As Life Unfolds

Life unfolds,

Until we are old,

Even after however it unfolds differently.

Sometimes more drastic or less.

Life always holds,The attention of the fortold.

#BENOTEWORTHY

#piccadillyinc

Looking at My Father

Wendy Xu

It’s the inside which comes out, as I contemplate

him there half in sunlight, weeding diligently

a Midwestern lawn. On my persons, I have only notes

and a drying pen, the memory of onion blossoms

scenting in a window. Reflection is my native medium.

I am never arriving, only speaking briefly on material

conditions between myself and others. My country

inoculates me lovingly, over time. My country grasps me

like desire. I will show you my credentials, which is to say

my vivid description, if you ask. Here we are, my father

and I, never hostile, a small offering: pointless cut flowers

appear on the kitchen table when one finally arrives

into disposable income. Still possible. Am I living? Do I

accept revision as my godhead and savior?

I do and I am, and in the name of my Chinese father now

dragging the tools back inside, brow shining but always

a grin, faithless except to protect whatever I still have time

to become, Amen.

Copyright © 2017

NGRI

  

By P. Francis

And the cradle rocks underneath the tendril cobweb

A prenatal breath blowing a blood scab in the ebb

Wooden bars rot, a stained velure crib on a floor

Diseased, wroth rats eating spore ergot in the foyer

Cracked glass is strewn on the dank termite planks

As a mother-in-waiting gave thanks to oxygen tanks

Where window crosspieces rust away in the wind

Glare of specious dust debris recites forgot sins

Down halls, light hides and courts a dark armoire

As debrided dolls cry morts, scarred and charred

No screams carry through the trees of slit wrists

As the asylum whispers in the dusk a nice tryst

Suns rise and shine in the cycles of winter frosts

Whether an asylum or clinic draped in black moss

If nobody's seen alive with babies who maybe died

There's no remorse in a ward or morgue gutted inside

Who screams louder, doctors or uncounted thralls

If no one breathes within the red, bleeding walls?

Paint chips float on through the blue womb rooms

While the pin light hides gone eidolons in tombs

Chairs missing legs crumble into whittled pegs

As outlines of dregs fade in the putrid old beds

Weeping deep at the corridor's dank, blank end

Fillies spank the pretend headless doll friends

Fangs of the shrews sharpened like razors in twos

Guarding the black staircase to the basement and loos

Love and sometimes hate spurned a late night date

As some bane aides and profane insane became mates

Nurses surrounded in gowns down in the jail cells

A gestating, waiting lady and baby to quell

Knives and scalpels raise in swift slicing cadence

Ceilings pouring purple drippings of the decedents'

Then comes a drumbeat drip, from the rafters, to bowel

As the death knells of the dispelled whewl and howl

Dirt and rain water pool in a quagmire of fools

In the flooded sick bay of a failed medical school

Revenants soak in the silty filth, loving the blood bath

No reprieve or ever to leave an asylum's shrieve wrath

Happy Halloween!

Nature first Green

"Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay."

-Robert Frost

BLACK POETRY DAY

 "On October 17, Black Poetry Day celebrates the powerful voices, past and present, that have shaped and enriched the American cultural landscape."https://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/national-day/black-poetry-day-october-17?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=15307967&hashed_email=6c23328441e0f46865e8039a24ce7ccf8880f2d7&email=yeremiah%40aol.com

Life

Life can seem ungrateful and not always kind.  Life can pull at your heartstrings and play with your mind.  

Life can be blissful and happy and free. 

Life can put beauty in the things that you see.

Life can place challenges right at your feet.  

Life can make good of the hardships we meet. 

Life can overwhelm you and make your head spin.  

Life can reward those determined to win. 

Life can be hurtful and not always fair.  

Life can surround you with people who care.  

Life clearly does offer its ups and its downs.  

Life can bring you both smiles and frowns. 

Life teaches us to take the good with the bad.  

Life is a mixture of happy and sad.  

