Tag Archives: creativity

Poem about the Power of Words and Poetry

Posted on by under Poetry 
Words are a Holy Fire

Words surged from the pen
staining, soaking everything like spilled paint.
Wood pulp thirsty in a state
of mad-eyed hunger.
Paper ravenous for a glorious taste,
elated to gobble up and digest
the things that time can't erase.

Don't you know?
Words are a Holy Fire,
spread from the Word himself.
Infused with the power of desire
to transform, to turn over the world upon itself.
To burn away the dead timber,
embers eager to make way for the new.
On its charred remains,
plant shoots come bursting through.

Oh, yes listen; I tell it true!
Words are a Holy Fire
with more power than the doers who do.
For they are not forgotten by the fragility of memory
but cling to time like glue.

Justin Farley

My first chapbook of collected poems is available now! I hope you find encouragement in the poems but also a validation that the spiritual life is not all sunshine and rainbows. We all struggle. We all have periods of questions and/or doubt. But it is the yearning that keeps us coming back for more and allows us to experience joy.
You can purchase either on Amazon or on my own bookstore (it is cheaper and has free shipping on my store) and is available on the Kindle and in paperback.
Amazon: Kindle Paperback
Inkspiration Books (my bookstore): Paperback
Thank you for your support!

Climbing Mountains Poem About Living Out Your Dreams

Posted on by under Poetry 
Climbing Mountains
A Poem About Living Out Your Dreams and Believing in Yourself

The road rose in the distance
insistent on wrapping around
the towering mountain like twine.
At its feet stood a shrine
dedicated to the drowsy dreamer,
the tired thinker, the sleepy schemer
who had journeyed all this way
only to have disbelief poison the mind.

And yet doubt wasn't left behind
in even the faithful and courageous traveler
who had begun the climb.
For the apex stood painfully high;
the road wound for miles
surrounded by ledges where dreams fall and die.

Victory is only tasted
by the dreamer who doesn't look back
and doesn't get offtrack
by looking too far forward.
But who is purposeful in their impact
right here, right now
perfectly content in the present moment.
One step after another
feeling the ground beneath their feet,
faithfully carrying their dream on their shoulders
until their vision is realized and complete.

The future is only actualized
by those who realized eons ago
that the future is bound by
the way we carry ourselves in the present.
It's what we learn during the ascent
that makes the climb worth doing;
never in the need for recognition and achievement.

Wake up, you drowsy dreamer!
Rouse yourself from your delusions!
Shake yourself from the critics illusions
and the conclusion that you'll never find your way!
For the journey begins and ends
the way we begin and close each day.

Justin Farley

Planting is a Prayer Poem

Posted on by under Poems On Nature, Poetry, Spirituality 
Planting is a Prayer

Planting is a prayer.
If you do it right.
If you take delight in the present
but keep future possibility in sight.

For God doesn't need words.
With each heart beat
you lay at his feet
a million complaints, hopes, fears,
doubts, joys, and defeats.

A creator knows its creation
better than the creation itself.
Your ink filled his pen.
He outlines your story, your end
before it evens begins
but allows you freewill 
over the final edits.

Planting is a prayer.
If you do it right.
If you're aware you've been given oversight
in a chapter of a story
that's been continually expanding
since the Word first spoke to the void:

"Let there be light".
Let you delight
in the blessing you've been given - 
partial control over the story of life.

Justin Farley

Poem About Art Life and Vulnerability

Posted on by under Poetry 
Pure Art

Pure art is fragile,
stitched together and held
by our dreams, joys, and struggles.
It is not perfect
for life is not perfect
and the truest art
reflects life as it is - 
imperfect, messy, 
yet full of possibility.

It is the imperfection that speaks
to our imperfect hearts,
assuring us that we too are beautiful
despite our flaws.
The artist knows that 
the harder perfection is sought after
the farther out of reach it becomes.
For the artist is human 
and so should their work - 
not messy. not sloppy. 
But real, raw, and pure.

Usually, the harder we try to perfect our art
the more harsh, cold, and lifeless it becomes.
Because pure art
invites us to embrace and love
ourselves and others
as the imperfect characters we are.
And that's why we love them. 

Justin Farley

Hello, everyone! I have recently published my first chapbook of Christian poems titled “A Voice in the Wilderness – A Chapbook of Poems about God”. This has been developed and polished over the past six months or so. I am happy with the final product and hope you find encouragement in the poems but also a validation that the spiritual life is not all sunshine and rainbows. We all struggle. We all have periods of questions and/or doubt. But it is the yearning that keeps us coming back for more and allows us to experience joy.
You can purchase either on Amazon or on my own bookstore (it is cheaper and has free shipping on my store) and is available on the Kindle and in paperback.
Amazon: Kindle Paperback
Inkspiration Books (my bookstore): Paperback
Thank you for your support!

The Tortured Artist – A Poem

Posted on by under Poetry

The Tortured Artist by Justin Farley

Utterly bound by the need for discovery,
yet plagued by the awareness that finding
leaves me no farther along my journey
in the eyes of the world.

The most tortured artist is the realist
who’s aware he’s playing the fool,
but must play his role regardless,
knowing it’s the only powerful card in his hand.

