Never judge a book
By the jacket that it wears
Never let first impressions
Hardwire your thoughts right there
Never miss a second look
In case you fail to see
A hidden gem, a ray of light
For discriminatingly
You may just miss the best in life
Presume; misunderstand
So walk with; get to know each one
Before you cast the hand
Of judgement less you flounder
For then all you perceive
Is your projections, inner thoughts
Prejudice and beliefs
Dear Lord, Why me?
What reason? What excuse?
When you created me?
Why the abuse?
Why, Lord, just why?
So many things gone wrong
A heart that fails to work
So weak – not strong?
Why pick on me?
Why chose to so create
A being with these issues
More of late!
Why think? “I know!
This one will do to try
How this and that will test
What goes awry!”
What sort of God
Does all of that
To leave a person
In pain feeling flat?
But Lord, you know
I’ll tell you what I think!
When pushed too far right there
Just to the brink
I’ll sing out loud
And see the good not bad
I’ll walk a life of joy
Not stay so sad
I’ll see the vista
Feel the fresh new air
And face each day
Renewed without a care
I’ll not submit
I’ll not give in and cry
For Lord, I’ll make this life
My friend; ally
And I will bear it
Not just like a cross
But fly right through because
I am the boss
I am in charge
Of life; my liberty
I want to be the one
Who swims so free
I want to know
I lived my life so well
Despite the obstacles
Not live in hell
I know I have
The choice for that is true
For you at least gave me
Freewill; sinew
And so my song
Will be this very one
One that has fought so hard
And overcome
A life all lived
With purpose and intent
A life that sees the good
Without relent
And so when I
Have drawn my last dear breath
I’ll wear a smile that loved and
Goes past death
Sunrise Serenity (Photo credit: James Marvin Phelps)
From the cradle to the grave
Impart a creed of love
Teach fairness and teach tolerance
With peace combined thereof
And don’t let colour of a skin
Nor disability
Sit in the seat of judgement where
The truth is hard to see
Don’t rush to brash assumption
Nor empower a path of blame
But turn away from hatred
Lest all else that might inflame
And light a fire within your heart
One that considers all
With outreach, empathy and hope
Unite the freedom call
Freedom (Photo credit: Kliefi)
A black dog on cliff’s precipice
Where rocks will fall below
The crumbling tide of raging mind
In oceans tidal flow
That washes almost as to drown
To swamp, to sink; obscure
The joy that calmer water brings
The sea of insecure
The worry and anxiety
Panic’s impending doom
Where light has hid behind a cloud
So dingy; full of gloom
Where energy abates and falls
Where appetite is lost
As vigour flags and languishes
So veiled ; emotions crossed
Where life cannot lie in sun
Or run on beach so free
And leash appears so very tight
Constricting liberty
Where depths despair knows oh so well
The darkness and the plight
The black dog of depression there
The blackness; always night
When you have a disability
And a ‘hidden’ one at that
It’s not so much what you can’t do
That leaves you feeling flat
But the attitudes of others who
Just twist and turn the knife
With jibes and nasty comments that
Can ail and add more strife
The lack of understanding and
The fear to comprehend
The void of pure compassion or
Aversion to befriend
The cowering from all contact lest
The blame – indignity
The failure to see past the mask
Of disability
But those who stand out from the crowd
Who smile and take the time
To say hello or shake a hand
Tap out a different rhyme
That uplifts and renews all faith
In pure humanity
For smallest feats make largest steps
And mean the most you see!
English: A collection of pictograms. Three of them used by the United States National Park Service. A package containing those three and all NPS symbols is available at the Open Icon Library (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I woke up really early as
The birds began to sing
As sun rose over horizon
All weak and watering
You know? That glazed look that she wears
To start each brand new day
That says “OK! I’m up, give me
Some time to make my way
Up high into the brighter sky
To beckon in the dawn”
And likewise I then rubbed my eyes
And stifled a huge yawn!
I thought I’d jump right from my bed
I’ll make this day so full
Of all the things I need to do
With inspired push and pull
“A run!” I thought, “Yes that’s the thing
To start this day anew
And then perhaps get all chores done
And walk the dog out too!
