i wanted to write you a poem
one to show appreciation of your mothership
to tell you in all honesty and truth
that a better mother could not be wished
God created you perfect, and perfect to me you are

i wanted to write you a poem
one to show gratitude for your kindness
the thanks i can give not enough of
for your grace to me has known no bounds
God created you kind, and kind to me you are

i wanted to write you a poem
one to tell you how beautiful your smile is
to speak of the radiance of your countenance
and the increasing beauty of your face
God created you beautiful, and beautiful to me you are

i wanted to write you a poem
one to show appreciation of your mothership
to tell you in all honesty and truth
a better mother could not be wished
for God created you perfect, and wonderful and magnificent
and perfect to me you are

I want to write something
something that makes you listen
I want to write something that makes you realize something's missing
I want to write something that inspires you
I want to write something that builds up a holy fire in you
I want to write something that makes you yell Hallelujah and Amen
I want to write something so you say "Well, he done did it again"
I want my pen to spit words on paper in ink of gold
I want history to remember the stories I told
I want to write something that's relevant to you
I want to write words that touch you, and you and you too
I want to write a poem that makes you cry
I want my incursive words to make you believe you can fly
I want you to smile at one line of poetry
Nod and clap at the next...

I want to write something that makes you listen
But mostly I just want to write

“I have neglected you shockingly of late. This is because I have had to neglect everything that could be neglected without immediate ruin, and partly because you have passed into the circle of intimate friends whose feelings one never dreams of considering”

George Bernard Shaw (Playwright)

Human nature seems to endow people with the ability to size up everybody in the world but themselves.

“...the most important relationship you will ever have is with yourself. You’ve got to be your own best friend first.”

Phil McGraw (Author)

When I was young and free my imagination had no limits, i dreamed of changing the world. As i grew older and wiser, i discovered the world would not be changed so i shortened my sights somewhat and decided to change my country. But it too seemed immovable. As i grew in my twilight years, in one last desperate attempt, i settled for changing only my family, those closest to me, but alas, they would have none of it. And now, as i lie on my deathbed, i suddenly realized: If i had only changed my self first, then by example i would have changed my family. From their inspiration and encouragement, i would then have been able to better my country and, who knows, i may have even changed the world.

One is too small a number to achieve greatness (Teamwork)

“The colder it gets outside, the more we huddle together for warmth; but the closer we get to one another, the more we hurt each other with our sharp quills. And in the lonely night of earth’s winter eventually we begin to drift apart and wander out on our own and freeze to death in our loneliness.”

The Porcupine Principle

Arthur Schopenhauer (Philosopher)

“This is certain, that a man that studies revenge keeps his wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well”

Sir Francis Bacon (Statesman)

“The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing in the right place, but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.”

Lady Dorothy Nevill (Hostess & Writer)

“As we must account for every idle word, so we must for every idle silence”

Ben Franklin

Do all the good you can

To all the people you can

In all the ways you can

As long as you ever can

D.L. Moody (Evangelist)

Friendship consists of a willing ear, an understanding heart and a helping hand

Frank Tyger (Author)

“Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness”

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (Philosopher)

“I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that i can do, or any kindness that i can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for i shall not pass this way again.”

“Strangers are what friends are made of”

Cullen Hightower

The entire population of the world- with one minor exception- is composed of others.

Sometimes when you give someone a piece of your mind, you lose your own peace of mind.

“We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Poet)

“Once a mind has been stretched by a new idea, it never returns to its original shape”

Oliver Wendell Holmes

“There are some people that if they don’t know, you can’t tell them”

Louis Armstrong

“Relationships help us define who we are and what they become”

Paula Nelson

“I have never met a man who was not my superior in some particular”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you”

Dale Carnegie

“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”

“Try to care about something in this vast world besides the gratification of small selfish desires”

George Eliot (Novelist)

The person without charisma walks into a group and says, “Here I am.” The person with charisma walks into a group and says “There you are.”

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”

Mark Twain

“Treat a man as he appears to be and you make him worse. But treat a man as if he already were what he potentially could be, and you make him what he should be.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Philosopher-poet)

“If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend... Assume to dictate to his judgement, or to command his action, or to mark him as one to be shunned or despised, and he will retreat within himself...you shall no more be able to pierce him than to penetrate the hard shell of a tortoise with a rye straw.”

Abraham Lincoln

“The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, not the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“It is a greater compliment to be trusted than to be loved.”

George MacDonald

“Integrity is the basis of trust... It is the one quality that cannot be acquired, but must be earned.”

Warren Bennis

“Trust is...established when words and deeds are congruent”

William M. Boast (Author)

“This above all: To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man”

William Shakespeare

“All seems infected that the infected spy

As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye”

Alexander Pope

“Any time things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something.”

Chisholm’s Second Law

“Kindness is a language the dumb can speak and the deaf can hear and understand.”

