The Greenogress: Unleashed

By Elaine M. Mullen

Poetry that is but also is not, taken to unusual levels in an imaginative style that always
makes you wonder where you will be taken this time. Poetry, a few short stories and
quotes serve as the launching pad for Elaine M. Mullen, also known as the GreenOgress,
to introduce more writings that are novel and relevant. Their appeal lies in their diversity
and scope: investigating, exploring and exposing both the lighter and darker shades
of humanity. Closely followed by Google and known to many via Twitter, Scriggler.
com and other writing platforms, she has charmed even the most reluctant of readers
to give poetry a second glance and second chance. Be the topics simple or complex,
contemporary or historical, internal or external, her maxim is that vague scripting is to
be avoided at all costs: I will never use a fi ve-dollar word when a fi fty-cent one will
do just as well. As with her three previous books, sit back, relax and enjoy the ride!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514422953

Elaine M. Mullen

ELAINE M. MULLEN, better known as the GreenOgress on Google, Twitter, Scriggler.com and other writing platforms, responding to a question of why she writes, answered: "To stay alive. Although my mind plays a critical role, if I did not write, my heart would shrivel from atrophy, as it is there many of my poems and short stories originate. I believe it is why they appeal to and engage so many readers' interest, intelligence, imagination, identifi cation and ideals." Feeling that poetry should never be something to be deciphered nor limited to an esoteric, small group with extremely high IQ's; her writing appeals to a wide and diverse audience because she deliberately writes to one.

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 by Elaine M. Mullen.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2015918154

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5144-2297-7

                Softcover        978-1-5144-2296-0

                eBook             978-1-5144-2295-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 01/15/2016

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Table of Contents

Aching Where It Should Have Been

Life-Support -- I & II

Testimonies

As Much

If You Were A Melody

To A Crisp

Born Too Late?

A Different Version

A Face of Its' Own

A Poet?

A Seed

An Ecstasy of Here

Answer The Call!

Artists

As Fate Would Have It

Away From Me!

Awesome

Because

Betrayal

Blank Slate

Could Scream

Fighting

FORGIVENESS

Getting Over

Go!

Global Warning

Grief

Hate Crime

How Many More?

I

I Am Fed

I Can Hardly Wait

I Come from Need

Images

If You Tell Me That I

I Know I Know

Imminent Domain

Helpless

Investment

In My Lifetime

Instrument

Like a, or Improvise!

Notes On Canvas

LOVE

Love That Shakespeare Would Have Envied

M.R. or Close Enough

Metamorphosis

More Than I Deserve

Morning Awe

Muzzled

My Life Is Killing Me!

Need

No Words

On Such A Day

One Day Closer

One World

Passed

Penchant

Persistent As A Mosquito

Promises to Keep

Psycho Stay

Reaching Towards the Sky

Remind Me To Forget

Rewind

Scary Sentence On the News Last Week

Shelf Life

Signs Of Life

Silent Advance

Society Doe

Still and Small

Take This Life

Taking Orders

There's A Girl I Know

Tolerance vs. Intolerance

The Deadliest Foe

The Gift

The Green Ogress

The Humility To Receive

The Front

The Point of The Matter Is

This Too, Shall Pass

Two Prayers

Wanted

We Do, or This and That

When Less Is More

When You're In That Place

Why Poetry?

Wisdom of Discontent

Worry

'You Don't Have to Picture"

You Have Hands

Blue Plate Special

Fear

Inconsistency

Lacking The Words

Spin Cycle

Quotes -- Tweets

Drama Queen

Falling

God Had Other Ideas

Other works by Elaine M. Mullen:

Parnassus -- A Collection of Unusual Poetry

Parnassus II -- A Collection of Unusual Poetry

Another Place Entirely

Cover Photo by: Martha J. Randall -- Used by Permission

Cover Design by: Elaine M. Mullen

I dedicate this book to my dearest friend, Mary, whose

Humor, wit, delightful sarcasm, encouragement,

Support and love never cease to amaze me.

Aching Where It Should Have Been

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I am aching

Where my heart should have been

Sore, somewhere deep within

Probably a muscle I managed to pull

For God knows for certain

My chest is empty, not full

Like the Tin-man, only quiet

Heaven knows I cannot sing

Once, I foolishly wished for a heart, not knowing

All the trouble it would bring

So, then I said that I would settle for a conscience of sorts

Little knowing ahead-of-time

All the grief and heartache that imports

So finally, I decided, very young and all upon my own

To be void of all emotion

Providing no sentiment a place to call home

It would have been nice, perhaps even safe

But, never came to be

For, I have this space beneath my ribs

Where my heart knew that it should be

Confident that God had left it out, perhaps mistakenly

But, through the years, it kept emerging

Finally convincing me

All I had was just a bad case of the hopes

Born in times of desperate fear

When my love, not safe in everyone's hands

For protection, disappeared

To this day, there are those who know me well

Perhaps much to their dismay

Who swear I do not have a heart,

Although I possess the power to convey

Through words -- which brighten and alter what,

Otherwise would be an agonizing day

Who know I can bring a smile, a tear, laughter and questioning

Holding the keys to everyone's hearts

My words have its' familiar ring

Especially when its' deductive reasoning departs

I open my treasure house, the source constantly tapped

Unlocking all its' secrets and pretense in which its' wrapped

These clandestine mysteries do not lay concealed within my head

No, they are well protected behind my ribs, where I write from instead.

