The Alchemy of Understanding: Poetic Therapy for the Soul

By Donna R. Kirven

This poetry is delicately crafted to leave readers breathless, not because it sifts your breath away through shock or extracts it with sudden expressive impact, but because the potency of human emotion and speed with which these portraits of feeling have been painted have entered the deepest realm of your heart, mind and soul at a pace that pul

• Language: English
• Publisher: ReadersMagnet LLC
• Release date: Nov 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9781954371781

Donna R. Kirven

Born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Donna lives in Northern California where she enjoys life with her husband and daughters. Just as in her first book, when a Band-Aid Isn't Enough, she remains true to her mission of sculpting life with words and painting feelings that touch souls. She continues to capture unspoken moments of love, laughter, mood and passion in poetic verse.

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The Alchemy of Understanding: Poetic Therapy for the Soul

Copyright © 2021 by Donna R. Kirven

Published in the United States of America

ISBN Paperback: 978-1-954371-79-8

ISBN Hardback: 978-1-956780-18-5

ISBN eBook: 978-1-954371-78-1

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any way by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the author except as provided by USA copyright law.

All Bible citations are from the King James Version.

The opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily those of ReadersMagnet, LLC.

ReadersMagnet, LLC

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Book design copyright © 2021 by ReadersMagnet, LLC. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Ericka Obando

Interior design by Renalie Malinao

To Demetrius,

my best friend, greatest lover, and tireless champion…

…what you touch, I feel.

Foreword

My greatest thanks to God for another opportunity to share moments of my poetic moods with the world. To Demetrius, I can’t say just how much your love and support mean to me, Shyla, you’ve often stirred my pen without knowing, Lyndse, your feedback has been as precious pearls, Mom, you have re-defined the joy of a mother’s love and support, Denise, you remain an eternal friend and blessed support, Gwen, your friendship and support are valuable gifts to my life, and Mabel, your love and support lift my heart and strengthen my soul. To everyone that has shared a smile, tear, hope or heartache with me, I thank you, for such is the substance of life and the fodder for poetry.

Contents

Foreword

A Doll’s Life

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Regret

A Gifted Destination

A Life in the Day of Optimism’s Addiction

A Life Student’s Metaphoric Madness

A Need to Flip the Comforter

A Pearl of Surety in a Sea of Doubt

A Ruby Among the Ashes

A State of Inquiry

A Sublime Moment of Him

A Tale of the Unseen Scar

Acknowledged Transmogrification

Adventures in Spectacles

Allies

Almost Blind

Appropriately Attired

Arguable Discretion

As in Moisture

As Long As Someone Answers, You’re Not Crazy

Atomically Speaking

Before Beginning, After End, But Not Middle

Behind Poetic Doors

Beloved Digestion

Beneath the Surface of a Dream

Between Tea and Sleep

Betwixt Legend and Prayer

Birthing Monsters

Bitter Vegetation

Bullet For Your Doubt

Carrots

Childish Letters

Circular Living

Clearly Delusional

Coffeehouses Aren’t Just For Coffee

Corners And Sides of the Mystic Pause

Dark Adieu

Confession From Within Stealthy Skin

Diet Divine

Disagreement

Dismantling Sadness

Doubtful Certainty

Dreaming Before The Morning After

Enough

Even Grown Folks Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things

Exchanging Distance

Face Two-Face

Factual Seeds in Legend’s Fruit

Faithful Futility

Fervent Addiction

Few More Pearls of Observation

Filling

Finding Glue for A Broken Trust

Flushed Revulsion

For Sammy

Formidable Fiction

Found a Speck in My Bliss

From Fear to Faith

From The Diary of a First Broken Heart

Gardening Secret

Griot’s Harvest

Grownup Confession

Hand Over Hand

Heritage Stew

Hovering in Quiet Chaos

How The I’s Can Deceive

Illegitimate Fusion

Impromptu Bequest

In Default

In-Mortal Limitations

I Find You Stimulating

Imprint

In the Company of Misery

Infiltrated

Intensity of a Sentence

Inquisition at 60,000 Feet

In The Give and Take of Props

In the Pursuit of Ever After

It’s Not Just Dandruff

I Was Never Prone to Winking

Just at the Point of Ripening

Just in the Tick of Time

Just Shy of Splendor

Keepsake

Kept

Killing Curiosity

Let the Ink Dry

Living with Irregularity

Longshot

Lullaby

Maybe What We See…

Mea Culpa

Misplaced Acceptance

Memoirs of Miss Education

More Than Somebody

Mortal Masquerade

No Stone Untouched

Oath of Ink

On Closer Inspection

Open Air Contention

Pardon Me

Passion

Passion Bewildered

Peeking Behind Curiosity’s Door

Pico

Pledge of Invisibility

Prestidigitation

Private Concert

Pssst…. C’mere

Re-Composure

Remede Nocturne

Replay

Retort

Scarves

Scenes From a Rear-View Mirror

S.C.U.B.A.

