determines how much product to obtain

The route to take

And what to take for protection

The rest of the messages he prioritizes

Like an analyst receiving end of  fourth quarter reports

For a Fortune 500 global corporation

In an hour he has his deliveries planned

And notes location

Time to transit

And approximate drama level for each customer

Breakfast consists of toast, coffee, eggs and cigarettes

A quick look in the mirror to see if a shave is warranted

Then he dons the uniform

Of looking nondescript

No flash

No labels

No color to attract attention

Dark grey, blue and black all look the same

Three different caps in the car between trips

With no logos will ensure that no one will remember

He is ghosting in public

He is everyone and no one

He reviews his customers requests

And sorts out the product

With a little extra if they want a small party

Or a taste test

That costs extra unless you are a gold card member

The five transit cards loaded up just enough

in the three different wallets

and he sets out ready to deliver

all day and most of the night

Overtime will not be paid

but then he won’t get docked for taking an extra lunch

As he finishes with Dad

Who has just turned narc

The knife slices through the artery

And he dashes through the nearest window

 That remained unlocked

Out onto the street

Today has gone bust

As he ditches the stolen car

For the nearest subway

He noted on his way up to the apartment

The competition didn’t catch him again

But this is not a win

So he heads to the brain trust

To decide who else has turned

Losing out on today’s scores

Will not break the bank

It’s called job hazards

Acceptable losses

And in less than a week

Someone else will take the mantle of Dad

To reach out to me, email [email protected] I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and lets start that conversation.

• Email: [email protected]

Hello friend, I am Timothy Kimo Brien, head instigator at Create Art Podcast where we help you to tame the inner critic and create more than we consume. Every year in April National Poetry Writing Month occurs, this is a challenge to write 30 poems in 30 days and comes from the NaPoWriMo site. When you participate you are given a prompt every day for 30 days and you can choose to follow the prompt or not. Each prompt has a commentary with it and a style of poetry that you may not be familiar with. I enjoy it because it stretches my creative muscles and helps me organize my thoughts. I also really enjoy a good challenge. There is also an opportunity to read other people's work as they post on their websites and for you to comment on their work, giving them encouragement or offering a suggestion. Care to join me on this journey?

And last but not least, our (optional) prompt. I call this one “Return to Spoon River,” after Edgar Lee Masters’ eminently creepy 1915 book Spoon River Anthology. The book consists of well over 100 poetic monologues, each spoken by a person buried in the cemetery of the fictional town of Spoon River, Illinois.

Today, I’d like to challenge you to read a few of the poems from Spoon River Anthology, and then write your own poem in the form of a monologue delivered by someone who is dead. Not a famous person, necessarily – perhaps a remembered acquaintance from your childhood, like the gentleman who ran the shoeshine stand, or one of your grandmother’s bingo buddies. As with Masters’ poems, the monologue doesn’t have to be a recounting of the person’s whole life, but could be a fictional remembering of some important moment, or statement of purpose or philosophy. Be as dramatic as you like – Masters’ certainly didn’t shy away from high emotion in writing his poems.

Sans Detour

We show clearly and strongly how we feel

Sitting in this ship

Amongst the others

Praying for an adventure

Far from the known

Into the arms of Quebec

The days are long

And my minds drifts

As we make our way

Dreams about what is to come

And stories from the crew

Who have made this voyage

Fill me with hope

I scribble in my diary daily

But most days have little to reveal

To my progeny

And I oft times wonder if

They would even view my scratching

My dreams show a multitude

Who look similar to me and my ancestors

Yet they don’t know my name

They don’t know of Louis

The beloved son of Julien and Jeanne

The artist and scribe of the family

Searching the world for more

Adventures to add to the family tale

Our immortality, I fear, dies with me

Hence I left my family

To carry on the name in the new world

The tears of my mother

And the fear

Just under the surface

Of my Papa’s face

Are the last memories

To reach out to me, email [email protected] I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and lets start that conversation.

