Saturday, October 1, 2022

That Kind of Wreckage

 



"The best way out is always through."  ~ Rober Frost


Sometimes to stop the fire you have to break down walls

 and other times you must leave some doors closed.

Destruction comes and leaves in different ways,

 like lost sons returning home.

Each one holds a different heartache,

yet the affliction is the same.

It is a painful feeling

when you must watch but cannot fix.

You do not hold the hatchet.

You do not have the power to stop the flames.

One can only pray for healing,

and mercy from that kind of wreckage.

 When the one you love is the soul that cannot run away from the burning building,

but can only go back inside

to save their self.


Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #230.

Come join us!


Saturday, September 17, 2022

The Drummer,

 


Theda Bara in Cleopatra 1917


“Iron left in the rain
      And fog and dew
With rust is covered.—Pain
      Rusts in beauty, too.
I know full well that this is so:
— I had a heartbreak long ago.”
~Mary Carolyn Davies

 

 I don’t need an axe!

I can grind words

with the romantic stare

of all my lost lovers.

I have lived intensely in the wasteland of charm and pretty lies.

A Rockstar of heartbreak with all the stages of grief.

I have known the scary feel of veering into oncoming traffic,

and crashing into hardcore hearts.

All the anesthesia in the world cannot stop that feeling,

and metaphors can only reveal a ghost of what was.

Writing poems now is my solace and my story.

They sing the song I will never sing again,

and make love to the drummer that first broke my heart.


Linking with Shay's Word Garden Word List ~ Featuring the come back of Creem Magazine

& the Sunday Muse for Muse #228

Visit both prompts and join in the fun!

Saturday, September 10, 2022

What the Fox Knows

 



A fox has no expectations of what lies ahead.

He trails down the path where the lilacs brush across his face,

and it is always a new hello.

He deals with the seasons as they come.

A symbol of resilience he does what he must.

He has a way of enduring the shiver of winter’s sting,

and he survives to enjoy the summer’s breeze.

Never consumed with the memory of anguishing struggle

he moves onward.

I wish I could be like him,

but instead, I cry over letters that never arrived.

Every loss is a memento I store away like a ticket to a rare ballet,

for my heart is a feeble handbag filled with a quandary of old things

that were never mine to cherish., yet I fumble through it anyway.

Again I am lost over heartbreak like a girl that has astigmatism and yet no glasses,

I wander and yes, I am lost.

Somehow the fox has a deep and clear vision

of where he needs to be.

I am busy staring at an old crinkled map I cannot even read.


Linking today with Shay's Word List where this week she is featuring the poet Amy Lowell.  I had never read her writing, but was delighted to find that I love her poetry!  Thank you Shay for another wonderful prompt!

Come join us!


Wednesday, August 31, 2022

Lost Upon a Wind That Never Blew,

 


“Ah, look at all the lonely people.” —The Beatles (Eleanor Rigby)

  

Flocks of birds and forests must know something human hearts do not.

Like a choir they hold the comfort of reaching in unison.

Always hungry for the sky.

Still man becomes a ghost

alone down a darkened hall.

A silver haired shadow

searching for a memory

that no one else remembers.

Silent stories

are a house burning to the ground,

never to be entered or seen again.

Some hearts are broken wings and fallen branches.

Secrets lost upon a wind that never blew.

A loneliness that only humans truly know.

 

 

 

I am so delighted to be participating in one of my favorite prompts, Shay’s Word Garden Word List!  It is always fascinating, educational, and inspirational.  Thank you Shay my friend!!

This week the featured theme is Jackson C. Frank.  Click here to learn more and participate.


Saturday, May 21, 2022

Soul Speak

 


Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard. ~Anne Sexton

 

There is another voice that speaks,

a poem with lines that drape softly like garland upon the rails.

I hear it like a child’s cry.

I hold it that way too!

It is a message that bears no envelope,

and a wingless bird that still shall sing.

There is no thunder bolt of lightning.

No trembling beneath bare feet.

Just the soft whisper of a certain knowing

that only night stars can surely speak.

Its absence is a deeper ache

 like the kind in an old man’s bones.

For lonely hands hold love like reigns on a galloping horse.

Trying to stop it from fleeing too far off course.

And it is surely a weary occupation

trying to be a god of greater things,

when we do not learn to listen

 for heaven is trying to speak.

 

 Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 211

Happy Birthday Weekend Shay! 💕



 


Saturday, April 30, 2022

I Am a Door Closed to a Million Rooms,

 


...the heart is full — another throb would split it... ~Emily Dickinson

 

I am a door closed to a million rooms

and a million keys to just one door.

You could search a million drawers

and closets,

or fall to a million floors.

But you will never reach me,

even if you can climb the highest fence.

