Welcome to the healing power of poetry (and lyrics)…
Poems, Lyrics, Poems
for healing, feeling, and joy
DISCLAIMER: Here you will find excerpts from some of the 55 poems I have published (in 4 books+ some elsewhere), and rough drafts of poems I am experimenting with for new books or projects, or just for fun…poems are meant to be shared (and revised)! Plus other things that also need to be shared and/or aired… ~dpd 💖
Audrey Cutts was my 6th grade teacher. She loudly and silently changed my life. Loud was how she moved in the world while I was trying my best to remain silent. Never before had I seen a woman command her way across the floor. She was a female force of nature and was in awe of her presence alone, not to mention every word she unapologetically uttered.
Thanks to Mrs. Cutts I began to see that I, too, could not just take up space, but live a life of my own creation, and maybe, just maybe, it could even be filled with words!!
—excerpt from “Audrey” found in Tiny Lights: Small Poems for Big Moments
Like you,
I only rest in
moments when the
harsh light of day falls heavy on
me and the world is
concerned with its
own buzzing.
Or when I
can finally fold
the down over inside
my ears and close my glossy eyes
to let loose the casket of
wasted bones I’m
tempted to
carry.
“Owls” (aka Hypervigilance)
Your hand ghosts by mine
but I feel the warm patina
of flesh, the imprint of bones,
spine of a lace leaf
blowing in the wind…
from “Metronome”
May you be soft like tall grasses that can withstand
whipping winds and the pelting of water,
So if you find yourself one day uprooted you will fly
free and be ready wherever you land to let your
white roots descend
Once again into the newly blackened soil and keep
going through its darkness into the grounding
of your soul…
from “The Brittle”
Excerpts of The Forgiveness Poems, finally all in one place!
Forgiveness I
Don’t ever let anyone tell you how to forgive.
Go right ahead and hold on to those hurts until
they have taught you every single thing you need to know.
They’re yours and nobody tells you when or
where to let them go.
Don’t let anyone say you will love yourself more
if you drop them and then
to hurry up and get along with things,
Implying they have expiration dates or
statutes of limitations.
–In Your Bones: Poems of Radical Forgiveness
Forgiveness III
It can be walking away or walking toward,
Igniting a conversation or setting off a firewall,
Staying stuck in one place or moving miles away,
It can be done and redone until it’s well done.
It can free you if you keep checking in
with your heart.
–When You Know: Poems of Self-Love
Forgiveness II
Let forgiveness take any form it needs to.
It can be saying nothing or saying everything.
It can be taking the heart that sits on your sleeve
and asking someone to hold it and feel its rhythm.
It can be showing up to pick the wires of a pacemaker out of the ashes before you cast them in the sea, when no one else will.
It can be standing in a field of bones letting your heart break long after those that tell you to go home are gone
and you can think about how you will walk again.
–In Your Bones: Poems of Radical Forgiveness
Forgiveness IV
Forgive Yourself for still warming your feet with the coals of the anger that saved you long after the saving is done.
Forgive Yourself for sitting too patiently at the end of a long line for your turn to let the warm water rush
all over you.
–When You Know: Poems of Self-Love
Love Songs to Sing to YOU…
What if we started each new year off with nothing to change? What if we were all already good enough, smart enough, beautiful enough, strong enough? That doesn’t mean we couldn’t do more or less of something, but it does mean that we would still be the same lovable person that we started with no matter what happened. For most of us that is simply unfathomable. We don’t know what to be if we aren’t striving for something else. It seems so silly to say that we are ENOUGH, because maybe it is just impossible for us to believe or embrace.
There are 1000 memes and quotes that tell us we are, but why do we need to keep saying it?! Does it ever sink in? What would it take? How about we just pretend it’s true for a day, a month, for a YEAR??
Couldn’t hurt and it just might change the way we think, move, and live…
*poem excerpt from When You Know by dpd
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. ~Marcel Proust
Some favorite poems set to music…
Grief
One day grief will show up in a little red cap and a button nose to run in and out of the clover with an impish grin.
Or you’ll see its red cap bob and then be gone only to find it perched on your back step when you look out to check on the moon.
Another day as you drive down the street you’ll see a sign erected in a random yard that says “Grief at Play” and you won’t see anyone, anywhere.
Then there will be two of them skipping down the street hand in hand and before you know it they’ve slipped through your secured windows.
By the time you get inside there will be more sprawled across the couch stretched out like starfish with no room for you to sit.
Eventually though they will rise one by one, grab their sticks, and shuffle in retreat to the guest house only to return another day.
You will learn to leave the doors and windows cracked and pull up more chairs before you retreat to your bed to rest up for that day.
from When You Know by dena parker duke
Sweet syrup
I want to suck
you down in slurps
and swallows not
stopping to burp
back or savor.
Fill my moon belly full.
Drip off my tongue in
velvet drops like gems,
while my veins pulse
in rhythmic nods-
strobe light neon.
Excerpt From “Sleep”
Gulps greedily
gulp down air
Nerves jump
when summoned
Cells just sit on the
front stoop waiting
for high signs
Breaths ripple
like flags
Heartbeats turn
with the gentle purr
of a rotisserie
Thermostats
set to auto.
Excerpt From “There”
May we hold on to ourselves as the days flow by
in endless directions and herdings
so mundane
even dogs would not follow.
Give us joy in the unrehearsed moments free of
targets and tasks that will
bury us if given
the chance.
Let us be more like them and
more alive than
we
can remember.
Excerpt From “Child Care”
UPDATE: While these all made pretty posters, they have all been significantly revised for a new project. But I love them here together, just as they were conceived…TBC
See Disclaimers…More poems “Under Construction”!
Yield
Make friends with your feelings
They are your allies
Don't accuse them of hysteria
When they are only there to
Inform you about what's
Making your heart speed
And palms drip
They are a resource
A blanket to cover you or
Fold up on the end of your
Bed for now but ignoring
Them sends short circuits
Leaving them stuck
On high alert somewhere
Inside you where you
Can't see them pointing
Your way home
Best Water Songs Ever
Pure poetry in motion...just like water.
The worst secrets are the ones
you don’t know you’re keeping
that settle in your bones and
seep into those hard white
spaces that are alive
with growing
and breaking.
Excerpt From “It Is”
One pure narrow beam could make a
wildfire or sparks to warm a heart.
The one thing illuminating our
shadows. The presence waiting
deep inside us.
The glow in all our windows.
Excerpt From “A Tiny Light”
They will say to leave your couch
travel look happy
and you will know that your look will
never tell the story
of where you are or
where you’ve been or
where you’re going or even
bother to give an estimated time of arrival.
Excerpt From “ETA”
Best Lyrics Ever
It all begins with choice words that then get married to beats, harmonies, and melodies in perfect union. Pure poetry in motion...
The Middle Way
I only had two models: say everything or say nothing.
I take the middle way which is why I write.
Writing is thinking and I need a script or
else I say what someone wants to hear or something
no one hears.
I need to think before I speak or
I’m mute or rambling
which either way
gets redacted, black-lined,
or tuned out.
You might be afraid
of what I might say,
I’m afraid of what I won’t.
The middle way is
the only
way.