*Jeff Goldblum smile*

What are 5 everyday things that bring you happiness?

Ah, what a question. Five, five, five. What an interesting number. A full hand. Makes you want to grab it, doesn’t it? A number you can literally hold. Look at that sky. Reminds me of this one time in Italy, lovely summer. I ran into this incredible artisan, he carved these little elephants out of stone pines. Tiny. Perfect. He was from Sierra Leone. Led the most fascinating life. Oh, is that coffee? Wonderful, wonderful. What blend is it? Costa Rican? Mmmh, wonderful. Perfect. Thank you. Have you ever been? You should go. Travel does such good things to the heart and mind. It opens the soul to the world. Now, where we? Happiness? Now that is a big question. Tricky, tricky. Happiness is like water, isn’t it? You have it then, whoops, misery. Worst day of your life. Suddenly, a butterfly flutters by, or you run into an old friend you haven’t seen in a while, and there it is again, happiness. It’s such a fascinating part of existence, isn’t it? This coffee is very good, you have to tell me where you got it from. The shop, of course, ahahaha, silly you. Silly me, too. Let’s all be silly. People should be silly more, shouldn’t they? Just abrooblibloop and there, no sadness. Just happiness and butterflies, tiny elephants, and coffee. Wonderful.

© 2025 threegoodwords

rise and rise

image

two seconds, three
understanding blooms
palpitations rise and rise and rise

a hot red slab of anger, pain
veined white with amusement, wry
scorched perfectly on each side
with blood red coals of feeling
soot black with melancholy

then
after all pretence is dropped
leaving just heartfelt desire
to know, see
to really understand:

a sudden why
splits the tree of reason
with a jab of irrational light
a bolt of hot heart electric
that goes deep
deeper still
all the way down

cracking open marbled stone below
that lay hidden
under deep roots of denial
possibly, probably
lying low in the undisturbed slumber
of the long ignored
disrupted by a blessed moment
of clear harsh uncompromising
sight.

sometimes the mistake was made
too long ago to be rectified
sometimes youth means
being hopelessly hopelessly blind
to the silly slyness
that is life.

© 2015 threegoodwords

(im)pulse

sunflower etsydotcom

new, untold
signs curved in water, gold

descending in light
calm waves rippling
totality given

night

red black, scattered
silk lined with lace; coffee, one
mapping probability

sight

tonight’s tomorrow begets a yesterday
that fills the void, echoing
with voices wide and ancient

might

closed eyes in stars, sleeping
light luster never broken
the terrace settled in the sun

light

twice over given
close in effortless silence
hidden in sound to and gather
once for a time forever

all

 

© 2015 threegoodwords

blind walls

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

…what do you want to
write about
fight about
in the cave of your mind

where blind walls of irrelevance
rise high, so high

where the mystery
of abstraction
lies in wait to catch you out
trip you up

just when you thought you had it
by using the whole alphabet
of thoughts, words, music, feeling
unsaid, unspoken

stretching out like hills rolling
landscapes wide
a whole geography of me to you to me
and everyone else in between

populating the presence
of so many memories
hanging like tapestries
in wide open halls

where in the heat of before
what is known
is quietly sung at night
in that small corner

that hidden place
where you sit and play
on heart strings, melodious

in that rhythm and space
where a look, a glance
long past

are still warm to the touch
of the quintessential
the almost holy
from me to you to me
once more

.

 © 2014 threegoodwords

Anna Fonte's Paper Planes

Words, images & collages tossed from a window.

Classic Jenisms

Essays, notes & interviews on why literary fiction matters to human living

von reuth

small press. great publishing.

a thousand and one books

but don't take my word for it

Kristiane Writes

Home hub & scribble space of Prose Writer & Poet Kristiane Weeks-Rogers (she/hers), author of poetry collection: 'Self-Anointment with Lemons'.

The 100 Greatest Books Challenge

A journey from one end of the bookshelf to the other