life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “laugh”

03 Apr 2016

easy for you to say…  

 

 
A word about Communication:
“In promulgating your esoteric cogitations, or articulating your superficial sentimentalities and amicable, philosophical or psychological observations, beware of platitudinous ponderosity. Let your conversational communications possess a clarified conciseness, a compact comprehensibility, coalescent consistency, and a concatenated cogency. Eschew all conglomerations of flatulent garrulity, jejune babblement and asinine affectations.

Let your extemporaneous descantings and unpremeditated expatiations have intelligibility and veracious vivacity, without rhodomontade or thrasonical bombast. Sedulously avoid all polysyllabic profundity, pompous prolixity, psittaceous vacuity, ventriloquial verbosity, and vaniloquent vapidity. Shun double-entendres, prurient jocosity, and pestiferous profanity, obscurant or apparent.

In other words, talk plainly, briefly, naturally, sensibly, truthfully, purely. Keep from slang; don’t put on airs; say what you mean; mean what you say.”
And DON’T USE BIG WORDS! 

         -Cybersalt

  
try reading this aloud! 🙂  
 

  

  

    

  

I love you wild –

like oceans, volcanoes, tsunamis and bees

I love you natural –

like seasons, rainbows, and falling leaves

I love you large –

like Grand Canyon’s,   

the mountains and sky

I love you small – 

like the atom, lady bugs, birds flying high 

I love you tender – 

like mamas with babies, 

and soft, falling rain

I love you strong – 

like soldiers with orders,

and wind on the plains

I love you like every cliche ever written

I love you with words that can never be spoken 

I love you in mystery I can’t understand

when hearing your voice

or seeing your hands

I love you deeper than knowledge

and wider than life

You fill me with beauty,

with music,

yes, 

you fill me with life. 

👫

AL

Posted in attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, Choice, find art at pinterest, laugh, Letting Go, People, Quotes, Reality | Leave a comment
31 Mar 2016

doors, windows, bridges, kite’s flying high

It is big sky and its changes,

the sea all round and the waters within.

It is the way sea and sky

work off each other constantly,

like people meeting in Alfred Street,

each face coming away with a hint

of the other’s face pressed in it.

It is the way a week-long gale

ends and folk emerge to hear

a single bird cry way high up.
It is the way you lean to me

and the way I lean to you, as if

we are each other’s prevailing;

how we connect along our shores,

the way we are tidal islands

joined for hours then inaccessible,

I’ll go for that,

and smile when I

pick sand off myself in the shower.

The way I am an inland loch to you

when a clatter of white whoops and rises…
It is the way Scotland looks to the South,

the way we enter friends’ houses

to leave what we came with, or flick

the kettle’s switch and wait.

This is where I want to live,

close to where the heart gives out,

ruined, perfected,

an empty arch against the sky

where birds fly through

instead of prayers

while in Hoy Sound

the ferry’s engines thrum

this life this life this life.
⛴

Orkney / This Life
Andrew Greig

For Catherine and Jamie


this birth of awaiting changes

this for that

tit for tat

tuxedo memories

pinstripe debonair

glamour hangs

like confetti in the air

life goes

round and round

flinging dreams

synthetic roads

leading nowhere

screams and laugher

hardest when not fair

up one side now

down the other there

we hang on

we stomp our feet

and swear

this ain’t right

this we cannot bear

life goes forward

ever on and on

wanting only

to change our point of view

we are loved

no matter what we lose

love will win

love’s always

life’s sweet muse

sight or blind

the vision ours to choose

❤️

AL

I’ll be the wild that keeps your heart in the clouds and you’ll be the anchor that keeps my feet on the ground.

⚓️

by Victoria Erickson


Hey, wait a minute…(pause…..)
Living artfully with time might only require something as simple as pausing.

—Thomas Moore

Let Me Tell You About Beginnings..

Posted in attitude, awareness, balance, Becoming Yourself, Beginning, Choice, connection, laugh, Letting Go, Life, Love | Leave a comment
22 Mar 2016

put a little trust in it 

Wendell Berry wrote, “Faith is not necessarily, or not soon, a resting place. Faith puts you out on a wide river in a boat, in the fog, in the dark.” 

 
The things that haven’t been done before,

   Those are the things to try;

Columbus dreamed of an unknown shore

   At the rim of the far-flung sky,

And his heart was bold and his faith was strong

   As he ventured in dangers new,

And he paid no heed to the jeering throng

   Or the fears of the doubting crew.
The many will follow the beaten track

   With guidepost on the way,

They live and have lived for ages back

   With a chart for every day.

