Day Nineteen #NaPoWriMo2019
By Alex McGehee
Adorable
Beautiful
Cute
Dogs
Effortlessly, elegantly
Free, feisty,
Goddesses
Holy
Incarnate
Jolly
Kind
Loving
Moving
Nervous
Observant
Pious
Questioning
Resilient
Stellar
Terrible, terrific, trouble
Unquestioning
Vibrant, vocal
Wizards, witches, women, walksies
Xenial
Youngling
Zestful, zany, zippy, zigzag.
Ambiguity
By Maia McGehee
“Don’t stress Maia”
Said my wife to herself on a particularly hard day
Meaning she should make it easy for me
“Don’t stress, Maia”
I say to myself on that same day
Meaning to control my anxiety
“Don’t stress ‘Maia’”
I say to my friends when they struggle to say
“Maia” instead of my old name
The English language is full of ambiguity
We can say the same thing
And mean so many different things!
Day Eighteen #NaPoWriMo2019
By Alex McGehee
My lamentation for you
Is in nearly everything.
Perhaps not
The color pink,
or, the orange of a sunset.
Not in the cool sands of Seattle’s beaches,
Or in bellydancing in a room lacking floorspace.
No, you are not in the candles, carefully lit by Catholics,
Though you were with me for Chanukah, and taught me prayers
Only Buddha knew.
You found the sound of Arabic sung
So beautiful, panting in delight,
Ears high in happy, attentive, listening.
You are in my mindfulness, in every step I arrive in,
In my breath, and in the spaces without breath,
You are.
Day Fourteen #NaPoWriMo2019
By Alex McGehee
Is it hair?
Is it God?
Is it paper?
Who am I?
An Ode To Adjucting
By Maia McGehee
Lessons to write
Lessons to give
Lessons to regret
Emails to read
Emails to send
Emails to mark read
Exams to grade
Paper prompts to write
Discussion posts to read (and grade)
Training to complete
Absence forms to turn in
Pay to get docked
Bills to pay (or avoid paying until another day)
Taxes to file
Taxes to owe (really, though?)
Plagiarized papers to deal with
Missed exams to schedule
Late work to accept (or deny)
Students’ lives to change
Students’ attention to grab (or not)
Students who slip through the cracks (despite your best efforts)
No chance of security
No chance of a living wage
No chance of respect
Fulfillment? Sure, there’s some
But at what cost?
This is the state of education
With no end in sight
It’s our choice, true
But it won’t be long before we’re through
Day Eleven #NaPoWriMo2019
By Alex McGehee
Things that amuse me, poems to write,
Poems to amuse me, in spirit and sight.
Things that worry me, and things I adore,
Sitting on the computer, wanting more and more.
Communication and comfort, is all that I seek,
So I spend more time on social media, week after week,
And suddenly I realize, everything has gotten quite bleak,
And anxious, when it was only truth that I seek.
Peace and truth, and hope and love,
And comfort that there is, some kind of God above.
I look and I hope, and I listen and wait,
Praying for the Lord, my soul to take.
So now social media, let me gone,
We played around for a while, sang a few songs,
But now I am tired and you’ll soon be bored,
Because nothing this Autistic girl can do, will leave you truly floored.
In the way that you want, in the way that you need,
Desiring to have influence, so many people to please,
Never can you really, be true to yourself,
So many factor to compromise, so many risks to your health,
Mental and physical, psychological too,
So for now social media, ado, ado.
Day Eight #NaPoWriMo Poem One
By Maia McGehee
What makes me this shape?
Is it my genes?
My diet?
How fit I am?
What makes me this non-ideal shape?
Am I, in fact, non-ideal?
Should this be a deal breaker?
As if, on the deal, I just ended up with a bad hand
Turns out, I’m the shape of a little man
Poem For Maia
Idle musings,
Good poems make,
When written down,
Truth is found.
Day Four #NaPoWriMo2019 Poem One
By Maia McGehee
Alone, she sat, pondering her predicament
How had she come to this?
She commanded an armada of air pirates
Her dark powers of destruction were dreaded from Remila to Dumvar
Now, she was reduced to a restaurant’s recourse for rodents
A cat, a cat that was bonded to the “King of Draknor”
Once a lover, now an ally of convenience
But she’d never forget his negligence
Their daughters deaths, he’d let come to pass
While he plotted away in his keep
But all she could do now was cling to the mast
Or else the fall below would be quite steep
Day Four #NaPoWriMo2019 Poem One
By Alex McGehee
My analytic mind in research mode
Is all I know
Unable to move to unthinking
Creative space,
Emptiness,
My meditations always busy mantras,
A sneaky way to work all the time.
Workaholic.
The Quest For Enlightenment 