2019 – Twenty – Prompt 23 – A Response to Prompt 1 – Things That I Am Not

I am not a man of constant sorrow.
I am not one who sees the forest. I see trees.
I am not much of one to see tomorrow.
Today is good enough for one who sees.
I am not a poet full of good intentions.
I am not a fan of words used as a lure.
I am not a writer craving voice in world dissensions.
Words aren’t always helpful, don’t always cure.
I am not where you will find no contradictions.
I am not where you will hear all answers spoke.
I am not immune to maledictions.
It’s possible to be both whole and broke.

I live in dreams, not always in real life,
in fantasies more real to me than you.
I am not a man whose sorrow’s like a knife,
that cuts, it’s true, still sorrows sometimes do.

True poetry is not always ‘I am’. That’s just a boast.
It’s often in ‘I’m not’, where it’s found most.

20 – Crow Secrets

Crows whispering in my ear, “Please don’t forget us when you go home… and don’t forget the trains out there in Wyoming. Remember how you loved the trains coming through every day, and the snow. Try to remember the snow, and our silhouettes across the fields.

We have cousins there where you call home, Jimmy, Jake, and Lilly. Try to go to the sanctuary up country to visit them. They will remember you. We crows know family, even if we haven’t met in person.

Please don’t forget us when you go home to Maui. Please come back this way soon. Wear the yellow ribbon, and that shiny, tinkling bobble we all love.

We’ll keep our eye out for you. Please, don’t be too long.”

20

And were I vain, the least bit wary, of donning, thus, my wig—

Of scarves fastened fashionably with haphazard pins,

I’d have Eliot write for me, a t-shirt, and this is how it would begin—

 

They will say: ‘How his hair is growing thin!

Under His Wings (Poem #20)

Hope

Faith

Two words that many people misunderstand

Yet because I know where my hope lies

And because I know where my faith lies

My life is good

I have faith that God will do as He says He will

He will fulfill His promises to me

When I am weak

He makes me strong

When I feel trapped

He wraps me in His arms

When I seek Him

He hides me in His secret place

I am safe hidden under His wings

He is my guardian angel

My protector

Lord spread your wings

And wrap me safe within them

Tropical Megacity

Tropical Megacity
Virginia Carraway Stark

Twin Spires pierce the sky
Of the tropical land
Where fountains spring
And the air is filled
With food from dozens of lands
It is a city of green
Birds fill THIS central park
A jungle that is left virgin
In a metropolis wonderland
A zone left for flying
Amidst the sky scrapers
Of a tropical metropolis
Multi-colored birds pierce
The sky with their screams
Their wings beat the air
One and all can agree on one thing:
There’s too much good food
Anyone could get fat!
In this modern mega city
That’s more garden and wonderland
Amidst the wonderland of tall buildings
One would swear are from a future land
Or another planet perhaps
Where people and nature live together
Memories of how close the jungles still is
To what was a primitive sprawl
A different sort of paradise
Not so long ago

After Today

After today, he thought

the world will never be quite the same

she swam across the pond

and danced like Amphritite onto the sand

he envied the water drops that caressed her lissome curves

the sun kissing her golden hair

and wind that stroked without shame

a virgin ripe and innocent

 

he would not pluck her guileless nature

destroy the naivety that held his sway

lest the harvest wring a momentary gratification

and a lifetime of regrets.

her innocent nature laid bare his soul

he would let love enter there

and in the ensuing pursuit and trade

of heart and soul and mind

eternal pleasure would ebb and flow

on the time and tides where fidelity endures

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inspired by the last line of the book Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. “After today, he thought, the world will never be quite the same.”

Prompt #19 Heightened Sensitivity – A Collaboration with Numb -Prompt #4

Prompt #4 Numb

Prompt #4 Numb

Posted on June 22, 2019 12:24pm EDT by janiceraquelamendonca

Dead from the inside 
I am numb.
A complete shut down
unresponsive to the external.
Immovable, life wasting away.
Tired eyes and hungry heart
all dead in a row.
No thirst to quench
no dreams to conquer
powerless in one way
powerful in another
- nothing affects me.

Nothing to lose,
no fear, no feelings, 
no attachment, no sorrow, 
Just the bottomless pit 
of nothingness -encroaching.

Overtaking... overcoming...
infectious and familiar

It feels comfortable, 

I am doomed anyway, 
Damned if I do,
Damned if I don't.

