Deanna Repose Oaks

Poetically Captured Moments From the Heart

Random Poetry

Familiar Ground

by

The path has been pounded through the soft, green grass
Revealing cracked earth underneath
The trees keep guard so the path doesn’t waver
Walking upon it while it is cracked and hard
Cool in the shade is routine
But while the path doesn’t change, the temperature does
Summer heat and cracked earth
Rolls into a muddy mess with rains of autumn
Which freezes soon after the leaves change
So slippery it is better to slide than fall
Only to melt again into a muddy mess
Just before the leaves return to green
To provide the cool shade from heat
Which cracks the earth once again

While trudging through the mud
That traps your feet and pulls at your legs
Or slipping on the ice without direction
You realize you are still
Walking on familiar ground

Prompt 20

by

I can’t tell you what my book is about, which will happen if I do what you ask. I will never give away all the trade secrets that I have learned after years and years of reading what other children’s authors are writing and keeping an eye on what is selling. I hate slaving away for pennies a word day after day after day only to see these authors who would be nothing without me make thousands and thousands.

Then there is the possibility that you may steal from me, and put my book up on Amazon before I can, which will cause me NOT to earn the money I so deserve. I don’t want to ruin the one chance that I have to get my book out into the hands of readers. There are so very few words within kid’s books that just revealing a few could give the whole story away.

Am I paranoid? Maybe, but I have witnessed a couple of authors fight over copyrights, and the right one lose. Right one being the author that actually wrote the book. So, I am keeping this secret, because the story is something that will be loved by kids, forever.

Out of the Blue

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I tripped in a rabbit hole, got stuck in the mud
My ankle was twisted, now covered in crud
You dropped by, lifted me out
Reassured my fears, erased my doubt
By remembering me from before I fell
Way back when I ran like hell
Always running, so wild and free
Through obstacles as they came at me
Lending a hand, out of the blue
Strong, beautiful, bold, and true
So much better than the hand I was dealt
Now I’m running off, freer than I have ever felt.

Best Laid Plans

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Best laid plans of mice and men
Best laid plans of mice and men
Echos through my dreams as I wake
The sound of cracking bones fading from my ears
As the next breath escapes, the dream is buried deep
So deep the rotting carcass won’t smell
And remind me of the beating heart
That once was; that will never be
Best laid plans of mice and men
“Of Mice and Men”
Steinbeck’s title reverberates through my memory
Bringing me forward to what could be
From what used to be
A poem
A poem, written by Robert Burns, 1785
If only

Oblivion

by

Music, mayhem, drunks
swirling faster than
a twirly spoon in
craft cocktails
Through the room

– so alive with sound and drowning in booze –

I see my passed life

Pass before my eyes
Life’s spectral ghosts unseen by those younger than I

Wavering on the precipice of youth
Trying to build the handrail to
Keep me upright, inside

Music, mayhem, drunks
now
swirling faster
toward…