• Email: [email protected]

Hello friend, I am Timothy Kimo Brien, head instigator at Create Art Podcast where we help you to tame the inner critic and create more than we consume. Every year in April National Poetry Writing Month occurs, this is a challenge to write 30 poems in 30 days and comes from the NaPoWriMo site. When you participate you are given a prompt every day for 30 days and you can choose to follow the prompt or not. Each prompt has a commentary with it and a style of poetry that you may not be familiar with. I enjoy it because it stretches my creative muscles and helps me organize my thoughts. I also really enjoy a good challenge. There is also an opportunity to read other people's work as they post on their websites and for you to comment on their work, giving them encouragement or offering a suggestion. Care to join me on this journey?

And now, for our (optional) prompt! There are many different poetic forms. Some have specific line counts, syllable counts, stresses, rhymes, or a mix-and-match of the above. Of the poetic forms that are based on syllable counts, probably the most well-known – to English speakers, at least – is the Japanese form called the haiku. But there are many other syllable-based forms. Today, I’d like to challenge you to pick from two of them – the shadorma, and the Fib.

The shadorma is a six-line, 26-syllable poem (or a stanza – you can write a poem that is made of multiple shadorma stanzas). The syllable count by line is 3/5/3/3/7/5. So, like the haiku, the lines are relatively short. Rather poetically, the origin of the shadorma is mysterious. I’ve seen multiple online sources call it Spanish – but “shadorma” isn’t a Spanish word (Spanish doesn’t have “sh” as a letter pairing), and neither is “xadorma,” or “jadorma,” which would approximate “shadorma” in sound. But even if this form is simply the brainchild of an internet trickster who gave it an imaginary backstory, that’s no reason why you shouldn’t try your hand at it. Every form was made up by someone, sometime.

Our second syllabic form is much more forthright about its recent origins. Like the shadorma, the Fib is a six-line form. But now, the syllable count is based off the Fibonacci sequence of 1/1/2/3/5/8. You can  link multiple Fibs together into a multi-stanza poem, or even start going backwards after your first six lines, with syllable counts of 8/5/3/2/1/1. Perhaps you remember the Fibonacci sequence from math or science class – or even from nature walks. Lots of things in the natural world hew to the sequence – like pinecones and flower petals. And now your poems can, too.

Waiting 50 Minutes To Be Told What I Know, Wasting 35 Bucks On This

I

Alone

In the room

Waiting on healthcare

The doctor asks why are you here

He has not looked

At the chart

Or my

Past

Sin

I

Start

To speak

At first fast

Then with much anger

He is not the problem I am

I interrupt

The days flow

Listen

To

Me

I

Try

To slow

To match him

To forgive the wait

Why should I be the better man

The disrespectful

Wasted

Time is

Gone

Now

There

Is

Less time

For me to

Conquer the past sin

Ensure my immortality

Exchanging that for

Being a

Mortal

No

No!

I

Go

And face

Life alone

You are not here now

As my pen reaches out to you

We are not one soul

You, not me

Will live

On

Alone

To reach out to me, email [email protected] I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and lets start that conversation.

• Email: [email protected]

Hello friend, I am Timothy Kimo Brien, head instigator at Create Art Podcast where we help you to tame the inner critic and create more than we consume. Every year in April National Poetry Writing Month occurs, this is a challenge to write 30 poems in 30 days and comes from the NaPoWriMo site. When you participate you are given a prompt every day for 30 days and you can choose to follow the prompt or not. Each prompt has a commentary with it and a style of poetry that you may not be familiar with. I enjoy it because it stretches my creative muscles and helps me organize my thoughts. I also really enjoy a good challenge. There is also an opportunity to read other people's work as they post on their websites and for you to comment on their work, giving them encouragement or offering a suggestion. Care to join me on this journey?

Finally, here’s our daily (optional) prompt. Our prompt yesterday asked you to take inspiration from another poem, and today’s continues in the same vein. This prompt, which comes from Holly Lyn Walrath, is pretty simple. As she explains it here:

Go to a book you love. Find a short line that strikes you. Make that line the title of your poem. Write a poem inspired by the line. Then, after you’ve finished, change the title completely.