Someone has told them it’s safe to go

   On the road he has traveled o’er,

And all that they ever strive to know

   Are the things that were known before.
A few strike out, without map or chart,

   Where never a man has been,

From the beaten paths they draw apart

   To see what no man has seen,

There are deeds they hunger alone to do;

   Though battered and bruised and sore,

They blaze the path for the many, who

   Do nothing not done before.
The things that haven’t been done before

   Are the tasks worth while to-day;

Are you one of the flock that follows, or

   Are you one that shall lead the way?

Are you one of the timid souls that quail

   At the jeers of a doubting crew,

Or dare you, whether you win or fail,

Strike out for a goal that’s new?  

          ~ Edgar A. Guest 

  
let’s do something new

me and you

let’s travel uncharted territory 

make new maps of all we find
let’s create a new heaven

and a new earth

just by touching each other’s souls

tracing hearts around each other’s scars
let’s do something extraordinary 

something spectacular 

 something world changing

something wild
let’s create a brand new star

just by loving each other

so completely 

it starts a supernova of epic proportion
let’s do something fun

something we can laugh at forever

something to bring joy into the room

peace into this broken world

😃

AL

  

 

No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit. 

–Helen Keller

🌎

find photo sources at http://www.pinterest.com 

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, Choice, confidence, connection, courage, Faith, find art at pinterest, intimacy, Joy, laugh, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, mystery, nature, Reality, soul and spirit, strength, Trust, truth | Leave a comment
21 Feb 2016

Sunday Funnies

  
  
  
 

  

   

   


  

     
 

    

  

You’re welcome! 

😄😄😄😄😄😄😄 

Posted in balance, Choice, find art at pinterest, Joy, laugh, Love, mystery | Leave a comment
30 Jan 2016

yes, please, beat again 

  
Grace
Nothing I have ever done or will ever do 

can separate me from 

or bring me into the heart of the Beloved.
Oh, I can distract myself from the longing 

that whispers day and night for that sacred union,

and some days I am too tired to notice 

that what I ache for is and always has been here:

. . . . right here in and at my fingertips,

in the way the breeze lifts my hair, 

the way the earth pulls me to her,

the way shared laughter makes my sides ache.
Nothing I have done or will ever do 

can make me worthy or unworthy

of being touched by the Lover’s hand and heart,

of being the Lover’s hand and heart in the world. 
Grace – the way Infinite Love 

gives Himself to us in every moment,

the way God unfurls Her tender mercy in our hearts-

is a constant invitation to say with the fullness of our being:

Yes.

Yes.

Yes. 

❤️

~Oriah Mountain Dreamer 

  
there is terrible beauty in every human heart 

tell me a story that will live with me forever

love always shares grace always wins

you can’t miss if you show up

pay attention…

the message is always revealed at the appointed intersection 

letting go brings the right miracle

at the right time the song playlist repeats 

crazy love flows into mystic waters slowly drips the sweetest tupelo honey

deep calling to deep

honor chooses to say yes to the best invitations

making the call brings me the messages I need to build the new bridge from the friend bench of this manna-filled moment

there is always more than enough to share

gratitude buckets fill and overflow

removing scales from blurry, tearful, kaleidoscope eyes 

as perfect peace falls into rightful place

color shards blooming into new masterpieces of never before seen glory

diamonds dance on the water

flaming beauty evolves, drives me to my knees,

shedding shoes, and fear, 

as we talk 

I lift my face to the sun and free soar 

full wing, open soul, with the gulls,

who always fly in trust, never a shadow of doubt, that they are loved to the sky 

right here, and in every tick of time,

in, and in between, every click of the second hand,

around the bend of eternity and back again
🌀

AL 1/30/16

in gratitude and honor for connecting with Liz on this beautiful morning of sun, warm and snow drifts

  
  

   

 photo above by Fisherman Dan @ Branford, CT

  



🌃

photos found at http://www.pinterest.com

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Blessing, connection, courage, create, Encouragement, find art at pinterest, friendship, inspiration, intimacy, Joy, laugh, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, mystery, Patience, Peace, People, Poetry, Reality | Leave a comment
06 Dec 2015

rejoice! 

 

  

  

  

  

 SUNDAY MORNING WITH THE SENSATIONAL NIGHTINGALES

by Billy Collins

It was not the Five Mississippi Blind Boys

who lifted me off the ground

that Sunday morning

as I drove down for the paper, some oranges, and bread.

Nor was it the Dixie Hummingbirds

or the Soul Stirrers, despite their quickening name,

or even the Swan Silvertones

who inspired me to look over the commotion of trees

into the open vault of the sky.

