April is Poetry Month

April 21

April is Poetry Month

Ring It Loud

ring the bell for justice
let it chime for peace
ring it loud for friends at home
and people on the street

ring the bell for the soldiers
fighting for our lives
ring the bell for their girlfriends
their widows and the wives

ring the bell for show and tell
politicians strut each day
it’s all for show and has to go
don’t believe in what they say

ring the bell for the ones
in abject poverty
it’s not their choice how they live
it could be you and me

ring the bell for your church
if you think you must
better place the faith in yourself
and those you think you trust

ring the bell for power
the kind you’ll never know
it’s all indentured servitude
painful and it’s slow

ring the bell for passion
the kind you have in mind
it’s what you want or believe you need
just remember love is blind

ring the bell for your virtues
and the seven deadly sins
ring the bell for the dead
and their next of kin

ring the bell for secrets
the ones that bring surprise
ring the bell for what goes on
behind those troubled eyes

ring the bell for the love
the type you hope to find
ring the bell for the bigots
heal the evil mind

ring the bell for dancing
ring the bell at night
ring the bell to raise some hell
it’s time for feeling right

ring the bell this morning
when the light can let you see
ring the bell for someone else
don’t waste your ring on me

This month is all about poetry.
Something new every day.

Hello Winter

The weight of winter hardly upon us, 
only now is our reality apparent.
The season must be seen to be felt.

Without snow there are only 
harsh winds and inconvenient truths.
Precipitation fuels our anticipation.

On the cusp of Solstice, Christmas 
barely a week away, winter now visible.
We live the season as much as we wear it.

Months from now we will wish it all 
away, yet today our feelings are as fresh 
as the fallen snow. Hello winter.

12/20/2024                                j.g.l.

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December 16

Mondays are just young Fridays

The learning never stops; and so, it shouldn’t.

Often, more through trial than error, I have taken on new tasks throughout my life and the experience (for the most part) leaves me in a better place; no matter how difficult it seems at first.

I am undertaking a redesign of this website. Not the type to go into things blindly, I’ve taken on some help to see myself through the process. I knew, from the outset, that I would require some assistance just as I did when I opened up Mythos & Marginalia almost a decade ago.

So much has changed in the years since. I wanted to take this opportunity to not only update the look of the website, but also my skills.

I am learning.

While I know (or think I know) what I want, turning my ideas into a tangible reality is not easy. I understand the fundamentals of page design from my years in the newspaper industry but editing and layout has come a long way from the days of pencils and pica sticks. Technically it is easier now (or should be), but it is the technology that I have issues with. My knowledge of coding was never what it should be, so I am trying to learn more.

The learning never stops.

The WordPress ‘classic editor’ — the platform I have worked on until recently — is, principally, more straightforward with its options. Selecting text size was a drop-down menu, and aligning the type was just a choice of clicks. Working in this format had become routine.

The newer (and, apparently, more advanced) ‘block editor’ mostly seems to skip those familiar steps. I, now, should be able to work more visibly to adjust the text to what I am trying to achieve. That’s a big “should be”. I am, right now, daunted by what should be simple keystrokes and sizing on a very intuitive template.

Making mistakes is easy; correcting them often proves difficult. Understanding the errors of my ways takes understanding and knowledge. I am learning. Slowly.

I guess I had become too used to doing things in a certain way, in a specific order, always able to visualize the results. Now, in this new format, all I seem to be doing is confusing myself.

I am not working in my habitual ways. But I am still learning. That’s a good thing.

You don’t learn from routine, yet you should routinely be learning.

12/16/2024 j.g.l.

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December 19

speak up

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December 17

12/17/2024

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December 15

in my journal

Incomplete thoughts, generally, complete me. Always, in my time.

Casually or constructively, I write what I think (or what I want to think) until it all falls together.

The unfinished thoughts – those bruised, blemished declarations, replete with erroneous expectations or rough edges – often lay latent in my journal. For a time.

Often intrusively confusing and so full of questions, the mandate of the message lacks even muffled clarity.

Those words will keep for another day.

12/15/2024 j.g.l.

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