Jessica McHugh's Blog, page 18

So Many Mornings

So Many Mornings

Here's the truth.

Drop the jive.

We all just want to stay alive.

And if some fucker has to die,

Why blame the kids who don't say goodbye?

Don't celebrate death.

But don't celebrate pretension:

The kind that says you're without

The human intention to stay alive,

Stay smiling.

While the rest of the world is piling

Its bodies upon your golden dream,

Don't be silent.

Pilot your screams

Of joy,

Of sorrow,

Of the things you hoped for tomorrow.

Who deserves to die?

Who deserves to live?

Who should pay for the horrors that war gives?

Is it he who fights

Or he who stands still?

Or is it the empty god who wills

Man into murder

And murder into joy?

Is it the man who regrets,

Or the ambitious boy?

Is it he who judges without thought,

Or he who takes the war he fought and changes it

Into revolution:

One that may bring the ultimate solution.

Dead is dead.

Life is now.

We got our man.

And he'll get us somehow.

It will never end.

It will never stop until the human intention flops

And buries us all in the ashes

Of humanity's most deadly crashes.

FOR JESSICA, WHO HAS PLENTY OF TIME

I need a Phantom Tollbooth vacation forthwidth. But while I wait, I thought I'd update my writing schedule. Due to unforseen events, (like "Rabbits in the Garden" getting accepted and published super quickly and having to do a complete rewrite of "Palaplia") my previous writing schedule totally got thrown out the window. So, for my own info and those who are wondering when I'm going to finish what, here we go:

May 2011- July 2011: Telinhe: the Tales of Dominhydor, Book Four (rewrite/ edit)

 

July 2011- September 2011: Verses of Villainy (edit)

 

September 2011- November 2011: PINS (finish writing/ edit)

 

November 2011 (possible NaNoWriMo): The Green Kangaroos (write NEW!)

If I do NaNoWriMo, I will be adding in the writing of a play called The First Timers as well. If I don't do NaNoWriMo, The First Timers will be written between PINS and The Green Kangaroos.

 

March 2012- July 2012: In the Car with Bobby Starr (write NEW!)

 

July 2012- November 2012: Island Lions (rewrite/ finish writing)

 

November 2012- February 2013: Darla Decker Hates to Wait (write NEW!)

 

February 2013- ?: The Book of Dominh (rewrite, finish, edit)

 

The Voyager's Song (NaPoWriMo #30)

The Voyager's Song

Time helms the soul:

Tame or uncontrolled,

Steering through rapids

That give way to calm waters.

For some.

For others, it is calmer beyond jungles,

Beyond rocks,

Beyond jarring congestion

Of glacial road blocks.

It is peaceful.

After the miles.

After the years.

After giving in,

Giving out,

And giving up fears,

The water rocks slow.

How long it will last,

Only the captain knows,

But for some, it stays:

A calmly helmed ship

On life's peaceful waves.

Waiting on Science (NaPoWriMo #29)

Waiting on Science

 

There's so much I could do

While the powder is dissolving.

I could be fighting crime

Or even mystery solving.

I could engage in a debate of

Creation vs evolving.

But instead I'm sitting here

While the powder is dissolving.

 

There's so much I could do

While it goes into solution.

I could lead a verse of "Bugaloo".

I could lead a revolution.

I could build a kingdom of my own

From gumption, cloth, and cushion.

But instead I'm sitting here

While it goes into solution.

 

There's so much I could do

While the powder takes the water.

I could have coffee and watch Dexter.

Or lead teabaggers to slaughter.

I could examine the finer points

Of being a better daughter.

But instead I'm sitting here

While the powder takes the water.

 

There's so much I could do

While I lose sight of the powder.

I could be myself completely

And then be even louder.

I could pretend I'm from Boston

And have fun with the word "chowder".

But instead I'm sitting here

While I lose sight of the powder.

 

There's so much I could do

While science takes its time.

I could remember I'm a writer

And compose a kickass rhyme.

I could ditch the lab completely

While I'm still in my prime.

But instead I'm sitting here

While science takes my time.

After the Storm (NaPoWriMo #28)

After the Storm

 

Savage days like these

Call memories from the depths:

Ones of hefty havoc that

Sweep till nothing's left.

The wind, the wind

Is setting in

To leave the world bereft.

 

Rain that bashes skulls

Seeks to pull away the brain

And train us to expect it all:

The thunderous refrain.

The song, the song

Is always long,

Yet the verses often wane.

 

Storms that strip the trees

Are just breezes at the start:

Ones with dark intentions

And a message to impart.

Lay down, lay down

On safer ground.

This storm is off the charts.

 

Lightning can reveal

Every hidden zeal to find

The binding perserverance

To ditch the disinclined.

Distill, distill,

To better fill

The puddles of the mind.

 

When the storm is over,

The feeling hovers still.

The chilly memories remain,

But sunny is the will.

Let go, let go

And always know

The rain can't run uphill.

The Boy in the Back Row (NaPoWriMo #27)

The Boy in the Back Row

Bright eyes

Reveal curiosity in disguise

And a small-town heart

No longer stifled by its size.

One Letter (NaPoWriMo #26)

One Letter

 

Nothing but silence is what I reckoned from this world.

Volume was your gift when your arms to me unfurled.

Numb was all I felt, never knowing what to say.

Verse rolled off your tongue, vying to sweep me hence away.

Night I saw eternal: no light, no love, no song.

Valorous day you showed: it was with me all along.

"Victory", I said and I gave myself to you.

"No one will ever part us, and no one else will do."

 

It only took one letter,

One subtle change in breath,

Just to save, just to change

Loneliness to Loveliness.

O, to be the Morning Mist (NaPoWriMo #25)

O, to be the Morning Mist

 

O, to be the morning mist:

To roll into life

And be everyone's sole sight.

Then, to drift slowly away

And be forgotten.

Poems from "TELINHE: Tales of Dominhydor, Book Four" (NaPoWriMo #24)

A gift he thought

She would be.

A gift he sought to know.

It is no gift,

I now can say,

To lay a good friend low.

******


Where you are, I am.

Where the drops fall.

Where the future calls.

Where the lair is, I am.

******

When She thought he crumpled with intent,

I wondered so what She meant.

******

A piece of our homeland,

Never seen by mortal eyes.

A piece of us and homeland.

Within it, here, it lies.

Take in the light that made the light.

Welcome me in and down and to.

Call and fall with light in hand

To bring the maker through.

 

An Eternity Until Autumn (NaPoWriMo #23)

An Eternity Until Autumn

One berry bloom is left upon the tree:

A wisp of a normal life's great fragility.

Through the slats in her sitting room,

She waits and waits to see,

If when the final berry falls,

At last, then,

Will she?