No, it was the Sensational Nightingales

who happened to be singing on the gospel

station early that Sunday morning

and must be credited with the bumping up

of my spirit, the arousal of the mice within.

I have always loved this harmony,

like four, sometimes five trains running

side by side over a contoured landscape––

make that a shimmering, red-dirt landscape,

wildflowers growing along the silver tracks,

lace tablecloths covering the hills,

the men and women in white shirts and dresses

walking in the direction of a tall steeple.

Sunday morning in a perfect Georgia.

But I am not here to describe the sound

of the falsetto whine, sepulchral bass,

alto and tenor fitted snugly in between;

only to witness my own minor ascension

that morning as they sang, so parallel,

about the usual themes,

the garden of suffering,

the beads of blood on the forehead,

the stone before the hillside tomb,

and the ancient rolling waters

we would all have to cross some day.

God bless the Sensational Nightingales,

I thought as I turned up the volume,

God bless their families and their powder blue suits.

They are a far cry from the quiet kneeling

I was raised with,

a far, hand-clapping cry from the candles

that glowed in the alcoves

and the fixed eyes of saints staring down

from their corners.

Oh, my cap was on straight that Sunday morning

and I was fine keeping the car on the road.

No one would ever have guessed

I was being lifted into the air by nightingales,

hoisted by their beaks like a long banner

that curls across an empty blue sky,

caught up in the annunciation

of these high, most encouraging tidings.

Posted in attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, Change, Choice, find art at pinterest, grace, laugh, Love, mystery, Relationships | Leave a comment
28 Nov 2015

in a blue sky day    

  
Woke up mid-dream

last night

(last night = wee hour morning)

Awakened by 

broken sad mourning
My whole life 

this date has been a celebration of life

My dad’s life – 

a soul who entered this realm November 24 – 

74 years of love ago
Today, this date brings tears

and morning mourning

Followed by blue sky

Up on the red roof

Fully alive

Generating compost

Organic buzzing be garden community possibility
Lost key

Kitchen studio 

Boots on ladders

Roast beef sprout ciabatta

Pirates of the Carribbean 

Stories of lobsters racing in

crusty rolls of butter
Once, years ago, I found my too soon gone Grandma 

Today, in a swing overlooking a river

graced by such beautiful bridges

touching sky whilst grounding feet

step by stepping ever overwater

beneath sky, 

I felt my daddy…
I sensed him smiling down upon November

gently holding my heart

and I couldn’t help but feel

the way he gently 

firmly let go

of my pink stripe 

banana seat bike

as I rode down the hill 

of Kosta Drive

all those years ago
That moment I knew he knew

I could do this myself

And gave me the beautiful gift 

of setting me 

and my bicycle free. 

🚲
Robin OK  

Muse of Collaborative Completion + Visionary for Creative Collaborative ReTREATS

What is your incomplete creative project? Let me help you breathe it to life!

Phone: 513-659-3356

email: laughndream@gmail.com

website: laughanddream.com

💜

Don’t miss the 5th annual Creative Collaborative ReTREAT, Sep 30-Oct 2, 2016! 

Website: creativecollaborativeretreats.com

email: creative.collaborative.us@gmail.com

   
    
    
    
    
    
    
 In a day of goodness

We splashed this city all over outselves

Stopped to smell the lingering roses

Went home happily full from our adventures

Life is bittersweet

full of separation, loss, grief, and hurting hearts

full of friendship, adventure, kindness, beauty and truth

I love you

I miss you

I hurt

I laugh

Life is good

💞

AL

  

I want my grief

to be brilliant, fast and gone. 

Like Mozart. Or Stevie Ray. 

Like fireworks. Boom! Flash! 

Ooh, ahh. OK, done. Let’s go. 
I want my grief to be brave.

Hurts more now, heals faster, 

Grandma said, pouring salt 

On a skinned knee. 
I want to stand up to grief,

Stand it down, like the 

Tiny man, big tank 

In Tiananmen Square. 
Because. Because if I am brave,

Bold, salty, open enough 

The tank, the bleeding, the tears 

Will stop sooner. I tell myself. 
But grief laughs. Humbles me.

I lose keys, break cups, get lost. 

Asked at CarMax Why are you

Selling this car? I burst 
Into an embarrassment of tears.

A friend says, One doesn’t have grief,

Grief has you. 

We wrestle, to the mat. I’m pinned. 
But sometimes I break free.

Break patterns instead of dishes. 

Start to write myself a new story, 

To fling myself toward yes, 
Begin to say, Oh. Now this. . . . Observe

What life brings. Reframe. Say, 

I’m not wrestling grief,

We’re dancing. 
So, I put my right foot in . . . 

