life: acoustic & amplified

instructions…just in case

there is so much to say in this world

I keep writing it down

along with my scribing tribe of writer friends

we take notes of it all

the little things

the big things

the mundane

the madness

the simplicity

we feel as much as we can feel

squeeze life into our moments

we seek to express it

in words that make us

cry

laugh

hurt

heal

surrender

if I die tonight in a tsunami

having been under a warning of such a thing

i give you instructions

for keeping me in your heart

of carrying my legacy into the future

my best hope of changing the world

continue my most passionate work

the words that make me

the words that break me

the words that build me

the words that open me

the words that make everything clear

don’t let them end

let them grow

let them soak down

into the ground beneath your feet

into the ground where I lay

ready to become a shady green tree

hone them

make them much better than mine ever were

see all of the beauty you can possibly see

then write even one poem

and read it over and over out loud til you know it by heart

know that I died happy having found you again

that is all

🌎

Amy Lloyd

deal me in

i have forgotten how to write a beautiful sentence

i walk through days of dangling participles

jangling questionnaires fall from my lips

black lace Freudian slips slipping past my fingertips

i adjust my spectacles to see things a new way

always remember

poetry comes in multiple formulations

from well dusted surfaces

to a handmade journal to carry me safely through another inspired year

to put it Bluntly,

i’ll take some Sun on Sunday, please and thank you

grey skies never looked on so handsomely

just because I didn’t write it down

doesn’t mean the poem don’t exist

just because I took a new job

doesn’t mean I won’t sing to you

just because I didn’t call today

doesn’t mean I don’t love you

just because you make me laugh

doesn’t mean I do…

see you on the flip side

i’m too old to die young

but I’ll still be beautiful

no matter the weather

i’ll still think about you

when the dealin’s done

💋

Amy Lloyd

how do you eat a pink elephant?

ELEPHANT AND THE BLIND MEN

Once upon a time, there lived six blind men in a village. One day the villagers told them, “Hey, there is an elephant in the village today.”

They had no idea what an elephant is. They decided, “Even though we would not be able to see it, let us go and feel it anyway.” All of them went where the elephant was. Everyone of them touched the elephant.

“Hey, the elephant is a pillar,” said the first man who touched his leg.

“Oh, no! it is like a rope,” said the second man who touched the tail.

“Oh, no! it is like a thick branch of a tree,” said the third man who touched the trunk of the elephant.

“It is like a big hand fan” said the fourth man who touched the ear of the elephant.

“It is like a huge wall,” said the fifth man who touched the belly of the elephant.

“It is like a solid pipe,” Said the sixth man who touched the tusk of the elephant.

They began to argue about the elephant and everyone of them insisted that he was right. It looked like they were getting agitated. A wise man was passing by and he saw this. He stopped and asked them, “What is the matter?” They said, “We cannot agree to what the elephant is like.” Each one of them told what he thought the elephant was like. The wise man calmly explained to them, “All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all those features what you all said.”

“Oh!” everyone said. There was no more fight. They felt happy that they were all right.

The moral of the story is that there may be some truth to what someone says. Sometimes we can see that truth and sometimes not because they may have different perspective which we may not agree too. So, rather than arguing like the blind men, we should say, “Maybe you have your reasons.” This way we don’t get in arguments. In Jainism, it is explained that truth can be stated in seven different ways. So, you can see how broad our religion is. It teaches us to be tolerant towards others for their viewpoints. This allows us to live in harmony with the people of different thinking. This is known as the Syadvada, Anekantvad, or the theory of Manifold Predictions.

movement

The piano,

not played,

is still a piano –

patiently waiting

the music quiet

yet still inside

ready to thrill

not going anywhere else

not making itself heard

not anxious

or demanding

prepared to release itself

all it takes is the right hand

to touch the keys

for the waiting heart to fall in love

as the strings warm with movement

as the song begins

the singer is moved to sing along

as the instrument springs to life

and the future is forever changed through this mysterious portal

🎹

Amy Lloyd

You ask me how I became a madman. It happened thus: One day, long before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen — the seven masks I have fashioned and worn in seven lives — I ran maskless through the crowded streets shouting, “Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves.”

Men and women laughed at me and some ran to their houses in fear of me.

And when I reached the market place, a youth standing on a house-top cried, “He is a madman.” I looked up to behold him; the sun kissed my own naked face for the first time. For the first time the sun kissed my own naked face and my soul was inflamed with love for the sun, and I wanted my masks no more. And as if in a trance I cried, “Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks.”

Thus I became a madman.

And I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.

But let me not be too proud of my safety. Even a Thief in a jail is safe from another thief.