SO...Take the life that you have and give it your best.  

Think positive be happy, let God do the rest.  

Take the challenges that life has laid at your feet.  

Take pride and be thankful for each one you meet. 

To yourself give forgiveness, if you stumble and fall.  

Take each day that is dealt you and give it your all..  

Take the love that you're given and return it with care.  

Have faith that when needed it will always be there.

Take time to find the beauty in the things that you see.  

Take life's simple pleasures, let them set your heart free.  

The idea here is simply to even the score.  

As you are met and faced with Life's Tug of War.

https://www.ba-bamail.com/spirituality/these-words-are-all-you-need-to-face-life/

Caged Bird

The caged bird sings

with a fearful trill

of things unknown

but longed for still

and his tune is heard

on the distant hillf

or the caged birdsings of freedom.

Maya Angelou

RANDOM ACTS OF POETRY DAY

"Imagine turning a corner on your daily walk and finding a haiku chalked on the sidewalk, or discovering a short verse tucked into a library book."https://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/national-day/random-acts-of-poetry-day-first-wednesday-of-october?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=15115120&hashed_email=6c23328441e0f46865e8039a24ce7ccf8880f2d7&email=yeremiah%40aol.com

Winter

Jorge Galán

translated from the Spanish by Janet Hendrickson

That year, we knew the sky existed because we believed in the storm, but we never saw the sky.

Shut in from morning until night, we couldn’t stop talking about what we’d do after. 

The sea hanging from our tongues. Extinct horses went up and down the hills we claimed to know.

After a while, the wind changed, it went from west to east and didn’t stop, the street filled with rooks and wild dogs, and the light became a cliff at day’s end.

And we were each afraid, afraid of the noise of the neighbors  and the absence of noise, of the huge tail of the rat descending from the roof, of the fighting of the rooks outsideafraid of the children’s insistent question, which was always the same, and afraid of memory, since we had started to confuse the old days with what we imagined lie ahead and soon, we no longer knew whether life was just a wish.

We lived a day that went beyond its limits like a train longer than the city where it stops.

That year, we survived for seven hundred days. 

Thousands of hours of cold for a single night.

Hope is the thing with feathers (254)

Emily Dickinson

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

Love that travels

A love that goes beyond the oceans,

Across the seas,

That's what you have with me.

#BeNoteWorthy 

#piccadillyinc 

Art

Takes heart,

From the start

To put your ideas,

Go with them,

You have to start trusting them,

And yes, yes, you are exceptional for having them.

#BENOTEWORTHY

#piccadillyinc

Always believe

Always believe in the impossibe and nothing can stand in your way.

Always believe in the impossible and you can achieve whatever you put your mind to.

Always beleive the impossible and miracles shall astound you.

#BeNoteWorthy

#piccadillyinc

Poems through the Ages

"The world of poetry has been developing for centuries, and some of the greatest poems around have the ability to fill us with joy, hope, wonder, or even despair."

https://www.ba-bamail.com/art/5-of-the-greatest-poems-ever-written/

Your Passions

Your passions grow as you grow,

Your passions get more intense as you grow,

Your passion lead you down many great paths.

The trouble is choosing which path to partake.

Is there only one course for each life?

#BENOTEWORTHY

#piccadillyinc

A Celtic Twilight

Moonlight washed itself up to the shimmering shore,

Silver woven into the magic of night’s approaching farewell.

The Druid stood alone in the shallow, shadowy dunes,

His breath slowing for the incantation of an ancient spell. With hands outstretched he closed his eyes, the evocation began.

Mist descended, the Earth heard his low voice beckon.

Ghostly tendrils rose from the soft green land,Weaving themselves with the very sea and air to become one. His words “For hope or death” entwining with the dancing waves.

Above the stars began to hear a waking sunrise serenade.

