Poetry 4-10-2025

Posted on by sereichert 
The Other Half Lives

She breaks the silence
with the crack of a match strike
instant whirl of smoke
and snap
open jumps the flame

She’s Magic on dark nights
when I need reprieve
from myself
when I yearn
to slip into someone
else’s skin and be
the one my parents
warned me about

The kind who lives truth
through match strikes
and bared teeth and
hard, dirty alleys
rough brick scraping
backs of thighs
and halting breath
that never begs

Unleashed from boredom
She carries the burning ember of strife
at the end of her cigarette and
coaxes the glowing cinder with
deep inhalations
Blowing out sinuous tails
through lips
split by love

Back again for more?
Quirked eyebrow, pierced and dauntless

yes, again
pray unbroken lips
with underground currents
of tightly wound desire.

S.E. Reichert

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 2-20-25

Posted on by sereichert

I’ve been participating in my own little poetry month challenge in an effort to get back into the swing of the art. For one, it’s a managable way for me to be able to write something every day, even in the chaos of my to do list. For two, I think it’s been very cathartic in helping me work through some of the things landing in my life (and all of our lives right now). The rage inside me finds a place on the page so I can clear a more rational path. The sadness gets to have its moment too, so I can move past the emotion and focus on how best to use my empathy. You don’t have to be good at it to write poetry. You just have to write it.

Photo by aj povey on Pexels.com
Daylight

Poems written by daylight
are hopeful, funny creatures
not yet domesticated by the world
shackled by the weight of 
unbearable odds

Poems written in the high-sun hours
are words through clear eyes
not yet burning with the fire of 
thousands of thoughts, words read,
millions of stitches placed across the
wound of our burning, tumultuous world

Poems written when I've still got time in the day
are different
I haven't properly fucked anything up
yet
there is still hope that I may not
I'm a glowing human goddess
for whom possibilities still exist

Poems written by daylight
seem hopeful and clear
unweighted and resilient
but they are 
not me
not in total
It is the reticent dark, the weary and
mistake-riddled soul
sitting in the deep weighted night,
still choosing to pick up the pen 
who is truly
the poet.

Poetry 1-23-2025

Posted on by sereichert

It’s a tumultuous time. An era where its hard to trust information, its hard to have privacy, and its even harder to envision a world where we can be a functioning community again. These are the days that try good hearts. You are not alone. We are all in some phase of struggle. We are all clawing our way up. I love you. I see you. Do what you can, to be kind to yourself and others today. Don’t give up. 

Love Me Enough

I've tried to breathe it away
this constant ache 
a hunger, not satiated

I've tried to busy it away
with lists 
and checked boxes

I've tried running it away
until my knees were torn
and my vertebra grew together

I've tried laughing it away
your darkest friend
is always the most funny

I've tried writing it away
harsh words and compassionate pages
like arms to enfold, or choke

I've tried drinking it away,
until all I lost were words
and years with my children

I've tried cutting it away
sharp stings and
barely hidden red bracelets

hoping someone would notice
but even when they did
no one loved me enough to stop me

I'm trying to love me enough to stop me
I'm trying, this time
to love it away

And I'm learning
that means
feeding myself on breath
sitting through it in stillness
running headlong into the fire
allowing the storm to laugh through me
and writing only the truth
watering my brain like a garden
holding my body close like a child
Soothing the scars and 
loving the woman who survived long enough
to stand in love now

Poetry 12-26-2024

Posted on by sereichert

This is my last post of 2024. I’m not sure what this new year will bring, or how much strife and struggle will be faced. I am reminding myself to find hope. In the kindness of my own heart as well as the goodness of other people I know. I hope you are getting some reflective time this week, to think about the year ahead, the things you need to prioritize and the things you are ready to let go of. I hope you are resting up for the fight to come.

Here’s a poem that was inspired by one of my favorite humans. Thank you Mary Oliver, for all the gracious insight into this wild and weird ride of life. 

Built to Survive

And oh how it pains me,
this disastrous cause
so far removed from the fresh, cold fields
and the dying gray-pink
of November dusk

I am caught in the trappings 
of an ever-present demand
create, create, create
sell, and buy, and break the book's spine
over the truncated timeline,
more concerned for a deadline
than the beautiful present view
before my own dead line

We do not see the muskrat 
in this way go
He does not build with wet, cold reeds
and fallen branches
to impress the critic

He builds to survive
He creates to have warm shelter
from the uncertain storms of life
He does what he does, because he knows 
no other way

How it pains me
this rushing through my words 
and upheaval of capricious page numbers 
flipping and fighting and settling 
for the shallow pond,
when my heart is an ocean
and this art is my shelter
its honesty, my survival
the only trueness left
in the short and tiresome struggle
of this one wild life.

