This summer has burned hot and so has my poetry so I took a brief hiatus in August to let my creativity brew. For this first post of September, I've got my newest poems from this week for you and some of my highlights that I had originally posted on Patreon. Enjoy! 

September 1st: 
Relaxation
by Amy Kay Czechowicz

My friend
Don’t forget to relax
Let your body melt to the ocean floor
Sink deeply and breathe
Your breath is a bubble of resilience
I’m which you can float

September 2nd:
Tie-dye Summer
by Amy Kay Czechowicz

Oh how we relish this tie-dye summer
A final -hurrah before the world finishes burning
Color patterns following the slick kaleidoscope of oil shines
Before the match strike

September 3rd: 
Smother
by Amy Kay Czechowicz
Sugar-crusted grilled peaches sitting a top your piled-high vanilla ice cream
Or
Desire for more, more respect, more pay, more attention suffocating your ability to be content
Can one be good and one be bad or is it shades between - to be smothered by sugar-crusted peaches
​
September 4th: 
FFS
by Amy Kay Czechowicz

Word choice
Our preference for one word over another
A poet's prerogative
And what goes into judging each other's words
Here you sit
Judging mine
Yet it is mine
And it's interpretation is yours
Thank you

March 23: 
Tardigrade, Beetle, Fish
by Amy Kay Czechowicz
​
I'm made in the image of the bird
Clearly my nose is like a beak
My toes have joins my ankles have feet


I'm made in the image of a tardigrade
When I want to move I fall with control of gravity
When I find surplus food I keep it with me 'round my belly


I'm made in the image of a beetle
If I want to crawl along the earth I do so
Crooked elbows bending to move me slow


I'm made in the image of a fish
Beautiful lungs along my spine
Wide lips and open eyes


I'm made through selected happenstance
In the image of the earthling
Like the birds, the tardigrade, the beetle, and the fish

Thinking about health. 

I'm trying real hard today and the second truth of Buddhism is feeling particularly true..."the root of all suffering is desire"...

You are already enough. Happy Holidays. 

To negate all those reasons we come up with for self-loathing, here are some reasons to love yourself. 

Inspired by the Henry David Thoreau aphorism, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."

A reoccurring theme

I really do l live a charmed life. 

The first niyama, because it feels so good to be clean and light and fresh. 

It's all about ahimsa on world kindness day. 

Let them eat cake. 

We are coming up on some holidays and it's a great time to remember that we are in a world of abundance and often feel better when we take 'just enough'. 

Promises, promises. 

Feeling ready to listen. 

When it feels like everything is going south. 

Peace, peace, peace. 

Remove self-doubt.

Today's poem is inspired by the niyama, tapas. 

It was an existential kind of day. 

This is why I practice yoga. Practice. 

Nothing like a good salute to the sun. Namaste. 

There is nothing like a full-body stretch. 

Several times this week I've noticed people talking about guilt they felt burdened by when, truly, they had no cause to feel guilty. Even if they had some justifiable reason they should feel guilty, there is no need to move through life weighted with a yoke of guilt. It happened, you can't change the past, you can only shape the present. Today's poem is just a reminder to forgive ourselves and move forward and, if you want, for your own peace of mind, just try to do better here, now.

For those who feel like they can never stop pushing, a reminder that you already have the knowledge to take you where you need to go. Give yourself space to listen. 

Today's morning commute was quite smooth for my husband and I as he dropped me off at the transit station, compared to the discombobulated woman who was gathering her items out of her four door sedan that she had careened up a heaping mound of snow in the middle of a median and rammed into a tree. There was no ice. 
Hence: poem.