“I’ll see the dawn as corpse or king” he whispered,

“Tell all, you Faeries wearing capes of jade.” The misty sands listened in their cold silence,

In time a soft rolling came upon the gloom, soon a figure walked.There were neither eyes nor face to see,It’s hood the shadow of a darkened hawk. The risen Faerie moved as smooth as glass,

No footprints left to see,

And as the sky began to grow,

Approached toward the wizard he. Its voice a drifted leaf upon the air,

Gone past before you even hear.

Such Elvin folk have never need to shout,

Their skill alone is what brings all to fear. “You ask us to begift the powerful crown”“To place upon your undeserving head”

“What treasure will you give to us for this”“Speak well, or soon your dance is with the dead” The Druid’s garb now showed its crimson hue,

As sunlight almost spilled. “I’ll pay with blood of course” said he,“Whoever you wish killed”. No movement was there on those spoken words,

To show if heard as soft or hard,

But the air stayed taut and sharp with thought,

As the floating offer slowly sank its barbs. “So you would take a life, at this Faerie’s whim?”Came a hissed reply to chill the spine.“

Why would the choice that I make be less damned,

Than any made by wickedness unkind?” 

The Druid bowed his head at this, and solemnly spoke back,“

I am already damned, but would do some good before I die,

if you will say a name it will be done,To rid the world of one you know who only has an evil eye.” 

The two stood still as stone, unblinking in stare,

And as the sun burst bright upon the sand,A river passed between them both,The Elvin cloak now lifted with both hands. The Druid dared to look upon this face,

The horror of it draining him to gaunt,For the face was his in ancient form,It was in fact himself come back to haunt. The Elvin figure spoke as if amongst the clouds,

“I made this same mistake so long ago,Though barely can remember why I cared,

But every year return here from below” 

A scrawny hand grasped hard the Druid’s arm,

As sparks lit up the East with filling morn,

And soon there was now only one stood there,

With empty footprints looking much forlorn. So kings and crowns must wait another day,

for Elvin Faeries always have their thoughtful, final say.

Walt Whitman

"Few poets have had such lasting impact as Walt Whitman."https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/70243/walt-whitman-101?utm_source=join1440&user_id=66c4c92f5d78644b3ac5d5b4

Guiding Light

Guiding light shine your light upon thee,

Guiding light for us all to see.

Guiding light, oh guidiing light.

You are so great for all who you shine on.

#BENOTEWORTHY

#piccadillyinc

You shouldn't be Afraid.

Always be brave.

For you never know what the future holds.

Life is miraculous,

In all the events you choose.

You should always be cautious but not fearful. 

The future is unwritten.

#BENOTEWORTHY#piccadillyinc

NATIONAL LIMERICK DAY

"Observed annually on May 12th, National Limerick Day celebrates the birthday of English artist, illustrator, author, and poet Edward Lear (May 12, 1812 – Jan. 29, 1888)."https://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/national-day/national-limerick-day-may-12?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=13464701&hashed_email=6c23328441e0f46865e8039a24ce7ccf8880f2d7&email=yeremiah%40aol.com

NATIONAL GREAT POETRY READING DAY

"At the tail end of National Poetry Month, April 28th marks the observance of National Great Poetry Reading Day."https://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/national-day/national-great-poetry-reading-day-april-28?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=13258306&hashed_email=6c23328441e0f46865e8039a24ce7ccf8880f2d7&email=yeremiah%40aol.com

Easter

Fannie Isabelle Sherrick    

Let all the flowers wake to life;  

Let all the songsters sing;

Let everything that lives on earth  Become a joyous thing.    

Wake up, thou pansy, purple-eyed,  And greet the dewy spring;

Swell out, ye buds, and o’er the earth  Thy sweetest fragrance fling.    

Why dost thou sleep, sweet violet?  The earth has need of thee;

Wake up and catch the melody  That sounds from sea to sea.    

Ye stars, that dwell in noonday skies,  Shine on, though all unseen;

The great White Throne lies just beyond,  

The stars are all between.    