For if alternative aspirations
are not trumped by other’s Bowers,
in the end he’ll be defeated
by the chaos that rises out of self-neglect.

The artist must find pleasure in playing
a game few have the wits to play,
acknowledging he’s likely destined to lose
before he even sits at the table.

The artist must learn to embrace
this necessary madness;
his fulfillment and sanity
depend upon it.

The creative life must never be lived
with the goal of winning.
One must simply find joy and gratitude
in the ability to bring order out of chaos.

-Poem and post written by Justin Farley

Poem About Broken Dreams – “Dream-Weaving”

Posted on by under Poetry

Dream-Weaving – A Poem

The seams of my dreams are unraveling –
Thread stretched out in heaps,
Ensnaring my feet, tripping me, sending me falling
Into jaded existence.
Innocence, where is my resistance to your demise?

This cloak once kept me warm in the night,
but is now tattered, holes allow the howling wind
To chill the depths of my soul.
No longer whole, but unable to pinpoint what’s been lost.
Unable to retrieve a feeling that once was.
Dreams that used to woo me with their tales
Now stir up nothing but bitterness.
They are cold like unearthed stone
And seem better left buried than dug up –
Too hard, too massive, too rigid to be molded into beauty.

I miss lofty ideals and carnival lights
With roller coaster life.
I miss uncertainty and belief in the unknown.
I miss the magic of weaving this cloak of dreams,
Of sewing seams across endless skies.
But the fire in my eyes has died.
Somewhere the flames went out, and I no longer cared.
I no longer dared to see beyond the realm of mundane reality.
And now by and by
I have betrayed my own soul.
I have yielded to the world’s cold mentality.
Beaten upon my breath in my chest until it no longer moved
And resorted to conformity.

I am left with only a ragged, dirty cloak
That use to be radiant,
That sparkled with the swirling of dreams
But they have long ceased to move me.
I yearn to fix the canvas, but don’t know where to start.
I long to believe once more in the magic of art,
But find myself a seamstress without needle and thread
To sew up these holes that life has chewed up and swallowed;
With no way to sweep out the darkness that life has let in.

-Poem written by Justin Farley

photo credit: jinterwas insomnia via photopin (license)

Poem about the Writing Process – “Inkblood”

Posted on by under Poetry

blood-with-pen

Inkblood – A Poem about the Writing Process

Beneath a pale, July moon
An ancient manuscript sits
Illuminated by candlelight,
Its pages gently rustling in the breeze
Blowing behind the curtains of the nearby window.

The ink is faded beneath
Layers of time and age,
But the wisdom remains
Scribbled in rhymes,
Written eons ago by some old sage.

But tonight it’s voice has a reader –
A man of sandy, blond hair
Ponders over your verses
And reflects on the meaning of your lines.
And like magic, the grime vanishes,
the words sparkle, and come to life.

Your cold, decomposed, long lifeless corpse
May only be fertilizer to the tongues of roots,
But your blood still flows and pulses
Through the pages you stained black with blood from your pen.
The body may have an expiration date,
But thoughts, words, and ideas have no end.

We live on through the pages we inhabit –
Awake to the reader’s touch,
Soar the skies once more, high
On some incomprehensible magic like pixie dust.

I deposit my heart of pains, joys, loves, and flames
Into the safe guard of your keeping.
My receipt is a word count
That compounds with the interest of each reader’s heart.

-Poem Written by Justin Farley

 

Pic. – onlanka.com

The Secret Power – A Poem

Posted on by under Personal Development, Poetry

13925279347_62a45c009f

Do you want to know a secret?
One with the power to completely change
your life this very second?

Well, lean closer then.
I’ll have to whisper it in your ear.
We can’t have the whole world knowing the truth.

Brace yourself.
MAGIC IS REAL.

We each possess forces
we can’t begin to understand –
few even recognize its power
when it’s flowing through them.

Sit down, Sit down.
I beg of you.
Just hear me out before you go…

It’s built the grandest bridges.
Built the tallest skyscrapers in the sky.
Filled thousands of shelves in libraries
and taught airplanes how to fly.

It’s transported people to foreign countries.
Put man on the moon.
Invented cures for disease and illness.
Turned lowly paupers into regal tycoons.

It created the clothes you’re wearing.
Put cars and trucks on the road.
Turned the weak bold and daring.
Is responsible for the light in your homes.

Its spells have relieved madness.
Turned dire outlooks on their heads.
It’ll fill your heart with gladness
and grant dreams as you lie in bed.

It needs no wand for wielding –
no need for incantations or magic words.
It listens to all who are dreaming –
all it asks is to be heard.

But hearing’s not so easy.
Many will try to keep it from you.
The world hates the power it harnesses,
stopping it by laughing at all you do.

Doubt and fear are the only enemies
with the power to stop this magic in its tracks.
So guard your mind and heart
and keep all your dreams intact.

It’s withstood the effects of aging.
Yesterday, today, tomorrow – it’s always the same.
The question is whether you’ll chose to wield it.
Imagination is its name.

 

Photo Credit: Filter Forge via Compfight cc