My American Dream

Tip toeing on tight ropes

taut from the tension

between weathered hopes

and tattered dreams

I teeter

 

inches above Hell

and miles from Heaven.

My own screams

from the prisons

of past decisions

awaken me from

My American Dream.

 

Horizons of happiness

always within sight

taunting my reach

rise and fall

as streams of thought

become tributaries of consciousness.

Will I ever be free to dream

My American Dream?

 

I Guess I’ll brew my own brand of joy.

On liquid wings I soar

to my crystal blue palace

on a mountain top horizon

far from brutality

and Homeland INsecurity

I fly high.

 

But…

evaporating wings

cause flight to fail

as my fall goes unnoticed

I accelerate

to 9.8

meters per second squared.

 

Spiraling from height to depth

from life to death

the ground reaches up to break my fall.

I brace myself

for the impact

of my back upon my bed

GASP!!!

 

“Am I dead?”

 

My heart slows its beat

as brief relief

turns to ennui and grief

when I awake to

My American Dream

 

© 2014 Brian Evans.  All rights reserved

 

This poem was inspired by the events surrounding Jonathan Ferrell; who was shot and killed on September 14, 2013, by Randall Kerrick, a North Carolina police officer.  He was unarmed.

 

---

 BE

 As always, thank you for visiting Wisdom’s Quill. See you soon.

Keep Learning ♦ Keep Loving ♦ Keep Living

Editor: Jaime Evans

 

The Versatile Blogger Award

Looks like the award gods have once again smiled upon me!!!  I am super stoked about my nomination for the Versatile Blogger Award.  Special thanks to my fellow blogger, Lisa W. Tetting, at the Rebirth of Lisa blog for her generous consideration in nominating me for this award.  You should go ahead and check out her blog as well.  It’s definitely one of my favorites.  It is amazingly entertaining and informative.  Poetry, music, and photography are just a few things that you will find there…she even has a “Friday Happy Dance.”

I’m honored to accept this award.  I’ve read many varying points of view concerning these blog awards.  Personally, I think they are indicative of why we blog in the first place…for creativity, consciousness, and community.  These awards help to connect us and make the vastness of the blogoshpere a little more manageable.  I’m excited to discover other amazing blogs as a result of receiving this award.

So, as with other awards, there are a few rules that I need to follow in this acceptance post.  Here are the rules for the Versatile Blogger Award:

• Show the award on your blog.
• Thank the person who nominated you.
• Share seven facts about yourself.
• Nominate 15 other blogs.
• Link your nominees’ blogs, and let them know.

 

So here are seven facts about me:

1. I don’t like cats…I think they’re evil
2. Big spiders make me scream like a girl
3. I love music, but not first thing in the mornings
4. I cook breakfast for my wife every Saturday
5. I love roller coasters
6. My three favorite books of all time are:

• The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
• The Art of War by Sun Tzu
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

7.   I love onion rings with my hamburger, but I hate onions on my hamburger…(go figure).

OK…enough about me.  Now for the moment you’ve all been waiting for…

 

Here are my 15 nominations for the Versatile Blogger Award:

Safari of the Mind

Creep Sandwich

Lively Twist

Death by Expectation

Behind the Eyes

Itchy Quill

Life with a Yellow Bike

The Healthy Secret Identity

Tony So

Vivacious Visionary

The Enduring Optimist

Amore Luxe

Cross Quotes

Bean and Bantam

Edified Listener

 

Again, thank you Lisa for nominating me for this award.  Here’s to the love of blogging!!!

---

As always, thank you for visiting Wisdom’s Quill. See you soon.

Keep Learning ♦ Keep Loving ♦ Keep Living

Editor: Jaime Evans

Glass Masks

Her open wound,

still leaking liquid life,

bleeds beneath her masquerade.

 

“It’s complicated,” she says.

As she tells her tale,

rife with betrayal,

she drops her mask of glass.

