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Tag: Choice

Exploring the power of choice.

Truth to Sea

Posted on 13 March 2021 by H. Hennenburg
Image by Ma13gann illustrating poem titled Truth to Sea by H. Hennenburg
Image by Ma13gann

Truth to Sea

I am in your depth
Swallowed whole by my need for you
Embarrassed by my longing to breathe
When you have supplied all
Everything that lives, indebted to you
Even the light rejoices to touch you
And we, barrelling toward surrender
Quarrel over our follies, but I,
If there is such a thing,
Give you my last drop of truth

© H. Hennenburg, 7 March 2021

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Last One Standing

Posted on 16 August 2020 by H. Hennenburg
Image by Arno Smit illustrating poem titled Last One Standing by H. Hennenburg
Image by Arno Smit

Last One Standing

I see you
Living some hard truths
But living
Knowing that light creeps in
When injustice is done
Drawn to the will of the one
Who goes on loving
Because light attracts light
And love is uninjurable

I see you
Drowsy with pain and indignity
Bearing the weight…again
Leaving the door open
For the light to creep in
Because it is beyond your assailants’ reach
No matter how deep they are willing to slide
They don’t know what you can abide
And what you won’t

I see you
The truth in you alights the truth in me
Unites the will of love to be
The last one standing

© H. Hennenburg, 10 August 2019

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Dear Dr. Angelou

Posted on 31 May 202021 June 2020 by H. Hennenburg
Image by Vince Fleming illustrating poem titled Dear Dr. Angelou by H. Hennenburg
Image by Vince Fleming

It is a frustrating irony that my heart finds nothing worth writing about other than the painful, bloody fight for equality (still) raging in the US; and at the same time, my heart is too filled with anger, grief and tension to find words to write.

Here is one attempt. Just a few words that could not find completion written in the days following the release of the video of Ahmaud Arbery’s murder. I was born and raised in Georgia, and I think this is a sort of proclamation that we do not have to become what our social environment and our history might dictate.

Dear Dr. Angelou

Somehow
a global pandemic
and the war against “other”
have become bedfellows
And the place of my birth
is synonymous with murder…again…

And yet, I love

15 May 2020

For too long, it has been the challenge of people of colour to rise in spite of a system rigged against them. White people, please, we must learn to love humanity more than we love privilege.

Linking with Poets & Storytellers United.

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The Shape of Water

Posted on 14 May 202017 May 2020 by H. Hennenburg
Image by Christina Winter illustrating poem titled The Shape of Water by H. Hennenburg
Image by Christina Winter

Life brings challenges beyond our control, and these challenges can sometimes be great burdens. But when we use our voices and express our truth, we can turn those burdens into new light and fresh growth for ourselves and for the world. I wrote this poem for a friend 22 years ago. I thought I would give it some new light today.

The Shape of Water

All this weather
In a woman’s voice, it is matter of fact
Prophetic and profound
Because it is commonplace
That itchy little annoyance that turns up the dis-ease
That makes you or breaks you

All this weather
That never quite settles a person in one place or another
Just continual change
Until there is no particular sensation drawing the mark
Between rain and shine
No particular sensation
Bleeding into the flood waters – the runoff from the world
And blending so that one can no longer claim: “those tears are mine!”
…Even if one wants to

Defiance…submission…victory…weather
Do you know that the shape of water is round?
Like earth, like sun, like moon
Like life and death
Like submission and victory
There is no beginning or end – only weather

But do you know
That a woman’s voice will change the world slowly?
Light will creep in where she unburdens her heart
And leave the yellow-pink glow of sunset
Looming over the yield of years and years of weather:
Little green sensations.

© H. Hennenburg, 1 February 1998

Joyfully linking with Poets & Storytellers United.

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Where Shall We Ramble

Posted on 12 April 2020 by H. Hennenburg
Image by David Mark illustrating poem titled Where Shall We Ramble by H. Hennenburg
Image by David Mark

Where Shall We Ramble?

River, where do you ramble?
In deep woods we meet
Inside a secret
That floats softly
From my tongue
Into your current

When I was a child
I plunged to your depths
And mingled with the watery spirits there
I rolled frantically like a pinwheel
Seeking purchase
Until invisible hands
Planted my feet in your muddied bed

I rose like a crooked cannon
Doubled over and ready to launch the remains of my burning breath
In violent exchange for a greedy gasp of the remains of my days
Which have led me here
Banking on your shoulder
Coming up short for time
Leaning in for invisible hands
And finding none

Here, I am the sacred one
I am become my own saviour
So pray you, River
Where shall we ramble?

© H. Hennenburg, 18 August 2019

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Insides Out

Posted on 21 February 2020 by H. Hennenburg
Image by Marc Szeglat illustrating poem titled Insides Out by H. Hennenburg
Image by Marc Szeglat

Consciousness seeks to nurture a deeper truth of being while the world wrestles confusion, tedium and opposing extremes.