Selective Hearing

Selfish Disclosure

Side Effects of Foolishness

Sincerely, 6744531

Skin Deep

Speaking In Shades of the Inquisitive

Spending Life To Get Heart Change (A 2 In 1 Poem)

Splendor in Obsession

Split

Spotless

Starving to Satisfaction

Surviving Deception

Swirling In Absurdity of a Question

Taking Attendance Blues

The Alchemy of Understanding

The Art of Repetition

The Benefit of Losing

The Complexity of Simple Scars

The House that Daddy Built

The Lineage of Verse

The Myth of Standing Water

The Necessity of Need

The Precision of an Event

The Splendor of Obsession

The Science of Sacrifice

The Task of Every Now and Again

The Time It Takes to be Spontaneous

Thick Skinned

Thought I Saw Emmett in the Schoolyard

Three Days

Three Minutes After Heartbreak

Thursday Morning Attitude

Time Bitter Proclivity

To Begin an Ending

To Sleep With Anger

Treasured Hunt

Tuppence…. (My 2 Cents)

Twilight Buffet

Two Simple

Ultimate Composition

Unavoidable Fall

Uncommon Cold

Under Temporary Construction

Unhurried

Unparalleled Journey

Unwelcome De Rigueur (Necessity)

Velvet Appeal

Wanna Know a Secret?

Washed

Watching Uncle Malachi

Well Spent

What Remains

What I Couldn’t Say

What to Wear

When the Dirt No Longer Keeps You Warm

Wide Open

Wise Moon

Wishful Contagion

Within A Vast Thought of a Small Universe

Within Familiar

Woe of Borrowed Clothes

A Doll’s Life

Smiling perfectly

in a language absent of scraped knees and jelly fingerprint stains…

coiffed in stressful silks as practiced lashes glitter with flecks of metallic anxiety that

melt the heart of vicarious dreamers and tickle the light of

predatory gazes…

perfection her brass ring, dangled high atop a shelf two winks beyond her dainty arm’s length…

uneven demands for promised treats of early love

whispered behind musty breaths but translated in awkward moments of heavy hands and

sweating brows…

such a big girl stink smothered under slimy skin of being special,

making her wish that she wasn’t…

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Regret

While slow tears fell full from my eyes,

I bent to pick up misshapen shards of a shattered dream,

then I

caught a shiny glimpse of a woeful me

on the surface of sorrow spilled

its shimmering reflection reminded me that

some people cannot bend…

A Gifted Destination

I didn’t give it at the office,

for my contribution would pulverize power players with penetrating pulses of

pure un-platonic passivity and perplex the nine-to-fivers with ninety-five percent potency of private passion…

I didn’t see it as discussion for the neighborhood watch, ‘cause it would blind the curious eye of concerned

onlookers with sharp points of brazen want and taint each innocent ear with bright utterances of carnal response…

I didn’t send it with a check in the mail,

because government rented hands would grow gregariously postal if they handled fiery truth of a whole

heart’s harmony and failed to forward fat dreams of fantasy they can’t cancel to fit into a mind’s

mailbox…

I didn’t write it in my journal,

for without the weight of reason,

the ink of enchantment would bleed off the pages and sift in and out of imagination’s ideals giving birth to all the hues of bliss spawned by secret lips and teasing tongues as whisperings eternally untold…

I didn’t reflect it upon any audience of sky,

for it would shame the sun as

a diaphanous shadow under the inconceivable brilliance of a star’s perfection and siphon the moon as a concave footprint audaciously abandoned along a lovers’

night stroll…

but I didn’t keep it, this mystic portion rendered from furtive

pounds of poignant flesh,

for it found uninterrupted reception within your heart’s embrace and unquestioning accommodation

in the seams of your soul…

A Life in the Day of Optimism’s Addiction

I laid down on a fluffy bed of overdue wishes,

but I had to shut the

chilling window of doubt and cover myself in warming blankets of faith before I could begin the dream of

doing…

standing unfocused in a yard of idle, a mosquito of insecurity

bit me and I quickly began to swell with itching bumps of imagined betrayal

though eagerly tempted to scratch with my sharpest nail of suspicion, I

found an old ointment of trust that I patiently rubbed into soothing reason…

hastily running up

steep stairs of achievement,

I