Rebooted

*an original poem by Marie-Therese Knepper

Rebooted

I went to see a doctor who

referred me to a tech

Being stuck in mid-life pause

I figured - what the heck

I'll go and see the techie

hear what he has to say

After all, when it comes to me

no price's too high to pay 

He told me "It's your motherboard.

You hearin' what I'm sayin'?

Somehow you got stuck in rewind

when life you should be playin'."

I looked at him, confounded.

"What'd you mean?" I said at last

"I mean," he said not meanly,

"you've been livin' in your past.

"Dude, you got a virus

Somewhere back in time

when you were young, is my best guess

A parental paradigm

"You've got it bad, so bad in

fact, I'll wave my standard fee

Do exactly what I tell you

and you will be set free."

We sat and talked and searched until

we knew we'd found the cure

It'd be safe for me to enter

My whole system'd be restored.

I'm all backed-up and running now!

To be sure I don't repeat

the past now in my future:

all that trash stays in delete.

 Marie-Therese Knepper

*all works published on this blog are my original works and protected by U.S. Copyright Laws

6.54

6.54

Tumbling through space

Time shatters

Fragmenting hopes

Splintering schemes

Such a small rock

Waking a stream

A single tree moans

For lack of clarity

 Marie-Therese Knepper

I Wish

(in memory of my "big" brother Joseph "Joey" Lato)


You were so big when I was little -
A giant slaying dragons -
A sage with huge muscles -
And a smile that said "I love you."

I wish I was still little
So you could be big again.

HEADLINES

HEADLINES

Heroin bust nets (stopped counting)

Ebola coming to a town near you (hope not)

Another restless night in Ferguson (please stop)

Don't shoot (enough already)

Landslides roll downhill (so does - )

ISIS has no place in the 21st Century (get real)

No faith teaches this (what faith?)

E-News: Justin and Selena are back together (seriously)

Spin it - you're in it (get it?)

 Marie-Therese Knepper

No Shortage of Fools

We're outnumbered by

Fools.

My point is no exclamation

Times are serious

Still the fool

Roams unchecked wrecking

Souls on the rocks

In want for ignorance's bliss

Nothing social about media.

When the fool picks his type

Objecting to pure air

Punctuating dark against light 

The arena

Packed with couch-tators

Barbed words the poisoned arrows

Targeting free men

Intelligence is not an age.

There is such a thing

As bad publicity.

Some people shouldn't be

Seen as well as heard

But there's no working filter

That tolerates any harmony

With the melody populaire:

Drinks for all are welcome

I will, as always, be found

Prodding against the grains

Sifting chaff from wheat

Searching for truth kernels

Marie-Therese Knepper

Gettin' Down With My Up Side

Gettin' Down With My Up Side

Sittin' on the park bench

Me and me get to thinkin'

How we oughta be more

Up 

And less down

See that puddle over there?

Let's go stomp in it

Take a romp in it

Frolic and fromp in it.

Here comes the rain - again

I say to myself.

My self says to me

So what. Who cares.

Let's go for a run

It'll be fun!

Shoppin' at the Kroger's

Me, myself, and I

Oh - they're playin' oldies!

My cart's my prop

We're dancin' in the aisles

Takin' the party outside load and 

hip hop into the van

We're the man!

Cr-cr-crank it up

The road's our Woodstock.

Home's my prison...

Light'll do the trick

Open the windows

Twerkin' with the dust bunnies

Who cares what the neighbors think.

Itchin' for a good fight

Time for Palin and Cleese

We need that release

Just like The French Men

Need a good spankin'

Yawnin' at the vanity

We had a good day

Didn't we

You're always there for me

- mwah -

 Marie-Therese Knepper

Kick the Dog Poetry

Perhaps this isn't a new thought, but it was new to me: Kick the Dog Poetry.

First and foremost: I DO NOT ENDORSE OR CONDONE ABUSE OF DOGS OR ANY OTHER ANIMAL.

Why "Kick the Dog" poetry? I had a very bad case of poison ivy a few weeks ago. I was absolutely miserable. Normally I love it when my 4 year old Shih Tsu mix follows me around the house. He's gotta be wherever I am - he's so darn cute! I'd never entertained an abusive thought towards him; that is, until that day when I thought I'd go mad from poison ivy's hold on me. I was in a world of hurt walking from one room to the next. He, Jabez, got under foot, and I had an incredible urge to kick the dog. I DIDN'T, and my conscience and love for my little guy almost instantaneously overrode that sinful urge. 

Kick the Dog Poetry is poetry written in response to anything and everything that causes anger, fear, or any other so-called negative emotion. Your cat clawed your new leather sofa? Write a poem about it. Someone cut you off in traffic? Write a poem about it. Feeling abused? Write a poem.