❤️

Kahlil Gibran, The Madman, His Parables and Poems

ownership rights

who

do

you

own

?

by

what

power

or

authorities

of

your

own

choosing

do

you

think

that

is

right

or

your

right

?

how

do

you

set

yourself

free

of

that

violence

?

ok –

do

that

!

be

free

!

NOW…

take

exquisite

care

of

yourself

❤️

Amy Lloyd

as above so below

10 months of this

days cycling

through good days

and bad. Bringing

food offerings to be accepted

or not. Speaking words understood

or misplaced in an empty bucket.

Days of cheer, followed closely

by days of anguish. Day

after day. All

having one hallmark. Completely

consumed. No one

else matters much here

in this geographical oddity, two weeks from everywhere. The world

doesn’t really come to play

or into play here. There is no concern for events outside only these days of never ending circles. Even

cell reception won’t allow for company. No one attends

to this particular space

in the world. As folks here

cling to their shallow breathing. In

illness, as

in living. Days

are consumed by beds and toilets. Life

is, at some point, reduced to a room

with no view.

🙏🏻

Living with Alzheimers by Amy Lloyd

It was easy enough

to bend them to my wish,

it was easy enough

to alter them with a touch,

but you

adrift on the great sea,

how shall I call you back?

Cedar and white ash,

rock-cedar and sand plants

and tamarisk

red cedar and white cedar

and black cedar from the inmost forest,

fragrance upon fragrance

and all of my sea-magic is for nought.

It was easy enough—

a thought called them

from the sharp edges of the earth;

they prayed for a touch,

they cried for the sight of my face,

they entreated me

till in pity

I turned each to his own self.

Panther and panther,

then a black leopard

follows close—

black panther and red

and a great hound,

a god-like beast,

cut the sand in a clear ring

and shut me from the earth,

and cover the sea-sound

with their throats,

and the sea-roar with their own barks

and bellowing and snarls,

and the sea-stars

and the swirl of the sand,

and the rock-tamarisk

and the wind resonance—

but not your voice.

It is easy enough to call men

from the edges of the earth.

It is easy enough to summon them to my feet

with a thought—

it is beautiful to see the tall panther

and the sleek deer-hounds

circle in the dark.

It is easy enough

to make cedar and white ash fumes

into palaces

and to cover the sea-caves

with ivory and onyx.

But I would give up

rock-fringes of coral

and the inmost chamber

of my island palace

and my own gifts

and the whole region

of my power and magic

for your glance.

💫

Circe by H. D.

 

responsive moments

Because you are alive, everything is possible.

-Thich Nhat Hanh

The bumper sticker says Live In The Moment! on a Jeep

that cuts me off. I’m working to forget it, to let go

of everything but the wheel in my hands,

as a road connects two cities without forcing them

to touch. When I drive by something, does it sway

toward me or away? Does it slip into the past

or dance nervously in place? The past suffers

from anxiety too. It goes underground, emerging

once in a blue moon to hiss. I hear the grass never

saying a word. I hear it spreading its arms across

each grave & barely catch a name. My dying wish

is scattering now before every planet. I want places to

look forward to. Listen: the earth is a thin voice

in a headset. It’s whispering breathe… breathe…

but who believes in going back?

💞

The Past Suffers Too by Ben Perkert

Between stimulus and response, there is a space.

In that space is our power to choose our response.

In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

~Victor Frankl

for such a time as this

what if it all comes down to this moment in time

this arena you stand in right now

this opportunity straight ahead in the path

this pickle

this dilemma

this hot spot

this crisis

this…

just this…

this choice for you to take as it is

to rise strong in your glory

to be all that you can be

this very morning

🌝

Amy Lloyd

cosmos

and there was light.

Now God says, Give them a little theatrical lighting

and they’re happy,

and we are. So many of us

dressing each morning, testing

endless combinations, becoming in our mirrors

more ourselves, imagining,

in an entrance, the ecstatic

weight of human eyes.

Now that the sun is sheering

toward us, what is left

but to let it close in

for our close-up? Let us really feel

how good it feels

to be still in it, making

every kind of self that can be

looked at. God, did you make us

to be your bright accomplices?

God, here are our shining spines.

Let there be no more dreams of being

more than a beginning.

Let it be

that to be is to be

backlit, and then to be only that light.

💫

And in the beginning God said Light by Mary Szybist

The whole cosmos can be packed into a mustard seed. Time and space are a relative experience.

Jaggi Vasudev

In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand, there is the story of our earth.

― Rachel Carson

Brightness.

Light.

Warm.

Cheerful.

Goal for life:

Practice radiance.

Be light.

💫

Amy Lloyd