Christian Bovee

“Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves. They shall never cease to be amused.”

Old Chinese Proverb

“Since nothing we intend is ever faultless, and nothing we attempt ever without error, and nothing we achieve without some measure of finitude and fallibility we call humanness, we are saved by forgiveness.”

David Augsburger

“In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. The young they keep out of mischief; to the old they are a comfort and aid in their weakness, and those in the prime of life they incite to noble deeds”

Aristotle

“Two are better than one,

Because they have good reward for their labor.

For if they fall, one will lift up his companion.

But woe to him who is alone when he falls,

For he has no one to help him up.

Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm;

But how can one be warm alone?

Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him.

And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

King Solomon

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

Martin Luther King Jr.

“False friends are like our shadows, keeping close to us while we walk in the sunshine but leaving us when we cross into the shade”

“...in prosperity our friends know us; in adversity we know our friends.”

John Maxwell

“It is not so much our friends’ help that helps us, as the confident knowledge that they will help us”

Epicurus (Greek Philosopher)

“No man can live happily who regards himself alone; who turns everything to his own advantage. You must live for others if you wish to live for yourself.”

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (Philosopher)

“By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you’ll become happy. If you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.”

Socrates

“What we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too little; it is dearness only that gives everything its value.”

Thomas Paine (Political theorist)

“it is impossible to learn anything important about anyone until we get him or her to disagree with us; it is only in contradiction that character is disclosed.”

Sydney J. Harris (Author)

“If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself alone; a man, sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair.”

Samuel Johnson

“Promise may get friends, but it is performance that keeps them.”

Ben Franklin

“If the first law of friendship is that it has to be cultivated, the second law is to be indulgent when the first law has been neglected.”

Voltaire

“In necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity.”

Richard Baxter (Clergyman)

“He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, while he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The happiest people don’t necessarily have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything.

For the friendship of two, the patience of one is necessary.

Average people do not want other people to go beyond average.

“Anybody can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend’s success.”

Oscar Wilde

You may be able to impress people with your successes, but if you want to influence them, share your failures.

“A genuine friend encourages and challenges us to live out our best thoughts, honor our purest motives, and achieve our most significant dreams.”

Dan Reiland

My success can be achieved only with others.

My lessons can be learned only from others.

My weaknesses can be strengthened only by others.

My servanthood can be tested only under others’ leadership.

My influence can be compounded only through others.

My leadership can be focused only on others.

My best can be given only to others.

My legacy can be left only for others.

So i should commit myself to and celebrate with others.

“Keep a fair-sized cemetery in your back yard, in which to bury the faults of your friends.”

Henry Ward Beecher

“...while there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I’ll fight.”

William Booth (Salvation Army)

“A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.”

David Brinkley (Newscaster)

Care more than others think is wise

Risk more than others think is safe

Dream more than others think is practical

Expect more than others think is possible

Work more than others think is necessary

“No man becomes rich unless he enriches others.”

Andrew Carnegie

It is one of the beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely help another without helping himself.

“You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.”

Woodrow Wilson

“we cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibres connect us with our fellow men; and along those fibres, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.”

Herman Melville (Novelist)

There is a destiny that marks us as brothers;

No one goes his way alone;

All that we send into the lives of others

Comes back into our own.

Edwin Markham (Poet)

“Friendship is born [when] one says to another ‘What, you too? I thought I was the only one’”

C.S. Lewis

“Your best friend is the one who brings out the best that is within you.”

Henry Ford

“You can do what i cannot do. I can do what you cannot do. Together we can do great things.”

Mother Teresa

“In the progress of personality, first comes a declaration of independence, then a recognition of interdependence.”

Henry Van Dyke (English Statesman)

“A candle loses nothing when it lights another candle.”

Thomas Jefferson

“For all that has been, Thanks. For all that will be, Yes.”

Dag Hammarskjold (2^nd Sec-Gen UN)

“A joy shared is a joy doubled.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

i'm writing this one from the heart
at least from somewhere that feels like it
so if there is no function or form to this piece
please dont judge
because today i write not to inspire
or to encourage
today i write to ask for help
i need direction,
you can call this a prayer
because i feel my faith slipping
I know you are there but why do I find it so hard to reach for you
i find myself doubting, even myself
the things that I know, things i do all seem an exercise in futility
i find myself resigned in impotent acceptance of life
slothful and slumbering, having no purpose or worth to my life
i'm surrounded by people that i'm supposed to love
but i'm afraid that i dont know what love is
so i'm lonely
surrounded by people, beautiful people
but still lonely
i thought i was on the road to self discovery
but i hit a dead end and now i'm back where i started
back at the beginning
and it's cold here,
i'm cold, unfeeling, void
there is no passion in me, no fire in me
no light, no desire in me
and i have no further words to describe this lack of feeling
so i'll stop here

dont ask me what's wrong, just pray for me
me and my God have a score to settle