Resolutions Schmezzolutions

“May all your troubles last as long as your New Year’s resolutions.” —Joey Adams

I wish you supreme mental health
in the pleasure of being yourself
for there’s nobody else who can do it.
May you boldly decide to come through it
unscathed by the false expectations
imposed upon new generations.

In the futile commitment to change
as if thinking alone could arrange
your unique DNA to work better,
there’s a trap that serves only to fetter
your link to the fullest extension
of you without vain intervention.

So before you fall prey to the guff
that your essence is less than enough
to equip you for finding fulfillment
released in the deepest distillment
of innocence, peace, and humaneness
within, just say no to insaneness.

2023 Mary Boren
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Fasting for Lent

I’ve pledged to stifle negativity
for forty days. In striving not to judge
another for the treatment given me,
I’ll dodge the bait to whine or hold a grudge.

It shouldn’t be a challenge to achieve
an altered state of transcendental bliss
if I can find the secret to deceive
emotion with a promise and a kiss.

But Ego has a credo of its own:
“Don’t give an inch in sowing discontent.”
Perception hangs as heavy as a stone
between the poles of stuck and free ascent.

With thirty days to go, I’m half inclined
to chuck it all and speak my monkey mind.


2020 Mary Boren
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Hello 2020

A fading dream’s elusive silhouettes
dance softly on my window shade at dawn
to remnants of a half-remembered song
as if to nudge awake what time resets.

So down a labyrinthine corridor
I chase the animated shadow’s tail
with pure intentionality, yet fail
to reinvent the guise it wore before.

You say the pragmatist within me knows
its visage drips with jewel-studded strands
parading on the stage with sick demands,
but I reject the path that poser goes.

For January brings a reckoning
in rituals to renovate the soul.
With White Stone Meditation / Burning Bowl
the decade waits, its promise beckoning.


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2020 Mary Boren
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Fleeting

When the daily news reporter
talks about the changing weather,
that’s our cue to sigh together,
“Years are growing ever shorter.”

Store the fans, unpack the heaters;
nippy mornings grace October.
Then, before the month is over,
stock the shelves for trick-or-treaters.

Holidays in quick succession
fill the calendar thereafter.
Giving thanks with food and laughter
leaves November’s last impression.

Autumn’s vivid colors given
like a sign of nature’s sequence
fade to grey.  The shopper frequents
Christmas sales, consumer-driven.

Fall, my energetic season,
though I wish you’d linger longer,
still your buried beat grows stronger
in the hope of sense and reason.

———

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2010 Mary Boren
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