I bolted the windows tight

and threw away every wrench!

Some places when you enter

you are trespassing from the start,

for love cannot be forced nor taken

from one who has given away their heart.


Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #208

💔

I wanted to take a moment while I have your attention to say something important to me.  There is someone that I care about deeply that I have hurt recently through my own hurtful issues.  In my defense I did not do it intentionally, but I did it just the same, and as painful as it is to have to see our own wrongs, I guess I better get ready to hurt some more.  You see, sometimes we hurt people by what we do or say, and sometimes it is by what we do not, or what we do not acknowledge.  I wanted there to be utter peace; no waves, upset feelings, nor harsh words.  I don’t quite know why at the age of 58 I cannot get it through my hard head that sometimes you just have to ride the rough waters and let out a good scream when it gets bad, and just keep moving onward down the stream!  Rob, I think you are a passionate guy, and I do enjoy reading your poems, but the image prompt and the word lists, they are all good, and no comparisons or passive aggression needs to be thrown out into the blogosphere.  You have been through a lot Rob, so has my dear friend who hosted a magnificent word list, and so have I.  Sometimes people seem tough and hard as nails, but nails always make everyone bleed, and everyone needs to always remember that when they react to other people’s truths.   Anyway, what I am truly trying to say, is…………I am sorry for not speaking my truth, which is something my dear friend does, and that is one of the many reasons I love her.  I think I have spoken what my heart needed to.  Thank you for listening.

💔


Monday, April 18, 2022

We Want to Harness Moonlight,

 


Chasing the moon by Catrin Welz-Stein….Surreal Art & Graphic Design. 

The earth is sliced into furrows that seeds may burst with life; even thus with our wounds.

 ~Henry Stanley Haskins


The laurels and the willows know the strength of a rainy day,

but my heart is still learning.

We want to harness moonlight,

and have the flowers of May always,

but we only truly appreciate the shine of a clear sky

when we have endured all the dreary days.

Life teaches like a professor that will give the lesson harsh yet sure.

It gathers us together the way you would garland upon a tree.

Makes us sit in the church like children to hear the sermon

whether we want to or not.

We will learn one way or the other from the slough or from the river’s harshest flow.

For the laurels and the willows know the strength of a rainy day,

 but my heart is still learning.


Linking with Shay's Word List "A. E. Housman #19" now at the Sunday Muse every 3rd weekend.

Come join us!

Saturday, April 9, 2022

I Held Sorrow Like a Saucer

 

Power of imagination by Joiedevivre89

“Hurt people hurt people.” As they say in Recovery.

 

I held sorrow like a saucer of hot tea

gentle and careful and true.

You flung it far and wide

the pain was sure to fly and spill on me and you!

It is strange how some things fester

and others dart like vultures for the kill.

But no matter how you carry it

it will surely burn as it will spill.

A house can be a true shelter

 or it can be the very storm we should escape,

and like a tree, the heart learns from weathered living

to either bend or surely break.


Click HERE for source.


Linking today with the Sunday Muse for Muse #206

Come join us!

Sunday, March 27, 2022

The Open Doors & the Slammed Ones,

 



Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows... ~William Shakespeare

It is the open arms that we long for;
the bright lighting up of the eyes when we enter the room.
An old man can deny it, but the 5 year old within still knows.
We want to be welcomed like a sunflower field,
or the sweet voice of a grandmother at the door.
The need to truly belong is a force in itself.
You see everything in life has an impact;
the power of love and the compulsion of hurt.
The open doors and the slammed ones,
the last words spoken and the welcoming's,
our heart never forgets them.
You were too weary for open arms,
and too hurt to truly shine.
Truths an old man can discern,
but a child 
 can only feel lost in the darkness of it all.
For it is the open arms that we long for;
the bright lighting up of the eyes when we enter the room.
An old man can deny it, but the 5 year old within me still knows.

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse#204
Come join us!






Tuesday, March 8, 2022

Spoiled Apples Presents: An Interview with Karen & Her New Movie

 


In an interview with actors on the set of Submerged Submarines Are Not for Drunken Sailors,

 we were shockingly fascinated by the little things happening behind the scenes on the big set.

We spoke with Karen Thorngate playing Natasha,

 the leading role as love interest of Lance Weakley played by Bruce Nadaville.

Karen complained of the gaping holes behind the main stage where her stilettos were getting caught so deeply that she almost broke her diamond necklace and peculiar stains on evening gowns that could only be explained by dirt behind the set, and not the muddy kind!

She went on to say how she avoided Bruce between takes due to his over-sized ego, bad breath, and countless ummmms, but not necessarily in that order. Karen threw in a hair fling and laugh while saying, all he talked about was what true stage presence should be and his heroic journey to the top!  It was all dreadful, she grumbled; checking her lipstick and hair as she shook her head in disgust.