And turn myself about. 

💔

I Want My Grief by Peg Runnels

Posted in Adventure, Alone, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, community, connection, Dreams, find art at pinterest, Freedom, friendship, Grieving, healing, inspiration, laugh, Letting Go, Life, Love, music, mystery, Passion, People, Reflection, Relationships | Leave a comment
11 Nov 2015

when you’re ready 

   
    
  
  
 

 Again I resume the long 
lesson: how small a thing 

can be pleasing, how little 

in this hard world it takes 

to satisfy the mind 

and bring it to its rest. 
With the ongoing havoc 

the woods this morning is 

almost unnaturally still. 

Through stalled air, unshadowed 

light, a few leaves fall 

of their own weight. 
                  The sky 

is gray. It begins in mist 

almost at the ground 

and rises forever. The trees 

rise in silence almost 

natural, but not quite, 

almost eternal, but 

not quite. 
        What more did I 

think I wanted? Here is 

what has always been. 

Here is what will always 

be. Even in me, 

the Maker of all this 

returns in rest, even 

to the slightest of His works, 

a yellow leaf slowly 

falling, and is pleased. 

💜

Sabbaths 1999, VII by  Wendell Berry
   

 The sky in my rearview 

is a huge bowl of rainbow sherbet 

the beautiful kind 

with raspberry, orange-n-lime 

swatches of lemon, indigo and periwinkle 

float like barges – 

in, out 

& 

around. 

Framing. 

Dancing. 

Living. 

At one point tangerine fills the top of the hilly crest 

and head light stars 

blaze brilliant against the backdrop 

indigo stretched above framing the masterpiece. 

At times I find it hard to keep moving forward 

into the matte gray of the sky just ahead. 

so much loveliness is going on 

right behind me 

how can I keep heading away from it? 

How can I not be a part of this splendor? 

Eventually midnight blue seizes its moment of glory, 

then night falls over all 

and I am left 

aching with the beauty, 

the majesty, 

the extravagant display, 

of this wonderful world. 

I go to wondering 

if this longing for your kiss

will ever be answered? 

if my whole life I will wait 

for a moment which has already passed, 

never to be again under this piece of sky. 

always a whisper.  

The magic of love, 

a thing with wings 

hovering over my heart 

for years 

echoing on into eternity.  

💞

AL

Posted in art, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Blessing, Change, compassion, confidence, connection, courage, create, determination, find art at pinterest, Growth, Habits, Happiness, healing, laugh, Letting Go, Love, mystery, Passion, Patience, perceptions, Relationships | Leave a comment
07 Nov 2015

just a thought

  
My life was the size of my life.

Its rooms were room-sized,

its soul was the size of a soul.

In its background, mitochondria hummed,

above it sun, clouds, snow,

the transit of stars and planets.

It rode elevators, bullet trains,

various airplanes, a donkey.

It wore socks, shirts, its own ears and nose.

It ate, it slept, it opened

and closed its hands, its windows.

Others, I know, had lives larger.

Others, I know, had lives shorter.

The depth of lives, too, is different.

There were times my life and I made jokes together.

There were times we made bread.

Once, I grew moody and distant.

I told my life I would like some time,

I would like to try seeing others.

In a week, my empty suitcase and I returned.

I was hungry, then, and my life,

my life, too, was hungry, we could not keep

our hands off our clothes on

our tongues from

💃🏻

My Life Was the Size of My Life by Jane Hirshfield 
   

… and if what I desperately think I want doesn’t happen…God, and life, are still good…
😘

Posted in attitude, awareness, be, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Change, Choice, courage, grace, Gratitude, Happiness, healing, laugh, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, music, mystery, Passion | Leave a comment
03 Nov 2015

epic

  
Life is an epic journey 

A pilgrimage 

Not for the faint of heart 

Without the challenging parts of the path 

We grow weak 

Without those things that can kill us 

We grow bored 

We need life to be interesting 

challenging

changing

to feel alive 

Yes, life is a crazy sort of journey 

Welcome to the great adventure 

💃🏻

AL

 

 Wild Mercy
The eyes of the future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time. They are kneeling with hands clasped that we might act with restraint, that we might leave room for the life that is destined to come. To protect what is wild is to protect what is gentle. Perhaps the wildness we fear is the pause between our own heartbeats, the silent space that says we live only by grace. Wilderness lives by this same grace. Wild mercy is in our hands.

– Terry Tempest Williams

Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert Dwellers

 

Listen to Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, connection, courage, determination, do, find art at pinterest, Freedom, inspiration, intimacy, laugh, Letting Go, Life, Love | Leave a comment

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