Tag Archives: paperwork

Saving My Daughter’s Life (Please): Revolutionary ImproVerse Free Verse Poetry

I understand that you have a full-time job.
I understand that there are 20 pages of paperwork
that have to be filled out.
I understand that the person who has to finally review that paperwork
here in this state won’t be home for two or three days from vacation.
I understand that when the application does get reviewed
it will get need to go to other reviews somewhere else.
I understand that you have other people to talk to
about things that are important to them.
I understand that you have other things to worry about.

But while you’re working
and talking to other people
and your boss is vacationing
and other people are waiting to review the paperwork
that seems to drag on and on and on,
my daughter is dying.

I understand there seems to be nothing I can do
to make you hurry up.

So please understand excuse me if I get a little upset.

Because I don’t understand how vacations,
and work,
and paperwork,
and talking to other people
can get in the way
of saving my daughter’s life.

It Frustrates Me I Don’t Know How: Revolutionary Improv Blogging Free Verse

I confess.
I don’t know how.

I know how to take troubled youths
and mold them into a fun-loving, happy,
“Did you have fun?” “YEAH!” team.

I know how to take eager young minds
and show them things in nature
their parents and teachers can’t see.
To teach them the balance between all things.
To help them help the world heal.

I know how to take young men and young women
into the wilderness,
how to prepare their wood so well
that it only takes one match
to keep them warm
and cook their food.

I know how to take illiterate folk
who for decades have claimed they
can’t write,
and have them create verse and prose
so moving
they can’t believe
the words fall from their fingertips.

I know how to take senior citizens
who feel they have no value
and bring out their stories
and find their worth
and make them smile
again.

I know how to make people
laugh,
rejoice,
size the day,
observe,
be happy.

I know how to make senior citizens
and babies smile and laugh,
how to make dogs
wag their tails.

I know how to take
suburban landscapes,
dead, barren lawns,
and change them into
multi-hued gardens
of scented delight
and nourishment
and beauty.

I know how to find
ancestors long gone,
how to help others
find their roots,
how to work through
the mists and dust of centuries passed
to find themselves.

I know how to take
a stranger by the hand,
look him in the eye,
connect,
smile,
and give him hope.

I know how to observe
people,
nature,
situations,
the world
and write verse
and prose
that move people
to joy
and contemplation
and action.

I know how to stand
in front of congregations
and make them weep
with joy
because I know.

But my daughter
is dying,
because I don’t know
how to navigate
a system that does not
value any of the things
I know how to do.
A system that requires
so much paperwork
that she will be
dead
before I know
what I don’t know.

And I don’t know how
to do what I must now
do.