 

Shattered shards fill the room,

as picturesque promises in bloom

fracture upon the floor of frayed fidelity.

 

Love is scorched by the sun of neglect,

Her strength is not made perfect

through the weakness of her tears.

 

Her sisters of similar fate

gather like hens to incubate

the hatching eggs of bitterness,

soon to break.

 

“You don’t need a man,” they say.

 

One by one they break their seals,

to speak of pain their past reveals.

“Strength” and “Beauty” are the names

they give their masks to hide the shame.

 

Lies

 

Like little girls with wide eyes

living in sand castles on salt-water beaches.

Inevitably, the tide will rise.

 

The sanguine print from Romeo’s fist

creates a carbon copy from face to heart

as castles of sand erode.

Love absolves itself of all.

 

To her, love’s scent is like a rose,

Always pretty,

Never guilty.

 

So she stubbornly collects her hypocrisy

and incarcerates her pain

behind the bars of her smile

©  Brian Evans for Wisdom’s Quill, January, 2015

---

As always, thank you for visiting Wisdom’s Quill. See you soon.

Keep Learning ♦ Keep Loving ♦ Keep Living

BE

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blogging 101 Assignment: A Letter to My Future Self

Dear Future Self,

Why Hello, You (Me)…(this is already getting kind of weird).  Anyway, remember when you participated in the Blogging 101 experience back in 2015?  Well, this is a product of that experience, so listen up.  The task at hand is to write a post for my “dream reader.”  This someone is a person who would appreciate and value my work.  So, you guessed it…I chose you (well…me)…UGH, whatever; you get the point.  I’m writing to you because I know by now, you are an insanely successful author and speaker, who is traveling the world inspiring the masses.  The books that you’ve written, and all of the success that you are experiencing, all started from the decisions that you made when you were your former self (me, of course).  With that being said, I wanted to remind you of some very important things; not that you would ever forget them, but hey…you never know.

1. Always choose to acknowledge God in all of your endeavors, because He is the source of your highest expression.
2. Never lose your curiosity, because the moment you do, you cease to grow.
3. Always remember that everyone you meet has experienced some level of pain, and your smile, coupled with a kind word, may be the only thing that prevents them from losing all hope.
4. Never forget that feeling you had when you were the recipient of a random act of kindness.  Strive to always give that same feeling to someone else.
5. When given the option to hate or to love, always choose to love.
6. Always remember, you DON’T know it all.  In fact, you probably don’t know what you think you know (see #2).
7. Remember, people are precious, even if they don’t realize it yet.
8. Always remember that nothing is ever easy, but your job is to make it look like it is.
9. Always remember that giving and losing are two different things.  Whatever you give will always return to you in some form.
10. Take time to look beyond what is seen, to listen beyond what is said, and to feel beyond what is felt.  There is wonder in everything, from atoms to air; oceans to sky. Take time to discover it.

If you remember these things, life will never lose its meaning.

---

 

 

As always, thank you for visiting Wisdom’s Quill. See you soon.

Keep Learning ♦ Keep Loving ♦ Keep Living

Editor: Jaime Evans

BE

 

 

 

10 Reasons Why I Keep a Private Journal

1. I realize that the random thought that just popped into my mind about you may not be the most appropriate thing to say at that given moment.  So I write it later.

2. It’s therapeutic…like a mental massage.

3. I’m much nicer in person than I am on paper.

4. Sometimes, I have to write to know what I’m thinking.

5. It’s so much cheaper than therapy.

6. If I tried to express it to you, it wouldn’t make sense anyway.

7. I learn something new about myself everyday.

8. Pages never talk to other people.

9. Writing helps me keep my sanity.

10. Because what you just said/did was so stupid, if I posted it on Facebook, someone is bound to know I was talking about you.

That is all!!!

---

As always, thank you for visiting Wisdom’s Quill. See you soon.

Keep Learning ♦ Keep Loving ♦ Keep Living

Editor: Jaime Evans

BE