Poetry 12-12-24

Posted on by sereichert 
In Quiet
 
Snow buries the sound
of footsteps and breath
all softness of touch
and heavy with forgiveness.
 
A blanket of repose,
to cover the spoiled ground,
wiping clean this slate,
to a world of potential and rest
 
Waiting.
Patient.

Not asking to be changed,
a pristine shroud to remind us
that some things are best left,
untouched.

Poetry 11-21-24

Posted on by sereichert

October was a wonderful month and I’m actually working towards keeping up my ‘poem-a-day’ even when it turns into more of a journal entry. Sometimes writing is not just one thing, and the poetry of the everyday counts just the same. Sometimes its the way we work through past hurts, even when they aren’t really a part of our present anymore. Sometimes the lines of verse are tiny cuts to the lines that hold us to those things not meant for us. The heart is a wild and rampant beast sometimes and we all deal with the fallout of her decisions differently. Hopefully we learn something new, each time.

Untitled

I’ve written so many lines about you
tracked tears under every constellation 
ached under the flowering trees
and sweated out remorse under July skies

I’ve worried for you,
rued you
let the storms of winter freeze 
any embers I thought remained

Still they simmer past
all reason, reemerging in my heart
where not even a desire to live resides

You were the fall of my empire
and yet I still find you in the rubbled remains 
the inconsistent wound
that does not ever, ever heal.

It is heart deep and tragic and
I never know what to do
when it opens
again, and again
and again...

Do I press fluttering hands to it
failure to staunch the bleeding in my own weakened state?
Numb the pain with earthly asides?
Embrace it and lick at the blood,
ravenous for even the slightest taste of your attention?

If I have changed in these many years
then I know you have too
So how can I still claim to burn
for a specter who is no longer 
the same that haunts my mind's halls?

How can my same old heart
have not grown along with
this hardened shell
and deepening wrinkles?
How has my tough hide not
pushed out the sliver of you
buried in my irate skin?

How can you still pull at my insides?
It is an irrational and hungry storm
and I am weary of trying to tie my lines against it

I guess after millions of years
the moon still pulls the sea
and no one begs to wonder why.

Poetry 10-24-24

Posted on by sereichert

I’ve been attempting the challenge of writing a poem every day in October. They’re not all amazing, but some of them land in places I didn’t even know I had.

Birdhouse

I put a birdhouse up, next to my window
I like to watch the lithe lightness of their bodies
Bright colors and whisper bones
Harbingers of Spring, 
Survivors of Winter
sharp-beaked truth sayers
forever in love with the dawn
I like to watch them,
hop and flutter in tree branches and 
shadowed gardens
such a pure, simple existence
I wanted to give them a home

But none have come to nest
and I am wondering now,
if it isn't my fault
maybe I am too much heavy dark
and granite bones
I am the decay of Fall
cold graves beneath snow,
soft lips full of lies to myself
and the ones I love
forever lost in some night

Perhaps I am 
a treacherous black hole 
that they cannot call neighbor
Still I will wait

Perhaps even dread
longs for hope.

Poetry 9-26-2024

Posted on by sereichert

Y’all, I’m busier than a one-legged lady in an ass kickin’ contest. So, here’s a little rerun. Because, lord knows the Heart is a Terrible driver sometimes. But we still let her take the wheel. After all, what is life for but to be messy and in love?

The Heart is A Terrible Driver

I am the owner of a body in the trunk
the forgotten musty trunk
in recesses of my memory
muffled and tied up
speechless to the ways my heart fell

Hearts do what they do
and mine
she is so big
so eloquent a speaker
so deviously soft and swaying…

she convinced me that
she was the only one
who could drive the beast of me
through life, and it would all
work out

while my brain
sat in the back seat,
shaking her head and looking at me
in the rearview mirror
mouthing the words

You know better
Your gonna hate yourself for letting her drive

Brain was right
Heart took us off a fucking cliff
the first chance she got
giggling with the thrill
the free fall of Love
drunk on its chemical cocktail

all the way down
Brain stayed silent,
arms crossed over her chest
as if to say

nothing I tell you will matter anyway
We were already over your head
the minute you gave her the keys

the carnage at the base of the canyon
was ruinous
the destruction,
complete
Heart took the hardest hit
split down the middle in two ragged
pieces of desiccated meat
devoid of reason, or rhythm

