Poetry 4-18-24

Posted on by sereichert

Today is my daughter’s 14th birthday. She’s been through a lot. She’s still going through it. She’s one of the strongest, smartest, most thoughtful humans I know, and the world has put pressures on her she should have never had to carry. We can’t protect our kids from everything, but we can stand with them in the fire. This one’s for you kiddo.

Bigger

I’m taking you out on the trail today
to see if we both can heal
one step
one stitch
to close the gaping hole
the chasm between our beats

I’m taking you away
from the screams and screens
and all the voices
of a maddening world
always telling you
to be smaller

I’m bringing you into the bigger world
like I brought you in 11 years ago
back to the light and the breath
and the love and the truth
that you never have to lose
to gain

I’m taking you out on the trail
in the early morning hush
You and I
away from a million voices
Screaming we are not enough
whispers to pinch skin
and hollow out our souls
to lose the weight, to be
less, be
smaller, be gone.
disappear.

If we must disappear
then let’s do it together
let us lose ourselves in
dirt tracks
and aspen quakes
and forget the other world
exists

Let’s make it smaller.

I’m taking you out on the trail
to gain back what you have lost
to heal
one step
one stitch
at a time

Do not make yourself small
when the size of your soul
is my whole world.

S.E. Reichert

Poetry 8-24-2023

Posted on by sereichert 
Discovery

I did not find myself
in the bottom of a glass
The burn to numb poison
and all the untethering promises
she made

I did not find myself in 
the narcissistic hearts
parading in poets' clothing
promising ideas of my self-worth
while making me kneel before them

I did not find myself
by losing pounds
or cutting hair
or searing the wrinkles of 
a thousand laughs away

I did not find myself
by giving my love and my years
away to those who only wanted
to own me
collect me, 
objectify and fantasize
who never gave credit to the soul within 
only loved
the pretty, fading paper

I found myself beneath
the starlit sky, high up
in a meadow between mountains
cold and alive
brave and scared
breathing deep as though
it was my first air taken

I found myself in tumbling footfalls
one after another, up and down
careening not controlled
alonside pain
pacing with anxiety
but listening to my own heart
beating out

you can
     you can
         you can

I found myself in the holy land
of pine needles 
and mocking bird cries
silent stage, calm in a chaotic world
and herons in silent coasting flight above me
communing with their soul's solitude
in search of quiet shores

I found myself between pages 
and tattooed in ink
words and ideas and truths 
unknown to any other heart but my own
learning that, 
without meeting requirements first

I am enough
     I am brave
         I deserve love

I found myself in the faces
of women I've raised
to listen to themselves in ways
I am still learning
I found myself in their beautiful complexity
knowing I would never allow them to be hurt
in the ways I have accepted hurt for myself

I am finding myself 
and it has taken a lifetime
I just hope
I can take my heart
and lead her away from the dark

I hope I can find myself 
in time.

Poetry 7-8-2021

Posted on by sereichert

Ladies and Gentleman, I give you an older work of mine for this week, refurbished and reworked. The process of poetry is one of constant motion. If you’re bored (as my children often claim they are in the hot months of summer) I encourage you to find an old work of your own and give it a refresh.

I will only be accepting submissions for a couple more months for The Beautiful Stuff’s 2021 Poetry Anthology. Send me your stuff and we’ll have an awesome little email chat.

Enjoy this little trip up a trail with a broken heart.

Photo by Valeriia Miller on Pexels.com
Exhale

Who knew? 
	(breathe in)
This sickening depth of damage you’d leave?
         (blow it out slow)
The hole so deep and wide
an ache so subtly gnawing
	(don’t forget to breathe again…)

Good riddance, I’d said
	(force air in)
Don’t let the fucking door hit you
        (fake bravado exhale)

I’m better off.

I don’t 
	(Gasp)
Need
        (Pant)
You

I don’t need you…

Air bounces around 
frantically looks for an exit,
erupts from the empty cavern of my chest
bursting its way out of my lungs. 

I don’t need…you
	(ragged breath) 
		
Hold still now.

