Tag: life

Things I learned in My Youth

On By Jerry BrothertonIn Poetry, Rhyming24 Comments

Maple trees are easiest to climb

Oak trees offer the grandest view

Willow trees are better to hide behind

If someone is looking for you

Love thy neighbor is always right

But lust is usually a sin

In a fight between a fist and a nose

The fist will always win

 

Don’t raise your hand just to impress a girl

If you don’t know the answer

Don’t take her to a hockey game

If you’re trying to romance her

We’ll keep in touch means it’s the end

Despite your good intentions

Because out of sight means out of mind

Due to inattention

The Past

On By Jerry BrothertonIn Poetry, Rhyming16 Comments

A loving place where I did once dwell

But will never be allowed to return

You are the spring that feeds the stories I tell

The keeper of the things that I have learned

Each step I take is filled with memories

From a life that I once knew

Every smell from flower and tree

Pulls my thoughts back to you

There in those backyards of my memories

I recall my pledge from so long ago

That I will remain open and free

And cling to youth and never let go

Reflection

On By Jerry BrothertonIn Poetry, Rhyming11 Comments

I look into the mirror and

Wonder who it is that I see

Those once youthful eyes now frosted

Staring back with maturity

There was a time I composed my

Own songs and sang them so proudly

I gave little care if I showed

The world the foolish side of me

My battle scars displayed smugly

From my war on conformity

 

Questioning every verdict and

Accepting nothing as issued

Loving strong and crying deeply

With all the appetites of youth

Those passions gained, sorrows and pain

I chewed them all with brandish tooth

Then spit them out into the world;

My words of honesty and truth

 

Perhaps I had the whole thing wrong

Or somewhere I just stop trying

I traded away my talents

For music easier to sing

I bartered my soul for comfort

Trying to ease life’s bitter sting

 

I look upon this furrowed face

Of adversity and trial

It’s not the ending but the chase

That has given this man his smile

 

So please do not lament for me

For I am happy with my plight

I look upon my history

And know that I have chosen right

My Funeral

On By Jerry BrothertonIn Free Verse, Poetry4 Comments

Someday they will gather at my end

Each heart will mourn in its own way

The old folks will cry without shame

The young will smile and remember when

The children will just wonder who’s in the box

Struggle to Be Free

On By Jerry BrothertonIn Poetry, Rhyming21 Comments

We enter the world in perfect grace

No preconceived notions or bias

Of wealth, success, fame or race

No hatred, anger, or malice

 

It starts with a slap across the behind

To learn nothing can be taught without pain

We learn to cry and so we find

We can manipulate others for our own gain

 

We learn to crawl to get to things

Our mothers will not give

We learn to walk so we might know

A better way to live

 

We learn to run, too think, to try

To find what we are meant to be

We learn to hate, to steal, to lie

In our struggle to be free

 

We learn to love because we thought

We could not face the end alone

But everything must end, does it not

That’s the thing we’ve always known