My New Life

You abandoned me to sit alone
as darkness fell once more,
wondering for what I should atone
when you walked out the door.

My life is full of tattered dreams,
and my body’s feeling blue;
you’re gone for good it seems
leaving me to brood and stew.

Telling me there’s someone new,
that nearly broke my heart;
I didn’t even have a clue
until we fell apart.

You left our world in a mess,
there was nothing I could do;
I always thought we’d pass the test
until this day was through.

But now that I’ve had some time to think,
about you loving another’s wife,
all I want is to have a drink,
and celebrate my new life.

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Procrastination

The blank page
broods,
waiting for creation
of word-song,
fear trembles
the soul caging
the muse,
time spins
uncontrolled,
brain wonders:
Will I lose
today’s song
to foggy tomorrow?

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Little Treasures

In my hand, I hold a treasure
that smells of paste, ink, and wonder;
Open the cover, cross the portal,
and wander through wrinkled time;

fall down the rabbit hole
and travel into the future;
take a magic carpet ride
and rub the genie’s lamp;

float down the Nile
or sail the seven seas;
ride a camel through the desert
to play riddle-me-this with the Sphinx;

hear a tale of cabbages and kings
or retrieve the sword from the stone;
watch the ponies frolicking in the surf
and hear the sirens sing;

peruse the emperor’s new duds
or visit the Hobbit’s burrow;
dance with the Gentry in the night
or see the smile fading in the trees,

open my eyes and open my heart,
lift my soul and guide my dreams.
All this and so much more, can
be found within the pages of a book,

and what a wondrous, marvelous thing.

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One Life’s Measure

If the measure of a life
     is gauged by the moments
that steal our breath,
     then my life has a full measure

What stutters my breath;
     what extent does my life encompass?

Capturing that elusive word
     when writing, gazing upon
the endless dance of stars
     painted across a midnight sky,

the melancholy susurration
     of wind in the trees, a pas de deux
of wood and flame, tracing
     the arch of your brow, savoring
your exhalation upon my nape

and the arpeggio of our love
     and life together.

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Hanging On

Days pass in scurrying,
            hurrying moments,

  consolidating time
            into packets composed
            of frantic nothingness –  

get to work on time,
            do the job, pay the bills,
            keep on keeping up.  

                        Just hanging on –  

gouging out minutes
            to refresh the mind 

with artful words, visiting
            worlds in images rent
            from artists’ dreams and nightmares, 

accompanied by lyrical notes birthed
            from musicians’ hands,
            played in counterpoint 

                        to my own ink bled onto a page.

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Lost Song: an elegy

How do we say goodbye
to one teetering on the brink of life,
childhood behind, striding towards adulthood,
with unseen tears closeted behind a façade
that excluded everyone, hiding his pain, his fears,
his belief that solace would be found
by departing this world?

Now that pain is riven, shattered
like the souls he left behind, shared
amongst the survivors of the war within him,
who trudge through each day wondering
what they could have done, why didn’t they see,
why didn’t they hear his voice wailing
in the silence of his lonely fortress?

His toddling steps still echo in his parents’ ears,
the smile that once illuminated their life
now extinguished, his laughter, a memory
to be replayed in the night, his name quivering
upon friends’ lips who look, then realize there’s
no one there, just remnants of a lost soul,
an unfulfilled promise who’s time is past.

How do we say goodbye?  We sing
a song of love and loss, share memories of a life
too soon ended, give thanks for the joy his presence
bestowed, embrace him within our hearts, love him
as he was, so human and frail; light a candle to guide
his way onward, remind ourselves that we can’t
control the hand of fate, and say, 

“Until we meet again.”

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A Shadorma

(Image courtesy of:  http://peperonity.com/go/sites/mview/glitter.fashion/29561429/29601695 )


Lady Moon
watching over night
protector
of secrets
whispered from darkened rooms of
solitary heart
 
 
Something new I tried during April's Poetry Month - a form poem called shadorma. A shadorma is a Spanish syllabic poem consisting of 6 lines in the format 3/5/3/3/7/5.  I hope you like it! 

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Greetings from Creek County, OK

If it's April, it's National Poetry Month again.  I'm trying to get back into the swing of writing again.  So, here's a little poem dashed off for one of the prompts - a postcard poem.


