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Patrick S. De Walt, M.B.A., Ph.D.

~ Communal Conversations for the Promotion of Active Critical Engagement

Patrick S. De Walt, M.B.A., Ph.D.

Tag Archives: free write

Standing Alone

30 Saturday May 2015

Posted by Patrick S. De Walt, MBA, PhD in Poetry

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Tags

Art, Culture, Discrimination, expression, free write, Freewrite, Identity, Inequity, oppression, Performance, poetry, Race, social critique, social justice, spontaneous thoughts, Streams of consciousness

Often the challenge faced requires one to go against the grain
The question of being a leader or follower is one that faces us time and time again
Society suggests a contradictory message in which we are both isolated but viewed as a collective
We are grouped and segregated by a host of descriptors that are now the norm
Normal for whom?
Normal for what?
Normal for the maintenance of a status quo that shames, demeans, and oppresses
Any who does not meet the “eye test”
The “actions test”
The “American Patriot test”
These are very challenging times where fear has a strong grasp on the lives and realities of so many
News features and calls for fear, resonating with a collection of persons who have been taught not to question or ask
but instead to accept
How did this happen you ask?
It actually has always been,
for this country
It just depended on who you were and how you were classified.
If you were female, patriarchy ruled your world
If you were African, Asian, Irish, Indigenous, and many other identities you were relegated to inferior status or worse
This is the context in which our realities have been shaped
Our worldviews are fortified with institutionalized oppression in the forms of racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, ageism, and the list continues to grow.
We are undoing our existence through the enabling and pacifying of our rights
Not the rights to oppress those who do not
Look like us
Love like us
Think like us
Speak like us
Pray like us
We are standing alone
because we are and have been taught
to be afraid to stand together…

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Life’s Transitions

29 Monday Dec 2014

Posted by Patrick S. De Walt, MBA, PhD in Poetry

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Art, Culture, expression, free write, Performance, poetry, Streams of consciousness

No matter who we are or what we ultimately do
We face certain unifying experiences
Those that transform us in immeasurable ways
We offer different names for what these experiences mean to us
With good reason
Yet, if we are lucky
We are able to muster enough within ourselves to embrace
these moments as frequently as they happen within our lives
Life’s transitions are often extremely difficult to understand
Let alone endure
Yet, we must do so
These transitions may require letting go
Or holding on tighter
That’s the most interesting thing about it
We don’t always know what we should do when we are faced with these instances
Or dreams
That are hopefully what drive us
They provide us with the gifts that preoccupy our existences
If we are truly lucky
We even recognize when these monumental moments arise
If we are less fortunate
we learn of them after our opportunity has expired
As if it were set on the side of a milk carton
Life’s transitions are vital to our growth and development
Life’s transitions are concretely etched in the timeline that defines our imprint on Mother Earth
What a wonderful life we can have if we embrace the good and bad found within our life’s transitions
I, for one, am trying my best do this now in spite of every reason that I can devise not to
Life’s transitions are living, breathing, feeling oxymorons
They are my Rubik’s Cube that I have yet to solve…

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Trails of Frustration

18 Thursday Dec 2014

Posted by Patrick S. De Walt, MBA, PhD in Poetry

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Tags

Art, Culture, expression, free write, Identity, Performance, poetry, Streams of consciousness

The more I have tried the harder it has seemed
To get closer to you while being me
Authenticity appears to be a staple frame of reference yet not a stapled reality
Managing perspectives to deliver catered messages is not the communiqué in which I wish to be the conveyor
Nor
Author
Trust and vulnerability are not easy to come by
Or manifest for the sake of another
Yet I continue to occupy these like Wall Street
or
Ferguson
I’m the protester
Authenticity is so much more yet so hard to achieve and/or recognize
In a world of emotional landmines that two hearts have endure constant bombardment
Yet, I still stand
as
Maya still rose
Frustration is a real emotion that seems to follow me each and every step of my journey
Whether it is from not being understood or viewed as some exotic threat
Frustration is found within a desired belief that what I deserve is out there
And waiting
And wanting the same from me
A connection
A commitment
Trust
Honesty
Frustration is in the extrapolation of complexity for the desire of simplicity
Frustration is in the unachieved yet anticipated
Frustration is found within
As I seek to gain a meaningful connection with you…

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Dark & Stormy

21 Friday Nov 2014

Posted by Patrick S. De Walt, MBA, PhD in Poetry

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Tags

Art, Culture, expression, free write, Identity, Performance, poetry, social critique, Streams of consciousness

Dwelling within an eternal space that amasses such memories
Memories that solicit inner emotions that require
1 to harness
much from within
1 to grapple with those things that are often held true
It is essential for what we hold inside
that we yield
our willingness to acquiesce to others’ understandings and accepted values
That we challenge our own conventions
An internal status quo
We are mere subjects in others’ scripts of our realities
How does that even happen?
How did we become pawns in our own game of checkers?
As insane as that may sound
we tend to allow our realities to be
improperly depicted by others
at ever turn or opportunity
As linear as we wish our lives to be
We are not that simplistic
We are as complex as we allow ourselves to discover
Yet, most of us are hindered
Hindered by our fears of what we may discover
Or what others have reconfigured our figured worlds to be
How did we enter into this darkness
the storm that presents itself?
For us to embark upon
Where is our beacon?
Where is our North Star?
Where is our means to an end?
Amid the darkness
we are challenged to find our light
Not from the presence of others
but from that which we find within
The storm is not over as many evangelically love to espouse
It has only just begun
For we are called to put ourselves on trail
Unlike the likes of Ferguson…