I encourage you to read Walrath’s full post, which has some other ideas for generating new poems based on pre-existing text.

I used the Tao Te Ching 72nd verse

Hence the sage knows himself but does not display himself, loves himself but does not exalt himself.

Hence the sage knows himself but does not display himself, loves himself but does not exalt himself/ Tao Te Ching verse 72

To know is to love

If it takes a lifetime

To look up from the page

And receive the inspiration

To describe what these eyes have seen

Is that failure

Follow a path

How do you know that the path

Will lead to a desired destination

Will the footsteps imprinted in the freshly fallen snow

Lead to home

Or the jaws of the leopard

Does the feeling of certainty

Come with a written guarantee

Reviewed by lawyers and philosophers

Or is it just a chemical imbalance

That caused visions from the afflicted

And led nations to kneel

A preference of quietude

Acceptance that the ending is unknown

Undetermined

That the accepted good

May just be the most insidious evil

Cloaked in the mindless praises

Of those who wished to be fooled

Of those who must always be on the side of right

Rather than common good

If the utmost wish is to see the wonders of life

Lift up the eyes from behind the page

Put down the pen

Forget waiting on inspiration

Open the eyes and see

The answers are simpler

And visible

Than what the stories of old have told

To reach out to me, email [email protected] I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and lets start that conversation.

• Email: [email protected]

Hello friend, I am Timothy Kimo Brien, head instigator at Create Art Podcast where we help you to tame the inner critic and create more than we consume. Every year in April National Poetry Writing Month occurs, this is a challenge to write 30 poems in 30 days and comes from the NaPoWriMo site. When you participate you are given a prompt every day for 30 days and you can choose to follow the prompt or not. Each prompt has a commentary with it and a style of poetry that you may not be familiar with. I enjoy it because it stretches my creative muscles and helps me organize my thoughts. I also really enjoy a good challenge. There is also an opportunity to read other people's work as they post on their websites and for you to comment on their work, giving them encouragement or offering a suggestion. Care to join me on this journey?

This prompt challenges you to find a poem, and then write a new poem that has the shape of the original, and in which every line starts with the first letter of the corresponding line in the original poem. If I used Roethke’s poem as my model, for example, the first line would start with “I,” the second line with “W,” and the third line with “A.” And I would try to make all my lines neither super-short nor overlong, but have about ten syllables. I would also have my poem take the form of four, seven-line stanzas. I have found this prompt particularly inspiring when I use a base poem that mixes long and short lines, or stanzas of different lengths. Any poem will do as a jumping-off point, but if you’re having trouble finding one, perhaps you might consider Mary Szybist’s “We Think We Do Not Have Medieval Eyes” or for something shorter, Natalie Shapero’s “Pennsylvania.”

The Poem I used was found in Poetry Magazine Feb 2021 issue. It was by Stella Wong "The Hindenburg Mystery". I randomly chose one of the magazines I hadn't read yet them thumbed through the magazine three times and stopped on this poem. I left it up to the universe and the universe always provides what we need when we need it.

The Father I Mean To Be

My example provided me with a photo negative

Because I used to think he didn’t know better

And does this excuse his example

Benefactor of his own abuses

Any time I want to know what not to do

Accessing the memories

Instant recollection provides the answer

Beatings and badgering for bad behavior

Are not what I want to pass on

Accepting my faults and my lack of knowledge

Instituting controls on my anger

Never punish while upset

My offspring will have their own guideposts

Positive exposures

Will lead them to raise their own

Healthier than I have raised them

Beautiful memories is what I wish upon them

From this battered soul

Heaven truly is

A smile on their lips that lasts past my lifetime

Father, why have I had to remove you

Parenting is not a contact sport

Wishing for the perfect family

Always leaves me shivering on the floor

And the day I stopped trying to

Appease you, appeal to you

& started this journey alone, with my family

That is when I broke the cycle

Truly began loving my family

In ways that maybe you wished you could

It would have been great if you were a strong man to have shown the way

To reach out to me, email [email protected] I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and lets start that conversation.

• Email: [email protected]