What Sitting Here Can Do

It goes like this. Scrolling along, I notice no poems have been posted here since last July 2025. I have been depressed. This is what the debris from depression can look like, meaningful things left unattended. They pile up.

So I decide to write a poem right here, right now. 

Drenched in airless thought 

where laces always unravel,

a special heart dance

clears my shoreline of grief

and whatever else has 

accumulated.

The steps are my choice,

not the phantom looming.

A toe cramp waves at me

as I sit in silence.

I imagine it tells me,

We have the nerve to

to move on our own.

Amusing me

is now relegated

to my big toe. 

M. Flannery

15 October 2025

Poetry Websites

 

Finding a website to post your poetry can be daunting. Reading reviews have to be filtered through your priority list. 

Is the size of the website's audience number one or is it the format? There are places where poets gain status by reciprocal following. Other websites, your work sits there until somebody reads and clicks Like. Both styles do the same thing, they get your poems out in the public. 

Reading poetry based blogs is another way of spreading your words.

For a start, read 

Feedspot's,  100 Best Poetry and Websites

The Safe Sofa

There are several ways
to move away
from cuddling up
to a familiar sofa.
If a person believes
the woven fabric
is the safest surface
to connect with,
then the path to different
becomes solid
enough to stand;
and step away
into a supply of reality.
Living hours and hours
inside day dreams,
makes the body wait
to be tended,
by a heartbeat willing

to take a seditary soul

on a new journey.

M. Flannery

January 2024

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The first poem of the year, Direction is the theme. A direction to move away from old habits, positive and negative, to create from the past, a future that blends into growth as a person, as a poet. Moving off the safe sofa is daring for a person with depression. Maybe daring will mix well with the direction theme. 

Farewell 2023

This time of year I begin to think a lot about summer. Poetry is not on my mind except for a brief puff of a thought that maybe I should write a poem before 2023 ends.

If being a poet is a job, then that makes sense. 

Poetry to me isn't work. I may struggle with words, but not the core of what they mean to me. 

I began writing poetry in grade school. It was in 7th grade, my English teacher gave me A on both poems I turned in. I realized then that I can write poetry. His face glowed to me that I have talent. Most will run with that inspiration. I however, run away and hide when I'm told I do something well. Being noticed opens me up to ridicule, that getting in trouble fear we all felt as a kid. Thankfully, I aged with a fairly good meh attitude against negative criticism.

I decided in 2024 I will change my lifestyle. That means writing poetry regularly, cataloguing my poems, and finally, putting together a couple of books of poetry.

Have a good New Year 2024

~~~~~~~~~~~

Blue Sky Daydream

If I think of this longer,

then I can make it different.

I will edit like wind against 

the trees, water over stones,

the length of the grasses 

nibble by prairie dogs.

There are mountains waiting

for me to see them.

I will walk there on a daydream,

filled with blue sky.

M.Flannery

December 2023

Sunshine

on the real estate of sunshine,

thoughts organize for a

journey that takes me away

from muffins

baked without understanding

from a flour unblessed by reason.

look at your muffin

for common sense,

then read the headlines.

do you feel difference?

Turmoil films a video

of two reeds in the slang

complaining about 

water quality. vanity 

grips both at 2.3k.

a fake New England accent

gives them away.

the air is dry,

hot and without harmony.

an old guy attempts a joke

i don't laugh.

he stares wondering why.

sunshine isn't always funny.

M.Flannery

November 2023

Autumn Arrives

Autumn. Arrives 

slowly, drenched in summer memories of rain.

Water. Lentils, soup, and surely a spicey tea

for evenings when thoughts warm,

nestle in daydreams pulled across 6 in the evening.

The news is over. The games begin. The toes in socks

cross each other, fetal, real, rested. A book opens.

A television goes off. Clicker dormant. 

Apple crisp waits, cool and sweet

for the tada of the fridge light going on.

Leaves frosted and dry,

churn outdoors

in a chilly wind spinning names

and sounds calling Winter.