Poetry and Poetic Books

Posted on by sereichert

I’m going to drive ya’ll nuts, but there’s a link below, if you’re interested in buying my latest book; “No Words After I Love You”.

This stand alone novel is a journey through grief, friendship, creativity and love. It’s about how the heart heals, (or doesn’t) and all the ways humans punish themselves in an effort to be ‘strong’. It’s about deep-seated friends, the kind you’d answer the phone for, even if you don’t answer the phone. It’s about choosing your own family, and learning how to let go the wounds from the real one. Its about trying not to fall in love, even when your heart is already decided. It’s about soup, and rain on dirt roads, its about knowing how they take their coffee and a campaign for bushier, wilder eyebrows. It’s about denouncing god and still finding divinity. Check it out: BUY NO WORDS AFTER I LOVE YOU

And now, a short poem:

Daredevil

My heart does all her own stunts
Never one to sit back from the danger
or sip Rosé while someone else 
takes the fall

Oh no, she's always been 
all in

She sees the perilous ledge
the death defying leap
the broken bone canyon 
and nods with bravado
flicks her Marlborough into the abyss
exhales the clouds of calm
and dives in

My heart does all her own stunts
but the scars are starting to show
and the puckered skin 
and toughened hide
cannot beat as strongly
as her younger self once did
The bullets she's taken, stab wounds
and excisions
the irreparable losses that linger
in phantom limb syndrome
beat ragged and untimed

My heart does all her own stunts
but I cannot convince her to stop

Poetry 3-13-25

Posted on by sereichert 
HEART

She is a bore
and a lofty braggart
claiming forever
but following the newest smell 
away from her leash

She is tender and full
a bag tensed, to burst
at the slightest slight
heavy with blood and the suffering of want

She is the doorway
to a thousand churches
and the carnal sacrilege 
of all good, and wild things

She is latin
for courageous
and holds my breath and my breathlessness
in space between her beats

She is a pauper
always begging 
and a selfless saint
giving away all of her compassion in bills
like she could not take it with her

She dances in the kitchen
with a baby on her hip
even when that baby is 
long, gone
grown

She lights up like Christmas
and echoes in dark gothic hallways

She shudders and trips
beats steady and sound
she's the only one I can ever claim
is mine
And yet, so often
I still think her, 
a stranger
in my chest

We couldn't live without each other.
I hope
whatever the next life brings
I can take her with me.

Poetry 4-23-24

Posted on by sereichert

This is the last week of April, and so I offer a “still has that new smell” poem, straight out of the journal (so please forgive if I haven’t reworked it much). If you’ve enjoyed this month, if you’ve gotten out of your comfort zone and explored poetry, I encourage you to keep reading. Poetry is the boiled down essence of awareness and presence in the moment. It’s a straight line to another person’s soul and perspective and if the world needs more of anything these days, its building up compassion and connection between humans and fostering our common humanity. Enjoy this little off-shoot of one of my favorite songs. Its always good to have a conversation with the beating of your heart. The punctuation is intentional. I hope you can feel yours beating too.

Photo by Nothing Ahead on Pexels.com
Conversations with My Old Heart

Hello, 
my old heart.
I'd nearly forgotten that you still lived
in this tattered cage of me

until you jolted awake
with such ferocity
that I was stunned to attention,
in the death of night

. . / . . / . . / . . / . . /. . . . . . . . .

Who put a kicking prisoner beside my lungs?
Why does he fight against his cage so?

Is it because I've ignored you?
Silenced you
reprimanded you
cuffed you 
when you spoke out in knowing beats
against the electrical reasoning
of neurons and logic?

Is it because,
this time it matters?

You're quieter now

I put my hand on top of you
and feel you push against my palm
fighting . . steady . .

pay . . attention . .
or you'll miss it.

You'll 
miss
it
all . . / . . /

What am I missing?

Your . . One . . Wild . . 
and . . Beautiful . .  life . . /

There you are,
my old heart
I'm sorry I locked you away 
for so long

Why? Why did you? . . 

Because I was afraid.

Of me? . . 

Of letting you lead.
Who knows where I might have ended up?

who . . knows . . who . . knows . . 
who . . knows . . who . . knows . .

Poetry 3-16-2023

Posted on by sereichert

This heart of mine

is far too heavy to hold

Photo by Isabella Mariana on Pexels.com

and I am tired of its weight

and the endless rain

of clouds thundering within

This heart of mine

a broken war-torn city

heaps of concrete rubble

spikes of iron that used to

hold its structure

now reach bare boned to the sky

impaling anyone who falls.

This heart of mine

an open wounded pit

and the dead buried in mass

heaped within, like layers of time

one on top of another, and another

the stench of death and sorrow

rising to the surface of my throat

This heart of mine

a constant reminder

of all the ways I’ve failed

or hurt, or burdened,

become the ruination of others

shouldered its flagrant disrespect of love

and let it scar my skin

This heart of mine

tear it out, someone please

it is useless and cancerous

a mutinous organ

that clouds my reason

and seeks to destroy

myself…others…

This heart of mine

has no place in a good world.

