Like a train wreck, I couldn’t look away.

They say, “if you see something, say something” 

so I said something yet somehow it blew up in my face anyway.

He said he wasn’t “good enough” for me.

Translation: He wasn’t really feeling me

but allowed his curiosity to get the best of him.

So like the rest of them he was an unattainable,

“emotionally unavailable” carrot dandling over my exercise wheel.

This was him letting me down gently—

or as gently as heavy blows to the heart and ego can be made.

He said he’d “saved” me from himself.

Dear Christian Mingle, 

No. I will not allow you to find God’s match for me.

I won’t allow you to be the only source of my hope.

My help meet isn’t Waldo waiting to be found among other lookalikes and could sorta bes—

He’s more of a Highlights magazine “Spot The Difference”.

If God wanted my love right clicked it would have been virtual reality he made on the 7th day instead of resting.

Christian Mingle I’m not bitter I just know better and I’m no better off even if I use you,

because God, should He choose to, can derail even your tried and true methods.

“Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing” seems to suggest I need to be sought after rather than do the seeking.

Or so I’m thinking…

I’m not knocking the hustle because God uses the simple things to confound the wise but my heart won’t be confounded in the same manner.

So every time I see a commercial, an internet banner just know that love can still be found the old fashion way

and one day, I’ll prove that.

The children now are speaking in tongues that the adults don’t understand,

and the only time they sing “Amen” is with Meek Mills and them.

Marvin we still don’t know what’s going on

and our inner city blues are leaving our people battered, bruised

bullets with no regard to whose body its destined for strike and it just makes me wanna holler and throw up both my hands— 

dance and,

fight battles that aren’t mine.

This is a letter to my sons.

To my boys, the ones who’ll grow up in a society that wants to be like them yet fears them.

They’ll be young men stereotyped into basketball and inaccurate representations of Christ hanging on gold chains— they’ll know that He got up again.

This is a letter to my sons.

To my princes, the one’s who’ll eventually question their royalty,

who’ll consider conformity

and have their hearts broken by women.

To my sons, who’ll give more than they’re given

To my namesakes, who’ll break more molds than they fit in

this is to them.

“Skool Daze” The third album. Available for free download Tuesday July 31, 2013.

When we made love we neglected the instructions.

We forgot that there was lust with just a convenient serving of real desire.

We made love without the fire required to activate all the ingredients.

Most of all we weren’t obedient to the Master Of Making…

We made love without taking our clothes off or making our walls soft— easier for penetration.

So the love we made was confirmation of our poor crafting skills.

When we made love we had yet to deal with the other bubbling pots on the burners.

We were students,

culinary love learners given Bs for effort.

When we made love there were so many utensils haphazardly dropped,

so many puddles left lazily unmopped,

plenty burns and bruises to the ego.

When we made love, as far as we know, we included some eggshells, similar to the kind we’re still traipsing around.

When we made love we made it how youngsters craft with Easy Bake Ovens—

ingredients made of virtually nothing and water.

When we made love we should have called for our adult selves to assist us.

Maybe then the opportunity to make real love wouldn’tve missed us and we wouldn’t be stuck pretending there isn’t a kitchen of mess.

“Skool Daze” The third album. Available for free download Tuesday July 31, 2013.

I’m here.
You’re here.
We’re here conveniently.
We’ve come without confusion as to where we’ll be sleeping we—
we’ve seen this movie before.
I’ll conveniently draw lines you aren’t allowed to but dared to cross anyway.
You’ll look up and say, “its getting late”, and I’ll hate the way you’ll say it—
as if it were my fault you made yourself so convenient.

I’m here.
You’re here.
We’re here conveniently.
We’ve set ourselves up without shame as to how we’ll be sleeping we—
we’ve done this song and dance before.
You’ll explore the curves of my hips as if its road unknown.
I’ll reach for my phone, its vibration foreshadowing whats to come,
and it’ll be no one so I’ll turn it off completely.

I’m here.
You’re here.
We’re here conveniently.
We’ve made it so we’re always here however conveniently sleeping we—
we’ve said before it would stop.
By morning you’ll swear it was not either of our faults, that fate is taking its course and we,
we’re just conveniently
going 
along 
with
it.

inmyhead16 replied to your photo: “Skool Daze” The third album Tuesday July 31, 2013

Where can I find the other 2??

“The Renaissance” (2011) and “Twenty5” (2012) are available as free downloads here: http://verandahmaureen.com/creativeworks.php

THE WAIT IS OVER…

The third album from Spoken Word Artist Verandah-Maureen Shepard is set to be released Tuesday, July 31, 2013.