Head pulled her from the car, drug her through
the sharp pebbles and burning metal
shook with disappointment and
carried her to a lesser used path
and I followed complacently
my own wounds stinging

Brain barely spoke,
in all of those tender months-turned-years
up from rock bottom
winding on trails
of drunken malestorms
and pious sobriety
We are a heavy load

Heart sometimes regains consciousness
and clings to the brush, on the side of the trail
striking out with bloody, broken hands
against the pull
trying always trying to get back
to the wreckage
to somehow make it all work out
make that car and joyous ride
run again

Brain cuffs her, hard
Sometimes it’s just easier to knock her out
and keep her from making any decisions
then to try and reason
with her stitched up pieces

from here on out,
my heart must remain bound and gagged,
the body in the trunk

we won’t survive another crash like that

Just For Today…

Posted on by sereichert

Hello writers, readers, and fellow stardust-filled meat suits,

This is a friendly and short reminder that this is the only day you have.

Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow is not promised. Today is what we get. This day, this hour, this minute, this breath. I hope you are up, ready to face it with a sense of calm purpose. What will you do today?

Not sure where to start? Here’s how I do:

  • Move your body: Go for a walk, do a little yoga, take a run or a bike ride, lift something heavy, find the quiet repetition of a lap pool, beat the hell out of a boxing bag. Whatever the motion, be grateful for the body you’ve been given and love it.
  • Write something. Anything. A grocery list, 2000 words on your next novel, a poem, an essay, a letter to your mom…a lunch box note. Put hand to paper (or keys) and share a bit of your soul out into the world.
  • Read something. Take in a few new ideas, challenge your knowledge, tease your curiosity. Learn something new, then sit for a minute and think about that something new. Can you related it to something you knew or thought before.
  • Breathe. Slowly. In and out. Do nothing but breathe, for at least three breaths, at least three times a day.
  • Eat good food. Whatever that means for you. I’m not talking latest diet fads or what you ‘should’ eat. But what’s good to you, your soul, your happiness, and your sense of fulfillment. If its green and leafy all the better, if its all crunch and salt, so be it. But let it bring you joy.
  • Devote time to your purpose. Maybe that’s writing. So sit down and write. Maybe that’s your current job, buckle down and find gratitude in the work. Maybe that’s taking care of someone else, find fulfillment in that. But give focused time to your passion, and your goals.
  • Do one thing…anything, not for yourself. Help a neighbor, take a grocery cart back, help a coworker with a project, give a ‘yes’ to something that lightens the load of another. Send a note, donate to charity, drop off food at the food bank, hold the damn door, offer a compliment. Say thank you and please. It really takes so little to be kind. So do that. In any way, big or small, that you can.
  • Rest. Maybe it’s a moment to stare off into space, or to do a puzzle, or to lay down with your snoring dog for twenty minutes. But rest. We’re not machines and its in those quiet times that our brain processes all the stuff we’re doing.
  • Tell someone you love them, or appreciate them, are rooting for them, or that they are important to you. Whatever and to whomever…tell them now. This is your only day.
  • Spend time with the people and places you love the most. At least a little time. Be present with them. Make a memory. Make it count. Make them laugh.
  • Laugh. The greatest punchline to human existence is that, despite all of our struggling, our toiling and effort, none of it really matters. We are an absurd little glitch in a vast and uncaring, infinite universe. We are ridiculous and short-lived, so find humor in all that you can. Because laughter is a bit of a middle finger to the whole pointless play, and at least by laughing, you’re enjoying the flash-in-pan ride.
  • Love. You can chose a lot of things in life. You can choose to get ahead, you can choose to keep it simple, you can choose to pull back or spring forward, you can make choices for your life and your goals. You can choose to hate someone and extend that. You can choose to love. It is our greatest power and our greatest folly that we get to choose how we radiate into the world. I ask that you choose love. Love your fellow humans. Love your planet and your world. Extend grace. Live compassionately as though that was an unending resource (it is). Forgive. Let go. This is your only day, so just for today, choose to love.

Try the list, then go to bed. And then…when and if (and I hope it’s when and not if) you wake up in the morning, be excited and ready because you get to do it all over again. Just for today.