VerseDay 7-18-19

Posted on by sereichert

Last night was my last class, officially, teaching at the karate school I’ve been at for nearly five years. It is a necessary step that had to happen for the health of my heart and mind. I’ll be taking the next month completely out of that world to reset my perspective and see where my love and energy really belongs. Perhaps I will return, refreshed. Perhaps the universe has other plans for me.

This is the way of the orbiting dance of life.

Even when a move feels like the right one to take, it can be difficult. What we leave behind can often open up holes of melancholy and bittersweet sadness in our chest.

So this is for you; those who are leaving, those who’ve been left. If you are in one of the hundreds of delicate transitions that come with the years of breathing, take heart.

And leave heart.

 

UnDeparted

 

I leave behind pieces of myself

In every heart that I have loved.

So that I may live a thousand different lives

And share their journey in a million different moments.

I spread toes in broken sand

and sing with the breath of black loam forests.

Blaze in pursuit of sunsets and stretch,

reborn to every dawn 

 

I leave behind pieces of myself

So that every pulse

in every heart of my heart

Is a star in the sky,

An adventure, 

An eternity

 

I leave behind pieces of myself

In every heart that I have loved

So that I may touch the world with their hands

See the world through their eyes,

Beg them lay still when they need rest

And filter and fiber their blood as they race

down dusty borders of earth and sky

I aid the fire and fever as they fall to love

and mend softly the wounds suffered there after 

 

I leave behind pieces of myself,

In every heart I have loved

So that I may live a thousand lives

Be born and grow old,

Laugh out joy

Cry through despair

 

So if I am far away from you now, 

By streets or by stars.

Know that I am not gone.

I am stitched into your heart

A patch of peace, when the weary world shouts too loud

If out of sight, I am yet undeparted 

I’ve left a piece of myself

In your heart.

 

 

 

Turning Point

Posted on by sereichert

No one likes to be rejected. Well, I can’t generalize, maybe there are those that get a kick out of it. Maybe for some, it serves as a driving force to continue with even more fervor. Maybe they’ve never had a problem with self-esteem or feelings of inadequacy.

I’m not one of those people.

My rational brain knows that there’s nothing personal meant. My rational brain knows that it’s just one opinion in a sea of possibilities. But day after day, letter after letter, even the most devoted to their art have to ask…did I miss my calling as a waitress?

Or a forensic anthropologist, or an archaeologist, or a pilot, or a teacher, or an EMT, or…ANY other job that doesn’t require me to put my heart in the hands of someone else to be judged and weighed to justify doing what I love?

Wouldn’t it be nice to just go into a nine-to-five, perform some task that doesn’t have to have any of my heart in it, go home, and get a paycheck and possibly health insurance if I’m lucky?

Writers…man, we’re a strange breed.

Rising in the dark early hours, still up at dark late hours, scribbling on napkins and notebooks. Our mental faculties always distracted to some degree by the dialogue in our heads. We write, we pour out, we mull over, and edit, and form, and shape, and create. We fester and brood. And when it looks, to our over-thinking eye, that it might be something worth sharing we throw it out into a world that’s saturated with thousands of other ideas worth sharing.

And we wait. And we hope. And we fester some more.

So it should be a relief when we get the rejection…the thirtieth or first, because now we know. And It’s better to know.

Isn’t it?

So you can go back to the drawing board and change your heart all over again. Mold it into something someone wants to read…make it something that’s acceptable.

Sometimes, you do everything they ask and find you hardly recognize your own voice afterwards.

So one has to wonder; if we take our hearts and cut them to fit the trend of the market, how much of us are we really offering to the world? And is it worth selling out to get our name on the front cover? And what makes that any different than a nine-to-five, heartless job with dental?

Except there’s no dental…

So much time, effort, and tears spent trying to tell the world a story, or explain the feelings of our hearts only to be told it isn’t enough. That if we change our story, that if we change our hearts we might be able to garner a $2.50 royalty someday.

Sounds like madness to me.

Sounds like unchecked mental disease.

At some point, don’t we have to admit, that maybe, our thoughts, our stories, are just not good enough, and maybe it would be less painful to just stop trying.

After all, life’s plenty painful enough on its own.

VerseDay 1-31-19

Posted on by sereichert

The last day of the month of new beginnings.

How goes it in your world? Did you evoke change? Did you come to terms with what you are and are not?

Big questions. I blame the sinus meds.

Enjoy a little verse, carry it with you today as you head into the next month of possibility.

 

Bricks and Stitches

 

The cocoon of pleasantries

A trap of sorts,

to keep at bay the dark undercurrent of 

what this heart aches to shout.

I lay, brick by brick,

this wall…this shelter

to keep the storm inside.

Pin the chaos down, 

safely tuck it away,

guard what is true, in its own alluring ugliness.

I’ll bluff the hell out of this hand

of clubs and hearts,

and keep it close to my chest.

Though it flutters against my throat,

a tickle of cough, a threat of reveal.

The magician’s trick 

exposed and flooding secrets over the sharp edges,

like an infected wound held too long with faulty stitches.

less magic,

and more disease simmering.

I try to hold it all inside,

by bricks or stitches, magic and pins

keeping it to myself,

so only my heart suffers the weight.