Hopelessness looms 
like a shadow. 
Wasted life, 
Wasted years,
The Pointlessness of the point,
at the edge of reason 
and lingering disappointment.

Far from any harm,
removed and isolated
detached and unemotional, 
I let that shit go. 

Only to dive deep
Head first into the chaos of living.
The madness of emotions.
The passage through life.

I am waking up,
Undoing these chains 
that have held me down 
for far too long.
I am becoming human.
I am living. 

I open the doors 
and let it surge.

-Janice Raquela Mendonca 




Heightened Sensitivity

Awakened

Aware
Alert
Alive 
The flood gates burst forth

Let them in

Life so consumed 
Overwhelmed 
Crowded by so many things
waiting to be felt, 
acknowledged. 
Waiting for some sort of response.

Smack dab in harms way
involved and participated.
So many emotions 
which should I feel
Indecisiveness takes over. 

I want to break free
I want to let go
but I can't escape.

I want to become invincible, 
I want to become powerful.

I am human, 
I am not perfect.

-Janice Raquela Mendonca

On life(credits:T S Eliot’s “The Love Song of J.Alfred Oru frock”)

Let us go and make our visit
to the magic world,
where angels come out from formless stones.
Oh,do not ask,”What is it?”
We can go up and down,
Talking of Michelangelo.

No doubt you will forget,
to blink your eyes,
I know them all,
For I have known them all already,known
them all:
Have known the evenings,mornings,
afternoons,

We can together measure our life,
with coffee spoons,
And talk on art,love and death.

Break That Heart My Friend

1. Break it,
   Break that heart my friend
   And save two souls at the end
   Break it because you are human
   Not that one is man and the other – woman

Strike it with the stupidity of truth
Break it with pure love and soft tact
Don’t let hate touch it,
It will poison this medicine, with
that solitary spice of bitterness
Do it with care and yet every part be intact
Break it in the morning or when the sun is shining, that is in the noon or when the moon is singing – this cut may never be timely.
It could be slow, it could be quick.
Break it in silence or with words
for there may be no language the heart cannot know
nor sign it cannot perceive.
You know there are times the world is noisy, the streets and the gardens
and the heart will hear nothing; the heart will hear nothing and the heart will learn nothing
and yet the painful medicine awaits it
know this!! No one likes stupidity,
stupidity breaks the heart
yet everyone is a heartbreaker or has been a heartbreaker, as a baby or maybe a granny
Do it with hope and faith, not fear and despair
It can be on a Monday, Friday or Sunday
It could be a sacred act, it needs no sacred day
This secular art, a spectacle for everyday

Break it with water
Than break it with wine
Yes, break it with lowly loyal cassava
Than with grilled chicken spines

Break it because it had to
Not because you want to
A heart is no toy
Break it, for though there may be chemistry
Oxygen and nitrogen compel no synergy
Break it not as a habit
Though Calvary’s cross was a gambit
the lion became the lamb
the wounded was the eternal healer
Take it not to the mountains nor slip it to the valley
Break it on plain ground, let it on a straight path
Lest it comes down crashing and it’s not known how to mend it
Break it in weakness
Break it on the fence and then claim innocence
Yes on the fence
It’s then its choice if it falls left or right
Break it though you are sorry
Free it, but not for money
And this dreaded act
May be a healing art

No! No! No! don’t break it
Why should you break it
Like a medicine you shake
And yet will not take

Break it
God will mend it
Yes He even breaks people
Body and soul
Yet He makes them whole

Personal Prompt/This is What Salvation Must Be Like After Awhile

Following up on my early morning Dylan listening, I’ve given myself the prompt to write a poem about a line from any song, choosing a line from “Visions of Johanna.”

I haven’t seen the house I shared
with two housemates I’ve since lost contact.
But, once your bed gets sold out from under
you – and after you painted the walls to grow themselves –
some phone numbers are easier to forget.

That summer, there was always a party.
There were always ants on the kitchen counter.
And I dated a boy who worked as a waiter
who wanted to be a photographer.

After getting off our respective shifts,
we’d meet on the covered porch, through which
the evening breeze blew
and we were lighter than Gatsby and Daisy in the cool night.

I would write stories and he would photograph them
and our certainty was its own redemption
for what other things we said
and can’t remember.