Get dinner prepped; into the pot
The ironing out the way
And mow the lawn and wash the car
Then go to the ballet”
But now on fully wakening
Reality has hit
For my legs are made of lead weights
And energy has split
And rising slowly from my bed
My head begins to spin
With heart pulsating rapidly
There is no way to win
With brain fog misting morning sun
And tiredness oh so rife
I’ll render plans wiped out for this
Is how PoTS* runs my life
Instead I turned to books and such
To poetry; to art
For things like this can be done lest
Less strain put on my heart
And if I’m really honest they
Bring forth a whole new way
To still enjoy this life so much
And live for every day!
*Postural Tachycardia Syndrome
For More Information:
If you would like to know more about this condition please visit www.stars.org.uk
It starts with just a heartbeat
The cadence of a life
The pulse; being’s vibration and
The wave’s inflection rife
The tempo that keeps ticking on
The beat, the pace, in time
The centre of existence and
The rhythm and the rhyme
The core of all vitality
That pumps throughout the day
The source; the cradle of all life
That takes us on our way
The dynamo within us that
Propels us from the start
So fight for every heart beat to
Flow red in every heart
February is National Heart Month and today The British Heart Foundation is encouraging everyone to “Ramp Up the Red” to fight for every heartbeat and help keep hearts beating. To find out more click here
Heart (Photo credit: mozzercork)
Walk away from those defiling you
Retreat from those who call
You names or throw you sticks and stones
For they are bullies all
And know through faith and family
And friends who you can trust
That beauty isn’t skin deep nor
What’s on the surface crust
But look a little deeper and
Be real to who you are
To live the life intended so
You rise and do not scar
For worth is there for you to hold
For you to have, to save
And love is unconditional
Be you – be true – be brave!
Don’t you hate it when you’re poorly
Out of sorts and feeling ill
Unable to get on with life
Against your own free will
The issues and the problems that
Sheer up the pure delight
Of living life with better health
No pain or hurt in sight
And don’t you hate it when your helpless
Paralysed by pathogens
That creep throughout your system and
Attempt to become friends
So toxic and so alien
That fail to do you good
By causing sickness and disease
With harm not understood
And don’t you hate it when your hurting
Bash, bruised with broken bones
Inflicting injuries carte blanche
To give you cause to groan
That cripple and disable that
Disturb and so upset
Don’t you hate these loathsome ailments
To them don’t you object
But life is not smooth flowing and
It comes with copious costs
Of illness, disability
So testing; arduous
But each of us can bear this brunt
The testing uphill climb
So let’s exercise compassion
When life steps out of time
Just stop and for a minute
Imagine in some way
The stuff that’s going round our brain
Is like a clogged highway
Full of traffic at a standstill
That can’t move from a to b
Mind congestion in the making
That’s so frustratingly
A mental defunct process
Where time is all too short
Too much to fit in too few hours
That leaves us over wrought
Or maybe it’s the hard drive
For instance call it RAM
Crashing from system overload
Or flood of too much spam
That clogs up the working software
And slows it down a pace
To stop our peak performance
And halt us in the race
The race that we now call life
That wears us all right down
For headaches and brain fog chapters
To inundate and drown
But there’s an epiphany
A way to pass the test
A simple and effective thing
That gives our brain a rest
To sojourn for a few moments
And maybe take a nap
To reboot – clear out the hard-drive
And traffic somehow zap
To renew, enthuse and prompt
For light bulb moments bright
Advocating mental downtime
To turn all things out right!
For downtime is a pre-set
And neurally hardwired
A need for functionality
For all to be inspired
A way to empty out our minds
When cluttered they’ve become
And open up a higher plane
That lets us then succumb
To ways most ingenious
To means of mindfulness
That whets the mind to come alive
And leave us all less stressed
If you’d like to know more about this you like to check out this article http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=mental-downtime which was signposted to me by Brendan Dobrowolny. And of course, if you suffer from PoTS or Syncope that can deliver a payload of brain fog as part and parcel of those conditions why not visit stars.org.uk for more support.
Ginz&Tonic 