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Life-Support -- I & II

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Were I to stop writing short stories and poetry

My heart would shrivel from atrophy

It is there my words originate

The birth and delivery of all that is me

With a little support from my cerebral cortex

I swirl and dance beyond the confines of limitation

The alphabet escaping a never sleeping vortex

A whirlpool of information, entertainment and a challenge or two

My soul sings the vernacular refrains of a Poet

What I have always been called to do

Poems, my love letters to the universe

Beyond the range of my voice

My gift, simply given back to the Giver

Because of Whom, I have no choice

For, even when not astoundingly prolific

My words have given me a voice

Perhaps to change a life or two along the way

My forever fertile muse tapping the Oracle of thought

Calliope, Clio and Erato, the muses of poetry

Whom I know little about, but they certainly know me

Giving me the power to alter the barren landscape of an uneventful day

Words save lives, can change lives

Inspire, implicate and motivate -- not just mine alone

If by no other reason than my words,

My morals and what I stand for will be known

They are all that I lay claim to

Refusing to wear the garments of impotent protection

To challenge the passive idleness and crooning of:

There's nothing we can do

No! There is. We have the power within our very hands

Ten fingers can change a landscape of impotence

Make lush, the desert sands

Their power, limitless; more for me to grasp or know

Explaining or empowering verdant heads for the taking

The power of a typist expands

The embryonic motion a Poet goes through each time

To alter, question or inspire

Greedily wanting more than just your attention and mind

We seek to set your spirits on fire

An 8 ½ by 11-inch invitation to us all

To pique your interest and desire

Our words convey us; betray us

Reveal and expose our core

One's very essence leaking through the hands

On its' way to being more

Than just a cavalier contemplation or Haiku to memorize

No, our objectives and goals are totally emptying ourselves

To possibly expose and challenge lies

The impassioned pleas of cadence

Poetry: a libation to drunken the soul

Those enslaved and empowered by chance, by thus

Only in writing, are we made whole

I, at least, cannot idly stand by,

Watching insane history in the making and not ask, Why?

No, poets are driven to comment on same,

For whatever it is worth

Shaping perceptions or raising doubts, we are culpable and to blame

For opening the eyes of many to the mendacity that plagues

With fingers pointed in the direction of inane

Praying for synaptic firings, responsibly thinking outside the box

Within our minds, encrypted, are the keys to so many locks

Never will I be accused of silent complicity

If nothing else, I will be scribbling my passions, protests or eulogy,

Until my time as a Poet ends.

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Testimonies

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I feel compelled to tell of the miracles God has worked

In and through my life, myself

Not because I am any great success

I am the furthest thing from it

Not because I am a great Orator

I start sweating and my knees knock as I approach a microphone

Not because I am endowed with any great talent

Not because I enjoy great encouragement

But, just the opposite: ridicule, criticism and judgment

And, my life is littered with failure and attempts

Alcoholism (in recovery), Bi-Polar Illness and poor physical health

In constant need, which has its' advantages

Belonging to those members of His flock who

Realize that, without Him, they are nothing

Like dust, like the wind -- totally relying upon He who holds

Us together to stand firm against the winds of adversity,

The slings of ridicule, slander

The arrows of gossip and laughter at our expense

Who do not seek approval on this earth

Nor from its' inhabitants, but, a Higher sanction

All I have to show for my life is:

A lot of pain, failures, setbacks, a way with words and

Grace

Given to me in abundance from my Maker

To use, learn from, implement, share and not squander

To tell of His love, nurturing and care

When I feel most beaten down and overwhelmed

Positive I cannot take another step

He takes it for me

And quietly reassures me by whispering an affirmation:

"If you are hated or criticized in this world, especially

For My sake, great is your reward in Heaven, because you are not

Seeking fleeting accolades and approval here, in the wrong place."

God does not choose or use the mighty, powerful and intellectual

As much as He does the lowly, weak, sinful and most unlikely

The outcasts of society

The meek, ashamed, beaten-down, humbled and empty

As opposed to the proud, learned, full and scholarly

He fills these empty, open and hungry receptacles

That we might be filled with and tell of His mercy and greatness,

With authority and gratitude.

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As Much

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As much as I want to be loved

You crave to offer

As much as I need

You placed that desire within me, always responding to its' call

As much as I want to be comforted

You live to console

As much as I require all the help I can get

You abundantly provide

As much as I cry out, seemingly to no one

You hear and ache alongside me

As much as my hopes are dashed

You restore it and provide new ones

As much as I sin and fall short

You ignore

As much as I pray

You delight

As much as I love

It is nothing compared to Your love for me

You wait so long, for us to seek You