The cops and firemen had been called several times before filming due to a pyro porcupine according to Jim the prop man. (Evidently the porcupine was on to something.)  Shockingly in the investigation it was confirmed that Jim was Karen’s secret love interest in real life.  It was a hot and steamy affair; hotter and more dangerous than the sushi Stella from the makeup crew left under the vanity lights.

It seems that there were a lot more things stinking than the reviews the movie got from Rotten Tomatoes.

Next week we will be talking with Jack Schmitt the Third, the star of A Fool and His Basket Balls.  He will be featuring his special costumes for the stunts he does himself juggling balls of fire with his eyes closed while reciting Haikus.

Here is one now:

Look to the sky now

the balls fly like blackbirds do

but balls always fall.


Linking with Shay's Word Garden Word List #16 (Donald Barthelme)


Saturday, March 5, 2022

The Things I Remembered at 2 am Waiting for the Test Results

 


Photo by Jonah Reenders


The best thing I know in favor of TIGHT SHOES is that it makes a fellow forget all of his other troubles. ~Josh Billings

 

I used to search for worms in the blades of grass by the porch.

I found them fascinating like a scientist studies disease and the cells of change.

All the hidden things we do not understand; they escape us somehow.

Too small for human eyes to truly see or hands and minds to grasp.

I asked questions as children always do;

Why is the sky blue?

Where are my go-go boots?

Why was daddy drunk last night?

When is mommy coming home from the hospital?

Some answers never came, and others I wished didn’t,

but it never stopped me from questioning the world.

I just moved on to bigger questions and bigger problems,

like a graduate of hard knocks climbing to even higher spots trying not to fall.

We learn to tie our shoes, before we learn to hike, but sometimes we slip into the water before we can swim.

I have learned that sometimes knowing is painful, but uncertainty hurts more.

Like stepping out into the brush barefoot.  It is better to know where not to step,

and what direction you truly need to go.



Linking with the Sunday Muse for #201.  Come join us!

Wednesday, March 2, 2022

Somewhere Between Love Letters & Divorce Papers




When you have written a hundred poems of the remembrance of love,

how do you speak of the forgetting?

Do you measure every margin of a cherished page of poems?

Or ask the mute swan in winter for an annotation of spring?

I loved you in the bright of morning never afraid of the dark of night.

I swam a lovely ocean toward you,

and I could barely swim!

But somewhere between follies splash,

and dreadful storms,

I was stricken with the ailment of unknowing.

My heart lost the strength to hold

what it once could not let go.

Now I swim rough seas in the twilight

unaware of the sting

that once led me to you.


Linking with Shay's Word Garden Word List #15 (Millay)

Come join us! 

Sunday, February 27, 2022

Hope Can Be Held Whole or Served by the Slice


 Freedom is strangely ephemeral. It is something like breathing; one only becomes acutely aware of its importance when one is choking. ~William E. Simon

 

I never was brave or good with a knife,

but sometimes I take words and slice them,

so, you can see the core of my life

 and I serve them to the world on once empty plates.

For the rumbles of hunger call like thunder in the rain,

to sailors and farmers alike.

The living yearn to be fed.

Be it hope or be it bread.

So I started trying to fill the emptiness that lives in every silent place,

brush away every heartache

like tears from a child’s tired face.

 And say, it will all be okay,

but truly mean it!

You see I never learned to swim underwater.

Because I was always frightened of not being able to breathe.

I saw someone take their last gasping breath,

and I heard the silence that it leaves.

Since that day, I took hope and ink and learned to speak,

to soothe a bitter ache in the world,

and sooth the ache in me.

Cause I was never brave or good with a knife,

but sometimes I take words and slice them

so you can see the core of my life.

 

 



Carrie 101 💗:

In continuation of my post at the Muse, you may know I work at a library, and that it is inside a lovely garden park where photographers and families come to enjoy the beauty, but what you do not know is:

.....I am almost 60, I have been over weight most of my adulthood.  I have always struggled with knowing how to tell people "no".  I am horrifically afraid of heights. I work out 3 days a week or more to keep my heart healthy, cause most of my family members have died young.  I have a major addiction to English muffins and tacos.  Now that I got some of the messy stuff out of the way, I will tell you all the good things:  I have 5 grown kids.  One I gave birth to, and four that God gave me in marriages.  In turn I have lots of amazing grandchildren that make my heart smile.  We will leave it at that, but if you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments.
Thank you again everyone for being a part of the 200th celebration at the Muse!  Especially to Chrissa, Shay & Toni too! 💓💓💓

Linking with the 200th Sunday Muse.