Smoke-filled cerulean skies rain ash down
onto wind-swept plains, summer heats the spring,
dry days crinkle skin and earth, garden hoses soak
winter’s leavings, a small protection from raging
wildfires, and each drizzle is greeted with joyful
dance and a heartfelt prayer for just a little more.

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Detritus

Abandoned,
only the ghosts
of long ago remain
within the battered board and tin
now fallen to ruin;

staggering,
hunched downward,
encompassed by leaf flotsam,
returning to wilderness,
primeval.

Gaia encircles this detritus
of human habitation with loving arms,
lonely sentinels standing guard
against the march of populace,

wild grasses weave
a tattered refrain
within the broken walls, tufting
through the windows, waltzing
in the breeze that flows

around and about, whispering
and singing songs
of the departed . . .

from whence we came
so we return . . .

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Little Red Shoes

Perched upon the yard

like a rusty skeleton,

a swing-set with empty seats

swaying

Fallen near the walk

once-proud possession

a bike with both tires

deflated

Abandoned in the silent room

a one-eyed owl

with love-tattered wings

deserted

Clothing the narrow bed

a pretty pink comforter

with party-dress frills

smoothed

and these little red shoes

with no one left

to greet


(Photo courtesy of nonsense_dreamer (Amelie) at DeviantArt; http://nonsense-dreamer.deviantart.com/gallery/?1441026#/dzdfn2)

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An Unfinished Life

Should life cease, will I be ready to pass
into that other place, through dark doors
landing in glorious light? Or, shall I ponder
on an unfinished life?

Comprised of words unspoken
silenced by correctness,
of dreams unimagined, nebulous, amorphous,
seeds yet unbirthed,
of love horded miserly, never expressed,
retained until there’s no one left,

still gazing across one-day vistas waiting
for a time that never occurs,
will echoes of unheard, undiscovered family
haunt me always?
No, I think I shall be contrary and decline
the passage into unknown horizons;

after all, I’m still a work under construction
struggling to release self-imposed exiles, create
a new world within the boundaries,
the confines, of my incomplete soul.

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The Hand of God

There are times
when the wind whispers
secrets to the trees, softly caressing
each leaf, dancing over the grasslands
and kissing across the skin;
a pleasant interlude, a time
for kites, cloud-watching,
laying in a hammock, lulled
by the sway of the breeze.

Then, there are times
when the wind rages, crying
through the night, a wailing lament,
the sound of ten thousand lost souls
searching for solace as yet unfound,
a banshee’s symphony of thunderous
crescendos, blue-white lightening strikes,
rampaging through the countryside
leaving only destruction in its wake.

A time, when surely we see
the hand of God at work, the power
and awe-inspiring force of nature
that bound across the landscape,
helter-skelter, skipping over this
house and leveling that barn,
uprooting trees that have stood
for a century, leaving only
tears and broken dreams behind.

And yet, the sun still rises
blessing each day with a new
beginning; some filled with hardship
and sorrow, others overflowing with joy
of a life still lived. The secret is determining
how to find the joy within
the hardship. That must also be
the hand of God delivering
us out of the darkness into the light.


(Life on the plains always includes the wind; it is a presence that lives and breathes, surrounding the inhabitants with both pleasure and fear. It becomes a tornado, a force so powerful that those at the high end of the scale, EF5, are sometimes referred to as “the hand of God”.  ~ lgb, 2010)

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Too Much Information

Feminine products, erectile dysfunction, overactive bladders.
Subjects of endless commercials about things
that really shouldn’t be discussed in public.

Religion, politics, familial dirty laundry.
More topics that always seem to be the subject
of never-ending reality programming.

Don’t you wonder whatever happened to reading?



(This is my first attempt at the sevenling form.)

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Sixteen

Sixteen, sweet sixteen
by then she’d learned more than she ever wanted to know
more than any child-woman should

of words hard as fists leaving blotches
where only the heart can see

of eyes blinded by compromise, overlooking
bruises polka-dotting flesh

of male bonding rituals, fathers and sons ogling
budding breasts

of painted appearance being more important
that substance and knowledge

of gropes and grabs, hands slid under skirts,
of lost dreams and broken hearts,
of self-worth residing
in peer acceptance that never came

and little red pills that ease the pain
and fog the mind,

the knowledge that she can never escape
her own eyes looking back
from the mirror hanging on the wall
while she still exists,

and the realization that self-respect
predicates all respect
and nothing, and no one
is more important than that;

and while she breathes, life goes on
another day, another year - -
now sixteen is just a lingering nightmare.