Ring out, ye bells, sweet Easter bells,  And ring the glory in;

Ring out the sorrow, born of earth—  Ring out the stains of sin.    

O banners wide, that sweep the sky,  Unfurl ye to the sun;

And gently wave about the graves  Of those whose lives are done.    

Let peace be in the hearts that mourn—  

Let “Rest” be in the grave;

The Hand that swept these lives away  Hath power alone to save.

Ring out, ye bells, sweet Easter bells,  And ring the glory in;

Ring out the sorrow, born of earth—  Ring out the stains of sin.

Downtown Oakland Poem

Barbara Jane Reyes

We wait for the light here, at 14th and Broadway,

Here, we hand passers-by silk ribboned poems,

We staple them to our neighborhood bulletin board,

We paste them to lampposts. And here, we fold poems

Into parking lots, under each windshield wiper blade,

We tape them up in the Ruby Room bathroom stalls.

Here, we hand letter haiku on Dubs colored confetti,

Weave them with daisies into vacant lot chain fences,

Slip them into glossy envelopes, and drop them

Into the mail slots of whole blocks downtown.

Here, 8th and Webster bullhorns and firecracker fists

Here, spray paint odes for boarded up storefronts,

And here, baybayin in balisong carved verses

For oaks lakeshore. Here, we set paper boat songs

Alongside egrets and geese, to float slow to the bay,

Westward paper airplane and origami crane poems,

Here, boombox blasting Digital Underground,

Here, our hella Baller ballgame singalong

NATIONAL POEM IN YOUR POCKET DAY

"During National Poetry Month in April, National Poem in Your Pocket Day shares the way poetry brings joy by simply carrying one in your pocket."https://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/national-day/national-poem-in-your-pocket-day-last-thursday-in-april?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=13218820&hashed_email=6c23328441e0f46865e8039a24ce7ccf8880f2d7&email=yeremiah%40aol.com

Butterfly

Butterfly in my dreams, 

Nothing is as it seems; 

Whispered winds and silver gleams,

Lost in labyrinthine streams. 

Shadows dance, and time redeems, Forgotten, half-remembered schemes. 

A world where fantasy teems, 

And waking life, like fading themes.

#BENOTEWORTHY

#piccadillyinc

Hymn of Nature

Felicia Dorothea Hemans

O! Blest art thou whose steps may rove

Through the green paths of vale and grove

Or, leaving all their charms below,

Climb the wild mountain’s airy brow!

And gaze afar o’er cultur’d plains,And cities with their stately fanes,

And forests, that beneath thee lie,

And ocean mingling with the sky.

For man can show thee nought so fair,

As Nature’s varied marvels there;

And if thy pure and artless breast

Can feel their grandeur, thou art blest!

For thee the stream in beauty flows,

For thee the gale of summer blows;

And, in deep glen and wood-walk free,

Voices of joy still breathe for thee.

But happier far, if then thy soul

Can soar to Him who made the whole,

If to thine eye the simplest flower

Portray 

His bounty and His power:

If, in whate’er is bright or grand,

Thy mind can trace His viewless hand,

If Nature’s music bid thee raise

Thy song of gratitude and praise;

If heaven and earth with beauty fraught,

Lead to His throne thy raptured thought;

If there thou lovest His love to read;

Then, wand’rer, thou art blest indeed!

Creativity in Life

A lifelong creative who dabbled in cartooning, songwriting, and performing, Shel Silverstein is best known for his whimsical poetry for children. His writing strikes a clever balance between mischief and sincerity, often using bizarre characters as cautionary tales.In one of Silverstein’s most well-known poems, a girl named Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout refuses to take out the trash, and eventually meets “an awful fate” in the garbage she neglected. But many of his poems aren’t ominous at all, and instead turn real life on its head in delightful ways.In beloved books such as Where the Sidewalk Ends and A Light in the Attic, Silverstein often returned to themes of dreaming big, taking life one day at a time, and the importance of being yourself — things you don’t need to be a young reader to appreciate.

