20 Lines A Day

A Community of Writers and Photographers

Author Archives: thepainterspalate


by 3 Comments

Hunger

 

Malnutrition.

www.flickr.com

 

Growling with emptiness their

stomachs are burning with weakness

they are hungry.

 

Staring at their un-easiness

their bulging bellies retrieving us

it seems so defeat less

they say.

 

This hunger; this depleted health

melting on the meek

starving, incomplete.

 

The wealthy turn their heads

stuffing their mouths with the dead

homeless and poor, alone they are

writhing in pain.

 

Fulfilling the stomach on greed

is disastrous, when hunger seems

so vast, so immediate and

where’s the shame?

 

All of this world’s bounty wasted

on the meaningless — the insane.

 

© [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com], [2012]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material, artwork, or photo’s without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com] with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.


by 3 Comments

Sun — Where Have You Been?

I’ve been waiting in the cold

dark, forever, it seems, at least

to feel your warm hand upon my body.

Unbury me from this hovel of dampness

that infects my bones, my joints.

I need your electric balm to invigorate

my mind, my soul.

This gray shadow has cast its’ net

too long, too far.

It has swallowed

too much of this earth

causing a great bulge

in yesterday’s news.

One – sided blues

that propagates itself

over the tops of its citizen’s moods

clamping down hard with its monotonous recital.

Sun! Unleash your soothing rays

for we cannot wait

patience has seen its overdue days.

© [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com], [2012]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material, artwork, or photo’s without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com] with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.


by 1 Comment

Crowded Room

Svein Koningen painting "The crowded room...

Svein Koningen painting “The crowded room” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The wretched racket of quiet

has entered this room

dancing mockingly at your gloom

I laugh back

for I am in love with solitude

little had they knew, I relish and catch-up

on conversations I started with myself

by clear water lagoons

they had forgotten

I passed many a moon

Still the dancers; erect ears

set on doom

I will tap on their shoulders

for a spin about my room

laughing playfully

they thought they could

grate my ears with

their crackling croon

of quiet performances

bowing down at my gloom.

© [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com], [2012]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material, artwork, or photo’s without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com] with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.


by 4 Comments

Roller Coaster Mama

Climbing round ladders

of rickety frame

flying down chutes faster and then

climbing with burden

upon steel girder

wondering, worrying why this world

is whirring out-of-order

fast wooden fervor

without time to plan

the next turn, loop, upside down hoop

shaking your brain, hoping to recoup

roller coaster mama

climbing high, high, higher

arms in the air

steady tracks, not there?!

free fall of hope, crashing in disrepair

despaired of parts, waiting for her next dare

roller coaster mama, destiny declared!

climbing, careening

sucking candied carnival air.

© [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com], [2012]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material, artwork, or photo’s without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com] with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.


by 3 Comments

Narrow Soul

Sadness abounds the narrow soul

to control, explain

fear rides side by side

gripping at the throat!

of life

listless and in stupor

they contain all the pain

too much to swallow in the hollow

shallow smallness of their brain.

Narrow souls can never dance

if by chance

they entrance

then – the locks on their minds slam shut!

to “forever time”

destroying the essence of the sublime

forgetting the spark that lit their fire

snuffing it out to forsake

their desire

in control the narrow soul

is consuming sadness whole.

© [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com], [2012]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material, artwork, or photo’s without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com] with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.


by 3 Comments

Rain

Green gray

this day

warm icy wind

tickles my skin

goose bumps live

under the rain drops

solemn moods

and soaking cries

illicit friends

burning sky

birds no more

intrude

the sun snoozes

behind gray clouds

as if to never speak aloud

again to light

rejoice

rebound

night-time moon

crescent crown.

© [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com], [2012]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material, artwork, or photo’s without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com] with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.


by 2 Comments

Wildfire

remember those days

when you were a kid

not caring about gobbling up

5 candy bars

all at once

or eating a whole bag of Doritos

before dinner?

it was that wanton “gall of it all”

that carefree “live in the moment”

attitude that you long for again

children are the essence of life

the ones that adults admire most

they represent freedom

freedom of spirit

freedom of movement

freedom of the soul

to exist as fluid as a river

and as blazing as a wildfire

always

remember those days.

© [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com], [2012]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material, artwork, or photo’s without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com] with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.


by 2 Comments

Ravaged

That greedy glint in the eye of the fooled, the eye of the lost

my heart left in the home of the tricked

What does it take for them to wake up?

to stop selling their fortunes

for the land of milk and honey, the land

where the streets are paved in gold

the lies told to lure them

What will it take before the tales

of fools are replaced with the folklore

of the ancient, the contentment of the

indigenous? What will it take for the

mad hatter to end his greedy voyages

into the hearts of the innocent?

I am ravaged like the forests of the Amazon!

Ravaged like the tombs of Egypt!

Where do the tombs rest now? In the land

of the greedy, the violent, in the land of the weeping.

 I am ravaged like the exiled

 ravaged like the land of the tricked

ravaged like the heart of the fool.