Insides Out

From a precipice of reversals
I envisage realities stained by a confusion of tedium
I know only this: I am extant
Belly exposed – gnawed open by hunger for the interior
For a collusion of continuum that sees insides out
I am stable in my rudimentary way, but I reach…
I reach for the magma of understanding
Singeing my extremities
Vapourizing foundations
Reducing me to sediment
My core extracted
Gravitational lore exacted
On light of becoming

© H. Hennenburg, 11 January 2020

Joyfully linking with Poets & Storytellers United.

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Accord

Posted on 21 January 2020 by H. Hennenburg
Image by Joel Filipe illustrating poem titled Accord by H. Hennenburg
Image by Joel Filipe

Accord

I find the centre path
My eyes smouldering with exhaustion
I tell you I am here of my own accord
Then pluck my eyes out and retire
I am no more bound to the maelstrom
No more a rat in the labyrinth proving my worth
I have scattered my pennies
For their rat-tat-tat
On the glistening white floors
And danced to their rhythm
Until my soles bled
My red fortune spattered and spilt
I hand you the hilt
And plunge myself thus to eternity
If I pierce the fabric
We have staged a coup
And I am bound with you
Into the margins

© H. Hennenburg, 19 January 2020

Joyfully linking with Poets & Storytellers United.

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Rendered

Posted on 18 January 2020 by H. Hennenburg
Image by John Moeses Bauan illustrating poem titled Rendered by H. Hennenburg
Image by John Moeses Bauan

When we open ourselves to the truth and power of nature and light, we are resolved to the same truth and power within ourselves.

Rendered

A sylvan dream requites our arrival
Permeating gold ablution washes over giants
Reaching us in strands
Vestiges of brilliance painting our skin
We are but miscreants and maladies
An opus dissonant and wistful
Resolved and replete by respiring light
We are sublimating, reintegrating
Syncopated selves dissipating fleet
Into amorphic jubilance rendered

© H. Hennenburg, 20 December 2019

Joyfully linking with Poets & Storytellers United.

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Breach

Posted on 11 January 202012 January 2020 by H. Hennenburg
Image by Lightscape illustrating poem titled Breach by H. Hennenburg.
Image by Lightscape

Breach

When there is no view to the sea
I am reminded of the complexities and displacements
Shallows that engulf sentient beings
Leaving us stranded
With our monikers
For things we cannot name
Beveled edges bend the view
Until our eyes cannot attain clarity
Nor connect our own continuity to fluidity composed
But we embark on this odyssey
Unframed by expansion
And isn’t that the mandate of the universe?
Its sole prerogative
Amalgamations transcending
We are revoking and upending
What we’re meant to be
Mavericks waking cause to breach a higher sea

© H. Hennenburg, 12 November 2019

Joyfully linking with Poets & Storytellers United.

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Equal

Posted on 14 December 2019 by H. Hennenburg
Image by Dean Moriarty illustrating poem titled Equal by H. Hennenburg
Image by Dean Moriarty

Equal

Equal to the task
I’m born into the moment singing
Faithful to the star careening,
Lungs full, to my depth

And rising up from toe to sternum
Wishes cast their words
I heard them whisper while I wept

All my truths unto the stardom
Echo fast and full and far, come home
I am the question that you ask
And I am equal to the task

© H. Hennenburg, 9 December 2019

A song incomplete, but the verse came pure to my heart after reading a pure heart in Sounds Like Me: My Life (So Far) In Song by Sara Bareilles.

…all we ever seek is within us.

Joyfully linking with Poets United.

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E-Books by H. Hennenburg

E-Books By H. Hennenburg

Ten
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Riders of the Tempest: The Story of WE
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About H. Hennenburg

Poet and author, H. Hennenburg

Hi, I’m H. Thanks for stopping by my site. I created Hennenburg.com to be a home for truth, joy & wonder as I experience and explore them in my writing. I have a sense of these three phenomena as both producing and encapsulating many themes that have recurred in my writing for as long as I can remember. Themes such as: [read more]

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Available Now!

Riders of the Tempest: The Story of WE
by H. Hennenburg

Riders of the Storm by H. Hennenburg ebook cover art
Cover painting by Autumn Chiu @ArtChiu

There is no “I”. There is no “you.” There is only WE. “Reality is in the possibilities,” and Riders of the Tempest is a quest for the heart of what can be.

This collection of poems by H. Hennenburg tells the story of WE. Born from Supernova, we bear the imprint of the universe: the mandate to expand. Gripped by a deep yearning, we march into a tempest…a great storm…a war between our desire to expand as individuals and our desire to expand into the truth of our oneness. We believe we are mere “echoes to the sea and gathering storm,” but there is more to the universe than what we see. We are “more than the caged experience of sight.” Endowed with an infinite stream of choices, what happens in our story if we reach for more?

Download for free at: iBooks, Kobo & most Amazon stores

If you don’t use a tablet or e-reader and would like a copy, please contact me for the PDF version.