A List of Beautiful Broken Things

Found on Facebook. On somebody’s Facebook Page. Shared by other Facebook Pages. My news feed is too long and crazy to search for it again.

A shopping list (noun) is a list of items needed to be purchased by a shopper, a grocery list is the most popular type of shopping list– including items that need to be procured on the next visit to the grocery store.

Kintsukuroi is a Japanese noun meaning “to repair with gold”; the art of repairing pottery with gold or silver lacquer and understanding that the piece is more beautiful for having been broken.

Hard to believe the queen of lists missed the shopping list prompt for the promptless.  It certainly wasn’t for lack of lists floating around in my life.  Just maybe it was all those other things floating around with them that I’m too lazy to grab hold of and run with.

So, two prompts in one – Voila! – a list-y poem about breaks.  No, I can’t explain how I came up with that exactly.  But that’s the beauty of poetry – the inspiration for it rarely makes sense. And I’m going with the part of the prompt that said to make up my own.

I have plagiarized and hopefully improved upon my own work from a previous poem.  I won’t link to it, because it sucked even worse than this one.  But I’m having fun!  And that’s all that really matters, right?  Don’t be critical, you could break my heart.

broken vase (Photo credit: Leonard John Matthews)

Things That Break

When dawn breaks,

Morning has broken.

Night falls, but it never breaks.

Give a guy a break and break it to him gently.

Then take a coffee break.

Go ahead and break a leg, break a horse,

Break the connection, break a code.

Break away and break bad habits.

But don’t step on a crack and break your mothers back.

Don’t break in and don’t break out.

Don’t break mirrors, don’t break your neck.

I’ve broken up, I’ve broken down.

Broken hearts, broken promises,

And the silences that must be broken

Before we break apart .

Break a record, break a rule,

But never break a spirit or anybody’s bones.

Precious things get broken.

When you add up all the shattered bits of china

What are the broken pieces worth?

It’s impossible to say.

Might as well try to break it down

For every sorry fragment

Of a broken dream.

Broken Dreams (Photo credit: jumpinjimmyjava)

Related links:

the matticus kingdom – and what a story it is

Mahabore’s Mumblings – A real hero

The D / A Dialogues – Broken