Here is my first Kick the Dog poem:

 

1. Low Expectations
   by Marie-Therese Knepper

   I’m not mad at you
   Really.
   I’m mad
   At you -
   The not knowing you
   The disappointment of
   You

   What did I expect
   Really?
   A god; a servant clown.
   You made me laugh
   So what?
   I liked myself
   When I laughed

   How much was your life worth -
   Really
   More than being
   Silly -
   You fool.
   That’s why I’m mad
   About you.

   I think I’m sad
   Really.
   Sad for the loss of
   Youth’s innocence -
   Hollywood productions -
   Glittering stars -
   A perfect world.

   Now here I am old.
   Really
   Old enough to know
   That wishing doesn’t
   Make it so.
   Silly little ant,
   Times have changed.

   
   

Sea Food

Sea Food

 by Marie-Therese Knepper

Beautiful Hespera, you never fail, Edouard smiled to himself as he watched the first of The Kraken's tentacles slowly emerge from the moonlit ocean. Content in the knowledge that the crew, captain included, were still knocked out from the effects of the Sea Hag's special potion he'd slipped into the ship's rum supply, Edouard lowered himself over the starboard side and into the dinghy he had secured only a short while ago. 

As Edouard rowed safely away from the soon to be sinking vessel, his thoughts once again turned to his siren. Hespera - his savior, friend, and - dare he think it - lover; of sorts. 

She came to him on what he had planned to be his last night on this earth. Only 15, he'd been shanghaied by the vicious Captain Blood. Born a deaf mute, Edouard had been an easy target for abuse. His torment began at the hands of the parish priest who ran Port Royal's orphanage. Longing for freedom, Edouard jumped at the first opportunity for escape. Little did he know that the caretaker who secured his release from the orphanage was secretly in league with Captain Blood. Sold into slavery aboard The Night Princess, Edouard had nothing left to live for. So when The Princess's crew took safe harbor in Tortuga, Edouard planned his final escape. 

Walking the imaginary plank to his sad life's eternal rest, he heard his first sound. Having no other sound to compare, Edouard was overcome with emotion. He heard her before he saw her. Hespera. The maid of sea legend. Edouard grasped her outstretched hands, and was jettisoned into a hope-filled sea. Here, Edouard could hear and understand. Here he was home. Here he was reborn: a man with a plan. Here he had a family, all of whom suffered abuse in one form or another from the blackhearts who roamed the Seven Seas. Here, he and his kin plotted their revenge.

And now, only a fortnight from their plotting, Edouard stopped rowing when he caught a glimpse of his lover's scales shimmering in the moon's light. Once again grasping her outstretched hand, Edouard relished the sight of The Kraken's tentacles ravaging the unsecured bow of The Night Princess. The green flash is nothing compared to this, Edouard sang in triumph, as the giant's death hold brought The Princess plummeting to her sure demise. As the last of the stern slipped under the roiling waves, Edouard and Hespera languished in The Night Princess's death rattle echoing through the murky waters.

(To be continued...)

Pay Us (how much we are worth)

Pay Us (how much we are worth)

Where do you run when you feel blue?
I bet, more often than not
you run to the tunes of ones who know you,
who understand just what you’ve got.

Supposin’ you need a prescription,
’cause that’s what you’ve been told
“I ain’t payin’,” you tell the physician -
Could you be so bold?

You could, I suppose, but likely you’d find
a summons in the mail.
The good physician’s got an axe to grind -
you might just end up in jail.

One thing you won’t (now) get in the post
is a bill from your favorite songwriter;
the one who has helped you get over the most
life-trials – who’s made you a fighter.

Was it an MD who soothed your soul
while standing beside a grave,
or the words of grace that filled the hole
penned by a sinner saved?

The words – those words that mean so much -
just how much are they worth;
the words of songs we use like a crutch
to guide us through life on this earth?

So the next time you hear a new song
on YouTube, it just might be me:
one of many soul physicians who long
to be paid for what you use free.

Marie-Therese Knepper

My Madrigal For Life

August 2, 2014 at 10:18 pm

I sing the melody of temperance.
My life’s a symphony for betterment.
In measured rests I sigh in sweet content.

The key to having a good countenance?
Do nothing to your own self's detriment.
I sing the melody of temperance.
My life’s a symphony for betterment.

I found through orchestrated diligence
that laughing and loving is time well spent
and will all sorts of maladies prevent.
I sing the melody of temperance.
My life’s a symphony for betterment.
In measured rests I sigh in sweet content.

Marie-Therese Knepper