For more updates and promotions visit www.verandahmaureen.com

Artists thrive off of faithful fan bases. Whether the faithful base is comprised of 200 or 20, the faithful will ALWAYS be a blessing.

Don’t worry about who isn’t showing up to shows.

Don’t worry about who isn’t reading or listening.

Don’t worry about who isn’t tangibly supporting.

Those who are faithful have already done so. And they have done so without being asked to.

Verandah-Maureen is officially part of the creative powerhouse group The Epic 12 scheduled to present a history making groundbreaking show THIS JULY featuring some of New York City’s best and brightest poets, musicians, singers, and songwriters.

“Like” the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/TheEpic12

Life is a drug— and I can’t stop using.

Abusing pages on binges in black in blue, who are you to judge? 

I stand with other dope fiends abusing lines I can’t describe to my parents.

I’ve been strung out since I can recall.

My first taste was at the place of Heartbreak— no hotel in California could compare.

Life is an addiction, a guilt forming habit— and I can’t stop indulging.

When the world cuts me, written on pages cut me, in the vain filled hope something found there will make the internal bleeding stop.

Life is an adulterer, it keeps on screwing me over

and under

and sideways,

bent over

behind ways— 

and I cant stop coming…back.

And I can’t stop going back.

That formed habit, that crack, that addiction, that drug riddled high with no prescription— I can’t stop using.

I can’t stop abusing.

I can’t stop choosing it over the darkness that threatens to pass over daily.

I’m pretty sure my soul is starting to bleed from it.

I can’t stop tasting.

I can’t stop freebasing Love out of hearts uncut and potent.

Maybe I should go to rehab… let go all what’s making me sad—

the habits,

the drugs,

the addictions.

Life is ironic now, isn’t it?

In a writer’s mind there are crumpled up post its

that didn’t make posts, its…

normal for them.

There are sound bites in the written form just floating around in deep space uptop. There are the things not said.

In a writer’s head nothing is really what it seems. Their pens bleed their ultra violet blue or tainted black but their brains hemorrhage. Spilling over all sides the way a well erected appendage would.

Their morning wood— conversational remnants from the night before.

In a writer’s mind there is a catalogue of muses. How they’ve come and gone amuses them. How they’ve left their mark abuses every writing space.

Writers don’t ever think about what ifs—

its just this

and this

and this.

Their minds are always in a single moment.

And they’re plagiarists in the way they own it— it being their stores of writing.

As if their rhyming

and timing

and personification assigning hasn’t been done elsewhere at least once before.

A writer’s mind is full of idealistic never-gonna-happens—

until they write it,

and then that’s when the vision has been made plain. Possible. So really in a writer’s mind is where miracles are formed.

A writer’s mind is not so arrogant in thinking they’ve always written the right words and will always have something poignant to say. Somedays a writer’s mind is simply just…

blank.

And sometimes, give or take a few instances of the former, its impossible to turn off.

Single memories become written screen plays.

A clip of music becomes a relay— the sound passes off to a thought the thought to another sound.

A photograph is how you lose a writer forever. They will find all 1,000 words…

Every inappropriately placed verb,

and right on the money adjective.

In a writer’s mind there’s no passage, its…

it just IS.

Sort of like the heavens just gives us the impression that it goes on and on.

And on.

And on.

Love in a writer’s mind is warfare. A modern war fair to none who participate because it just seems to suck the very life out of one or both sides.

They try not to write about their affection.

They try not to give life to their love,

attention,

or even aknowledgement.

Writers in love are so useless and annoying. They spend their hours toying with sickening sweet metaphors that incarcerate cardiac and reverse blood flow.

They don’t know it though. Their minds are too busy in a lovey dovey fog.

The mind of a writer is hard to wrap one’s own mind around.

Its funny how that sentence still works…

And the mind of a writer hurts

and grows

and breathes

and sees

and hardens

and breaks

and jogs

and makes for good conversation starters at awkward joinings of the social sort.

And of the romantic sort.

And of the being sort.

For every second in a minute,

every minute in an hour,

No man,

no woman,

or will has the power to return it all back.

It means that we live out infinite possibilities.

It means that you

and me

will never live out these moments,

in this time,

forever again.

Take a moment and then realize how unique that second was…

It’ll never return to us in the same form,

manner,

or fashion.

Sure in passing we may remember a moment and the details of its happening,

but there will never be another exactly like it.

Every breath,

and every blink,

every thought you’ll ever care to think is completely one of a kind,

because Time—

Time isn’t as repetitive as She would have us believe.

Time exists for the purposes of sleep and measuring pain.

Its only in its passing that our mortal wounds heal.

Time isn’t a big deal when you’re happy. It seems to bend and exist perpetually perfect.

One of many infinite possibilities

consuming it.