Shadow

M. J. Fraser

Fickle fibrous tendrils creepingSeeking out, no longer sleeping

They writhe and slither and work their way through

For all they've got and what they will do

Shadows dance, just out of sight

Hiding away, avoiding the light

But there they creep, for when we weep

They take hold and start to mould

A new feeling, more bold

They grip the mind and soul

Attempting to consume it whole

But breaking through a sliver of light

The shadows retreat, apparent fright

For sparks within will start to fight

To turn it round, to make things right

The spectre's gone, away from view

The sun it shines, trickling through

For now the peace holds dark at bay

But never gone, it's seeks a way

To slither through in shadows wait

The darkness or light depends on fate

Wait

By Galway Kinnell 1927-2014

Wait, for now.

Distrust everything if you have to.

But trust the hours. Haven’t they

carried you everywhere, up to now?

Personal events will become interesting again.

Hair will become interesting.

Pain will become interesting.

Buds that open out of season will become interesting.

Second-hand gloves will become lovely again;

their memories are what give them

the need for other hands. The desolation

of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness

carved out of such tiny beings as we are

asks to be filled; the need

for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

Wait.

Don’t go too early.

You’re tired. But everyone’s tired.

But no one is tired enough.

Only wait a little and listen:

music of hair,

music of pain,

music of looms weaving our loves again.

Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,

most of all to hear your whole existence,

rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

My Song

Joseph Seaman Cotter Sr.

Wait

By Galway Kinnell 1927-2014

Wait, for now.

Distrust everything if you have to.

But trust the hours. Haven’t they

carried you everywhere, up to now?

Personal events will become interesting again.

Hair will become interesting.

Pain will become interesting.

Buds that open out of season will become interesting.

Second-hand gloves will become lovely again;

their memories are what give them

the need for other hands. The desolation

of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness

carved out of such tiny beings as we are

asks to be filled; the need

for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

Wait.

Don’t go too early.

You’re tired. But everyone’s tired.

But no one is tired enough.

Only wait a little and listen:

music of hair,

music of pain,

music of looms weaving our loves again.

Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,

most of all to hear your whole existence,

rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

Prayer

Langston Hughes

I ask you this: 

Which way to go? 

I ask you this: 

Which sin to bear? 

Which crown to put 

Upon my hair? 

I do not know, 

Lord God, 

I do not know.

Ocean

M. J. Fraser

A glow shimmers in the star specked sky

Upon a mountain, rising high

We gaze out to the distant sea

A place of rising waves, a place to be free

To drift and sail to journey ahead

By moon and stars and magic lead

Up and down on gentle waves

Passed rising cliffs and hidden caves

A journey onwards far and wide

On open oceans nowhere to hide

And so the journey forwards through

To lands uncharted, somewhere new    

A United Wave

A United Wave:

Strive to be,

the best you can,

through this healing journey,our hearts will mend.

Finding love,

for ourselves,

helps us to rise,

and break the spells.

Binding us,

to forever doubt,

living in fear,

accepting without.

May our pain,

be washed away,

like a cleansing rain,

enchanting the day.

Together we stand,

a united wave,

hearts unbound,

humanity to save.

The path ahead,

so vast, so bright,

lit by our love,a guiding light.Through every trial,joy and strife,we’ve built a bond,as radiant as life.Carry it forward,into the new,planting seeds,and dreams for you.Beloved community,my family, my friends,our journey of hope,will never end.***Poetry written by Nicholas S. Seigelaka UnityPoetry & RadioCave.Song by Riffusionhttps://www.riffusion.com/riff/5e5a4183-950a-45e0-b710-895f519d95d5.#UnityPoetry#Poem #Poetry #Writer #Author #Song #Songs #Riffusion #PicOfTheDay #ImageOfTheDay #ForYou #I #Love #Community #ArtHeals #MusicHeals #PoetryHeals #Music #Audio #Creativity