Listen.

To the sound of hollowness inside,
Was it like this before?

Was my heart always a black hole?
it beats with the scrape of metal on glass,
leaves dry water rings in the bottom of a heat-baked pot.

Where is the air?


Dizzy
     Trees
 	whirl

The rumble of thunder but no relief of rain
The one shoe drop.

Your end of the phone
dead, weighted silence.

Good
	(shiver)

Finally, you’re gone!
	(breathe, damn it)

Finally…
Tears trace down dusty length of my neck

you’re
(Gasp, Gulp, Cough)

Gone.

Darkness drops and nothing but space grows
 	in the garden of a heart once so carefully tended.

I don’t need you.

(exhale)

VerseDay 12-12-19

Posted on by sereichert

Here, in the middle of your busy holiday season, with the obligations and expectations closing in, take pause and have a little poetry break.

 

I am missing

Cried the mountain,

from your blood and from your breath

 

You are sticky in the pavements and

Choked in traffic

You are gut sick with expectation

 

And I am missing from your blood.

 

You are broken backed

And over ran,

Jazzercised and dieted

Into the pale haunting gaunt

That smiles back from checkout line shelves

 

And I am missing from your blood

 

You are sleepless and achy,

Eyes dry from small ideas

And false images, voices raised

Praising the ego unfaltering

 

And I am missing from your blood.

 

Come back and breathe me.

Come back to my silent path,

The truth of dirt.

Of pine needle crunch,

Rock fall tumbles,

beneath your feet which empty out the filth

and transfuse me back into your veins

 

I am missing

Cried the mountain.

Come and find yourself again

VerseDay 6-6-19

Posted on by sereichert

Good evening.

Here’s a little wanderlust inspired snippet to remind you to get outside and notice. There are no small things.

 

 

Fae
How the acrid hamlets of beneath-log worlds beckon

To faerie hordes seeking cheap rent. 

While the construction noise of flicker-rattle interrupts the raven’s sky rage rant,

And fae folk scowl with tinker noses scrunched.

Micha’s golden fish scales, peppering paths,

like midas scattered his trailing tears.

And though foolish told to low-lying men in suits,

Lie they glittering, priceless to me 

and the passing of my staggered step. 

I would wedge my heart beneath the logs, and gladly sublet.

VerseDay 4-25-19

Posted on by sereichert

Mornin’ kids. I hope your Thursday is starting off sweet and slow.

No matter what your plans are or how many ‘to-do’s’ you’ve packed into this day, carve out some time to get outside and find your quiet.

Haze

 

Gray cascades of fogged memory

Blanket the distance

And everything seems so much closer now

Kinetic in wait.

 

The world was never so quiet

Nor so still.

Even as rain needles pierce my neck

And trace frozen rivulets down the valley of my shoulder blades.

More pleasant a day I have not lived.

 

Here in the stillness.

The quiet and uncomfortable

The shivering slip of feet and

Icy hands

Scuffed against granite and lichen

In search for hold.

 

How we’ve come to fear being alone.

How we shy from homegrown reflections,

And shudder at the thought

Of being solitary amid the rain and rock.

 

We don’t even know to mourn

The tremendous loss

of keeping our own company.

 

Perhaps the gray residing in our hearts would be lessened,

The stormy mind;

Hurricane of worry and doubt, would dissipate

If we more often paroled our bodies to the rough beauty of nature

The purity of what is real might bring us back ’round.

Clarity borne from the muddled haze.

IMG_0008

VerseDay

Posted on by sereichert

Despite the urge to limerick you with inappropriate words that rhyme with Enis, I’ll attempt to reach for something more high brow… Enjoy!

 

The Heart

 

I spring up from the heart of a wooded path.

The smell of pine needles breaking down, and the crackle of acrid leaves

Feed my roots

The heat rising from Earth, through dirt and granite.

The brush of seeded grasses,

Passing along their generations to my body as I stride on.

The scratch of bark,

The quiet bending of grass

The warning cry of finch and chickadee,

Telling me in no uncertain terms

That I don’t belong.