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Morning Coffee

Alarm clock blared, didn’t hear it,
running late,
rushing, rushing,
shower and dress,
running, rushing
no time, no time –
I’m late, I’m late -
white rabbit has nothing on me.

To work I go
traffic caging inside
near-death duel,
vehicle sputters, nearly stalling,
idiot drivers texting as they go,
hit the parking lot sprinting,
at the time clock
punching in – barely made it.

Scowling, growling,
traipsing toward the coffee pot.
oh. my. god.
THERE’S NO COFFEE.

Place the paper,
dump the grind,
tapping feet, dancing
in place until brew
is complete,
pour the cup,
mouth watering,
brain awakening,
ahhhh, saturating cells,
widening eyes, calming temper,
almost human - got my morning caffeine fix.

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Finding Poetry Within

Each word struggles
to be discovered,
birthed into a world
sometimes harsh,
sometimes lost.

Pieces of my soul
courtesy of the muse
within, searching for acceptance
beyond the fences of my heart,
the constraints of the internal critics.

Fledglings taking wing
on the thermals
of uncertainty and reality,
shyly exposing themselves
to all the world.

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Springtime on the Plains

Each spring we put away our winter
woolens, unearth our cottons and shorts,
begin the time-honored tradition
of sky-watching; a regional past-time,

searching the skies for approaching
grey and black clouds, towering
anvils above the grassy seas
flowing across the plains;

listening for the bulletins blaring
“seek shelter NOW”, hoping, praying
the National Weather Service is wrong,
this time, please, God, let them be wrong;

imploring the deity that the fifteen
minute advance notice is enough,
that you don’t hear that freight-train roar,
nor gaze into the eye of the abyss;

that time elapses and the tornado
skips your house, that those icy fingers
of fear are not a premonition of what’s
to come, that the ‘all-clear’ is heard soon;

that your friends and loved-ones are safe,
and you tell yourself, over and over
that it will never happen to you . . .
until it does.


(NOTE:  Although I've lived in Oklahoma for the majority of my life, I have never suffered the loss of a loved one or even property to a tornado - I've been very fortunate in that respect.  I remember many times in my childhood that someone would tuck me into a closet or bathtub covered with blankets and pillows to wait out a storm.  There's nothing you can do but shelter, wait, and pray.)

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Wedding Blessing

Where once there were solitary people,
now, today these two have come together –
to walk side-by-side in partnership;

their lives entwined,
rooted like the trees;
stronger together than apart;

to hold each other,
support each other,

to blossom as individuals
who choose to grow together,

to cherish being a couple by encouraging
and honoring those special traits each
bring to this marriage.

Their joined hands represent the union
of mind and body, heart and soul.

The ring symbolizes the unbroken continuity
of life, flowing, infinite.

The candle flame represents your love
burning warm and bright;

the flowers symbolize the blossoming of your relationship;
and the food represents the nourishment
of bodies and spirits.

May our Creator bless you
with wisdom, patience, humility and courage;

grace you with joy and love;
may your spirits bloom

and happiness crown your union
today, tomorrow
and always.

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The Mirror

Before I knew him,
he was gone,
lost to this world.
No knowledge exists
of my own,
only stories told
to me by someone else.
Stories of love
and laughter,
of resemblance found
in this face of mine.
So I search
each mirror hoping
to see the ghost
I loved and lost
before I realized
what it meant
to have a father,
and seek to fulfill
the dreams once
had by the one
I never knew.

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Portrait Complete

The hand, usually bold and precise
when drawing other subjects
while sketching its owner, stutters
in fretful stops and starts as if only
now learning the skill of drawing.

The eyes, normally clear-sighted and keen
while seeking the truth within others,
gazes at the mirrored reflection noticing
only the doppelganger instead
of the soul laid bare to vision.

The heart, normally compassionate
and giving to those of its acquaintance,
hardens when considering its own behavior,
no immediate benefit of doubt nor
thoughtful self-consideration given.

The portrait complete, merely a rude draft,
a tintype of the artist’s psyche, shadowed
by self-doubt and recriminations, a hazy
outline in hues faded by the internal censor,
a shadowy afterimage of the soul’s truth.

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