After

Youna Kwak

I never feel so alive as when I am      writing and have no right     

answer for what this means     

for the lives of others, how

to live in the after which after all means the now of our living

together when together means death for allthose forbidden from

entering the home so

methodically built until afterthey are dead. Only after will locked doors swing amply open to admit the murdered into rooms of vastcrushed comfort, whose inhabitants eat and sleepon furnishings carvedwith corpses, steppingwith hospitable sorrowaround the bodies of thedead, speaking dirgesinto the phantomdarkness. What happensin the quiet grave where the living make themselvesat home, where noisily they intend to thrive, wherethe poem itself concedes to suffering so it might persistin blazing against it.

Copyright © 2025 by Youna Kwak. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 5, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets

Funk (#49 song)

Lily Painter

An eye from the Creator,

a fire, bright, setting slowly

over the cusp of the “new world,”

kissing the Old World, 

softly to sleep, it is the kissing that is soft,not the sleeping.

Under the light of that unwanted dawn there is

a warrior still left standing, wewar-journey them           to the battle and back,                     to the battle and back,                                to the battle and back,radiance, felt through thewater that flows blue but runs red,around and aroundthat quickly setting sun,

around and arounda circle, there aresongs for the way our warriorsused to honorably drift awayWe used to die in battlebut today they ring out— “whatchu tryna tell me?”while we slosh a bottle around,we laugh about how we are singingSongs from the wrong eagles,our war journey is through the hillswith the windows downIn a red ford withthe tribal tag tornand a car battery in the front seatWe are nurtured,

Remembered,by the birds who flyaround and aroundwhile we hit our handson the hoods of clunkersand when it stops being sacred,We laugh,We funk #49,here we live,here we are live.We laugh,my warrior, we aren’tthe warriors, of anythinglike that, anymore.Copyright © 2025 by Lily Painter. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 6, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets

A Thistle Will Do

Omar Berrada

Believe me a thistle will do

away with your hungerfor lush branchesand tacky color

Not the abstracted greens

of surrender oh daughter

of our family follow the flower

that evades capture fades

into pixel pricks the prying

eyes of unmanned hunters

I wished himthroughout my life

Oh daughter focuslearn the work songof smaller creaturesthis forest of branches 

     is your inheritancecan you name                

 every twigwill you touch                      

 every leafwith bare handslet your hair danceas you blend into shrub     

and rockdry is the landthat holds you

Can you hear the familiar pitchof olive harvest the old tuneof older farmers gathered

for processions yet to comea voice of closenessto the earthThe hand that claps is the handthat kneads is the hand that dancesrepeated gestures on and off the tonguered aprons golden braceletswe are quick to breakinto song

Half an egg in a pool of oilthe sun faces up our doughwill be moist the horizon hesitateswon’t admit to rough angles withthe color purple to slanted sunsetsbeyond forbidden shores did youcapture the thistle twiceI wished himfrom the branch of a tree

The song breaks

A landscape returns

Copyright © 2025 by Omar Berrada. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 7, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets

Life is Beautiful

Life is beautiful.

Life is fragile which makes it beautiful.

Life is wondrous which makes it beautiful.

Life is magical which makes it beautiful.

Life is inspirational which makes it beautiful.

#BENOTEWORTHY

#piccadillyinc

Chorus Of Creation

“The megarya breathed the stars in the skies, Kindled the sun, and sculpted the moon.

The nagamor belched forth fire and ice,Stirring up seas deep blue as its plume.

The gazarou coaxed trees and plants to rise,

Seeded the earth and set it bloom.

The vandraghor wove, of its own device,

dark to brighten the sky with its gloom.

In the new realm, the seitarius thenBirthed lesser beast and two-legged men.

Their powers now drained, they chose to retreat

And sought out slumber, their great work complete.

CHORUS OF CREATION

Verse III: The Making of the Universe

Ambika Vora-NaginoSpin of Fate p. 305