Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Fear

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“Do one thing every day that scares you.” 

― Eleanor Roosevelt

“We are so scared of being  judged that we look for every excuse to procrastinate.” 
― Erica Jong, Seducing the Demon

“Fear is the mind-killer. 
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
 I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. ” 
― Frank Herbert, Dune

View through the Glass Floor of the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada.

Midweek Motif ~ Fear

I had many days without fear as a child and fewer days during my work-for-income years.  Then, I developed a philosophy about fear and how I should welcome it as a guest and hear what it had to say.  Hearing did not mean heeding, of course. Fear now is more social than personal, as I try to prevent the new US of A President DT from Ruining Everything. 

Enough.  Let's get personal.

When is fear helpful, harmful, present, banished?  How do you know what to do with fear?

YOUR CHALLENGE:  In a new poem, unfold a truth you've learned about fear.

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Fear of Happiness

Related Poem Content Details

BY A. E. STALLINGS

Looking back, it’s something I’ve always had:

As a kid, it was a glass-floored elevator

I crouched at the bottom of, my eyes squinched tight,

Or staircase whose gaps I was afraid I’d slip through,

Though someone always said I’d be all right—

Just don’t look down or See, it’s not so bad

(The nothing rising underfoot). Then later

The high-dive at the pool, the tree-house perch,

Ferris wheels, balconies, cliffs, a penthouse view,

The merest thought of airplanes. You can call

It a fear of heights, a horror of the deep;

But it isn’t the unfathomable fall

That makes me giddy, makes my stomach lurch,

It’s that the ledge itself invents the leap.

Touched By An Angel

By Maya Angelou

We, unaccustomed to courage

exiles from delight

live coiled in shells of loneliness

until love leaves its high holy temple

and comes into our sight

to liberate us into life.

Love arrives 

and in its train come ecstasies

old memories of pleasure

ancient histories of pain.

Yet if we are bold,

love strikes away the chains of fear

from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity 

In the flush of love's light

we dare be brave

And suddenly we see

that love costs all we are

and will ever be.

Yet it is only love

which sets us free.

Batty

By Shel Silverstein

The baby bat

Screamed out in fright,

'Turn on the dark,

I'm afraid of the light. 

Child, Child
by Sara Teasdale

Child, child, love while you can
The voice and the eyes and the soul of a man,
Never fear though it break your heart -
Out of the wound new joy will start;
Only love proudly and gladly and well
Though love be heaven or love be hell.

Child, child, love while you may,
For life is short as a happy day;
Never fear the thing you feel -
Only by love is life made real;
Love, for the deadly sins are seven,
Only through love will you enter heaven.

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community—  


(Next week Sumana’s Midweek Motif will be ~

 A Woman's Day: Be Bold For Change)