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You

19 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by Patrick S. De Walt, MBA, PhD in Poetry

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Tags

Art, Culture, expression, free form, free write, Identity, Motivation, Performance, poetry, Reflective Practice, self exploration, social critique

The beauty of discovery is one that places us in varied states
Some of us deny ourselves the opportunity that is presented to us
Others embrace it for all that the experience offers
Why do we find ourselves limiting our opportunities between two contrasting views
that ultimately limit all of our possibilities?
We “either or” ourselves into complacency
Instead of “both anding” ourselves into our greatness
The likelihood of us ever achieving this feat is not found in
meritocratic principles that perpetuate us failing to achieve our best selves
Instead, we stunt our growth based on the perceptions of others who often are unaware of our hidden gems
Why have we become accustomed to settling for less than what we deserve?
Or even more so, why do we stunt our own promise by following the trumpeting of someone else’s tune?
We are fragile in this way?
Or better yet
malleable to the whims of those whose thoughts we’ve come to privilege
over our very own?
Don’t take the words on this page as absolute
for if you did
then you are perpetuating the process in which this was written to question
You have to reconnect with your intellect
Your inner curiosity
Your inner self
You have to be the driver of the knowledge that you have taken in within a critical framework
No longer accepting the quo that is so often the status
found within
The conversations that we have
The communities in which we live
The dreams that we allow to be so easily squandered
You can no longer just be the best you that you currently know
You have be best you
that you have YET to fully comprehend…

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Seeking and Searching

07 Friday Nov 2014

Posted by Patrick S. De Walt, MBA, PhD in Poetry

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Tags

Art, eclectic, expression, free form, free write, Identity, impromptu, organic thoughts, Performance, poetry, Streams of consciousness

Many of us come to the hard realization that we have not…
Whatever follows the ellipsis is for you, the reader, to insert
Some examples that come to mind are we have not:
Done enough
Tried hard enough
Listened or learned enough
Cared enough
All of these suggestions may connect with many of you whose gaze may have found this screen
As I began writing this collection of words,
I thought that I was about to write some type of thought provoking poem
Something that I could share with you and create a new level of connection
Yet, I find that this collection of thoughts has an agenda of its own
And as a result, I will yield to it as it sees fit
Why does this realization have to occur at this exact moment?
I really do not know
Does it matter to me?
Of course it does, why else would I continue to stroke my keyboard.
Much of what I have written within this blog and throughout this short time as a writer/researcher has been in search of something
That something has been a host of different things and answers
Sometimes I have been searching or seeking questions
In any case, I find that the more that I traveled along this journey the more beautiful
It has become
But I could not be without honesty, in my declaration,
that there often was more pain found in this journey than beauty
This hard realization that I speak of,
I’m sure that many of you can declare your very own journey within your narrative
We are all passengers, and if we are lucky, drivers in our travels
We take detours
We get lost
Only to be found or find that most important thing(s) or person(s)
I know that within this beautifully painful journey that I’m currently on
I have been more than fortunate to find special people who no matter how distant they are now
Reside within my heart and mind in the most profound ways
We continue to seek and search out those valuable moments in the midst of our pain
We continue to fool ourselves into getting up when we’ve been knocked down
By whatever life has placed before us or even behind us
Did we try hard enough?
I wonder that so many times about various interactions that I’ve had over my lifetime
That conclusion has yet to be answered, but of course
In that lies the beauty of the pain
Some have said that to feel pain is to truly live
For how do we know what truly matters to us if we never know how much losing it truly impacts us?
Friendships, loves, family, and ourselves
All of the above have at various times been both lost and found along this journey
What does one listen and learn from when the lessons are for others?
What does one do when all that they do is not enough?
Caring is a word that is a foreign language that one must speak
With hopes that the interpreter finds the right message
Seeking and searching is what we do each and every day
Seeking and searching is our means for moving forward
Moving beyond our current realities
Seeking and searching
For the answers to our internal questions and quests
Seeking and searching for our inner and external peace
We can always stop, but if we do
what have we allowed to slip through our grasps?
Seeking and searching is
Is just that…

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Watching Life In Front of Me

05 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by Patrick S. De Walt, MBA, PhD in Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Art, Culture, expression, free write, impromptu, onsite content, Performance, poetry, Streams of consciousness

Hearing the confident laughter
From a new yet familiar voice
A tone that represents a new beginning
Or a new ending
That chapter has not yet revealed itself
Watching life in front of me
Requires that risks are taken
Chances are had
Minds are open
Watching life in front of me
Is a special occurrence that does not always happen
Yet, today it does and has
The glow that is found within the frame of a personalized figure
Looms large around me
Yet, does just enough to keep its distance
The intrigue continues to perplex
And entice one to further explore the journey
A journey that unfolds with each breath taken
Each thought fragilely formed within
Connecting the dots to a coffee stained canvas
Watching life in front of me
Allows for the life behind me to remain there….

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Contact Email

dewalt@patricksdewaltmbaphd.com

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