Seeing Through the Disconnect
How dissimilarly we are wired.
How varied, the ways we’re inspired.
We think as we do,
Due to all we’ve been through,
For we’re products of what has transpired.
© Marie Elena Good 2024
pictured words
a simple pairing of pictures and poetry
Category: Poetic Bloomings
May 26, 2024
April 21, 2024
HUMANITY, ECLIPSED
A Syrian friend
flees the supper table with
her whole family
leaving home-cooked meal
to decay in silence, as
bombs scream her story.
While bombs shake her house
in Ukraine, a sweet young child
runs out the front door,
glares at a gutless
foe, shakes her fist, and bellows,
“You cannot scare me!”
A gentle woman
from Afghanistan stumbles
as she tries to bolt
away from the bombs
in her path. She breaks her nose.
But her lungs still breathe.
More friends from Ukraine
had no light, no heat for months.
This, in my friend’s words:
“Life is divided
into before and after
war came to our house.”
In shadows, evil
slinks across the globe beneath
our sentinel moon.
© Marie Elena Good, 2024
These are just a few of the stories of war-weary refugee friends of mine. These few don’t express but an infinitesimal spec of the havoc war wreaked on our planet in the time it took me to pen this poem. What we humans are willing to do to fellow humans is unspeakably horrific.
April 14, 2024
Far-reaching light
Photo of March Lake Erie morning sky, by Carrie Wakeman
My Father, may I
ask that as the sun rises,
I may sing for joy.
That as the sun sets,
I will recall each moment
spent in Your presence.
Not just for me. For
all whom the sun, moon, and stars
reflect Your love’s light.
© Marie Elena Good, 2024
April 7, 2024
MIDWEST
Photo by Keith R. Good
You may not have guessed, but I can attest that the Midwest is blessed. And might I suggest your quest be to test if I jest in what I’ve expressed, lest your life be suppressed and you end up depressed for your lack of Midwest nest. I’m from the Midwest, and sincerely request that you come be my guest.
And yes, I’m obsessed.
© Marie Elena Good, 2024
March 31, 2024
HE IS RISEN, INDEED (a Stornello for Easter Sunday)
Though innocent, Jesus was still crucified.
Enormous, the evidence that He had died,
He lives, per the witnesses who testified.
But not just per witnesses back in the day -
I know Him and know that He hears when I pray.
I feel His strong presence along my pathway.
I knew Him before I became a schoolchild.
His unequaled love leaves me awed and beguiled.
All thanks be to Him we’re with God, reconciled.
© Marie Elena Good, 2024
March 24, 2024
Ohio vs Michigan, the Great Toledo War
So, armed men to Toledo were sent,
and full war was the solid intent.
But despite the alert,
only one man was hurt,
with poor Michigan left to lament.
Well, this war was as short as this verse.
There was hardly the need for a nurse.
One side kept its realty,
and one got its *U.P.,
with not even a wage to disburse!
© Marie Elena Good, 2024
*U.P. is what they call their Upper Peninsula
March 17, 2024
out of curiosity
I asked the voice of the future to write me a sonnet about AI-generated poetry. In the blink of an eye, a perfectly penned sonnet winked mockingly at me from my screen. Other words that came to mind were impeccable and flawless. I wish I could say it was so perfect it felt scrubbed. But it didn’t. It felt artistic. Creative. And, truth be told, inspired. Using the word inspired to describe an electronically generated poem makes me shudder.
What does it matter
if words flow from warmth of heart?
It matters to me.
© Marie Elena Good, 2024
March 11, 2024
SPEECH ATTENDANCE (a waltmarie)
Some applaud. Some shout disapproval. Some sit, in
silence –
a silence of voice, silence of manner, or what
may be
a silence born of fear. Our voice (our noise) is
used to
swing. And sway. And get our way. And
advance
the plan we believe must be, until we truly see
a cause.
© Marie Elena Good, 2024
The waltmarie uses even lines of two syllables each to create a mini poem within the poem. Though not poetic, here it is:
Silence
may be
used to
advance
a cause.
December 31, 2023
MAKE-BELIEVE ENDINGS
We say goodbye to the end of a year,
and cheer on a new one.
But time’s end is nothing.
A five-and-dime’s storybook fiction.
Merely a period made with pencil,
easily erased. Easily replaced
with a comma.
A question.
Simply a suggestion.
Take this grain-of-salt eve,
and grieve not for a closing,
for it is just posing as such.
© Marie Elena Good, 2023
Happy New Year, all!
June 6, 2023
STILL
During intensely busy seasons in life, sudden slight ailments can present a crucial stillness … moments to consider that which goes unnoticed in life’s rush. My ears receive the sound of soft breeze outside my window. Birdsong becomes a symphony, which draws my eyes outdoors. My soul soars to blues in high places. Sparrows in the bird bath splash, relishing refreshing spray. Serenity ensues as my spirit sings praise to my God. Suddenly, I sense words slipping from my mind’s recesses, and I must shape and preserve them before they are lost. So satisfying, this necessitated pause that allows time to stop elusive words from slipping from tenuous grasp.
It isn’t illness
if the stillness that ensues
is life sustaining.
© Marie Elena Good, 2023
pictured words 