 

© [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com], [2012]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material, artwork, or photo’s without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com] with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.


by 1 Comment

At Ease

Words never came easy to me

now I drink these words with a gulping familiarity, a familiarity

that soothes my throat with pleasure

frees my throat from this steel prison of silence.

How easy it appears to my starving unsatisfied soul

to pick up this glass full of language, full of words

and feel it glide like a cool river through my esophagus.

The wild well of pained/buckets full

of crap, releases like a snap snap/surging

fluently to the surface

it reveals itself

as if it were always there, waiting

waiting to speak. How easy it appears

from time to time the steel snap snaps!

and there you are

free, familiarity; facing directly

surly you speak, words surely familiar rise,

soothing my throat with peace

how easy it comes to be - 

at ease.

© [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com], [2012]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material, artwork, or photo’s without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com] with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.


by Leave a comment

Beeswax Neighbors

the man down the alley and across the street

is my guard, my night owl who beckons the night.

a lamp-post squared and watching; the neighborhood.

his cigarette glows, he puffs

with nary a ruffle of his body he sits; perched

in the early pitch of morn’

as i walk khalil, my fearful chocolate lab

past the obelisk monuments

of beeswax neighbors

sleeping with solid vacancy.

they are resting now

while the streets hum quietly, expecting their return.

a distant lowing bark muffles the gray black dawn

my heart races, moves me along my routine path

allowing khalil to sniff briefly

at the sleeping earth’s musk

marking his scent upon it’s’ dew.

and as the sun’s messengers begin to call

i retreat. while suddenly, silently, one by one

they awake and attack daybreak.

© [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com], [2012]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material, artwork, or photo’s without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com] with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.


by Leave a comment

This Pencil

 

this pencil is my savior, it is my voice

this pencil sings of lost love

of lost hope

the tree of life that grows

the garden of the dark fruit

this wood; it is my paint brush that

caress’ my soul, that soothes my heart

and whittle’s away my time

this pencil, this withering branch that

I sharpen and point toward the East

point toward the past and point toward

the gates of history

it is my mast that floats erect

on the swells of the ocean

traveling toward the shore

lightened with buoyancy

lightened with poetry

this pencil is my savior, it is

singing my tales, singing my songs,

singing the voices of hope.

© [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com], [2012]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material, artwork, or photo’s without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com] with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.


by 1 Comment

Your Stories

The days I turn wild and rageful are

the days I long to spend with you

I long to see your glorious mind

to hear your stories of lost time

the days I turn to madness are

the days that I feel shackled

to the bonfires of my bosses

to the planks of those hallways

that lead nowhere. I return.

daily I collect paper

like ants collecting the sands of the earth

on their backs

I return,

mad and burnt by the monotony

burnt by this never-ending trail

of the mad, of the stuck, of the gluttony; the dreams of others

I carry on my shoulders and

I return

spent and burnt with the agony of longing

to hear your wonderful stories.

© [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com], [2012]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material, artwork, or photo’s without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com] with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.


by 1 Comment

Edgar and Vincent

The melancholy of sweet depression

like Poe and Vincent Van Gogh

those who were fraught with despair

have created haute cuisines

of flesh, of reds, of spleen

they’ve picked up their brushes, their pen and ink

their palettes exploded, fit to repair

splayed open wide

their vision, their loneliness and

the haunting beauty that possessed their minds

their art, wild and wanton

masterpieces of expression

born out of tongues that spoke with hysteria

and sights of historical blessings

that spoke about The Starry Night

of Annabel and The Raven’s delight

that spoke of shimmer, shiver and fright

of howling, wailing wicked light!

Vincent Van Gogh and

Edgar Allan Poe.

(I wrote this poetry as a tribute to both of these amazing artist’s. The above painting I did is of Michael Wolgemut, Vincent Van Gogh’s mentor and teacher; I painted him because I love Vincent Van Gogh and his work and was instantly attracted to his eyes, “the eyes are the window to the soul” as they say)

© [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com], [2012]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material, artwork, or photo’s without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com] with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.


by Leave a comment

The Season of Breakdown

At first appearance

fear! strikes my soul

a closer look at

my wounded life

wrings salty tears

out of

my pillow case

sobs

of sorrow

the weeping

strife!

stringing

all my pains

and backward contemplations

around the gilded knife

of life’s thrusting complications

peeling off the layers

of dried out withered dreams

waking centuries of sweetness

beguiling and free!

© [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com], [2012]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material, artwork, or photo’s without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com] with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.


by Leave a comment

Insomnia

My heart is racing, tap

tap, tapping on the moon

this night is a bore

the quiet stillness

I abhor

forget the blinds

up in the sky, pull

pull them down

around, around

silly night, you cannot serenade me

seducing me into your spell

I fell, I fell into my mind

to forget to sleep in time, not mine.

Forever – ’til the end

only this silliness

to contend

around, around

forever and more

the quiet stillness

I abhor.

© [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com], [2012]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material, artwork, or photo’s without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to [Jeanette Shihadeh] and [thepainterspalate.wordpress.com] with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,918 other followers

%d bloggers like this: