Hour Eight

I am not really pleased with this one at all

but am posting anyway–the idea is intriguing

 

This poem takes its inspiration from Stopping by the woods on a snowy evening by Robert Frost.

Between the woods and frozen lake

 

aubade and sunset define a day –between

those times sun glow and light are strong, harsh, the

need to bask in that glow wars within me with woods

offer of refuge from the light and

heat of midday, especially. My indecision has me frozen

there is no deciding, so I row out onto the lake

Lost in the Woods

I’ve always wanted to be someone people can look up to

But when trouble rears its ugly head, I can’t do anything but watch

Even still I involve myself in others’ problems, both hers and his

Hoping to be the light that guides the lost out of the woods.

Though I’ll gladly help until I’ve had my fill,

and things seem to be looking up,

I could offer my hand, but others refuse to come with,

leaving me cold and alone, inside the icy snow.

 

Golden Shovel inspired by Robert Frost’s Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Tabs

The empty pages
Of my favourite journal
Tell a different story
Than the freshly organized
Files in my new laptop

Dementia

 

It’s not like the weather;

More like climate change,

Going unnoticed until it can’t be ignored.

 

Finally, the ocean level reaches the balcony.

Who are you?  You’re a fat little thing!

“Granny’s hiding candy in her shoes and wearing them to bed.”

 

Finally, there are no more trees to shelter the birds.

My forgetter’s working real good. I know you’re going to make a good teacher.

“Grandma, I just graduated from medical school.”

 

Finally, extreme weather makes us enemies.

Somebody stole my pressure cooker and replaced it with this one.

“No, Aunt G. I gave you that one for Christmas.”

 

Denial and enabling,

The tools of legislators and family members.

Confabulation and obfuscation,

The tools of big business and high intelligence.

 

I Remember

It was hard, damn hard, being from Texas where someone,

not even a Texan, had killed JFK. He was my hero,

my reason for joining the military.

Now here I stood, at rigid attention,

in the crisp cold air, tears on my cheeks.

When they ask for volunteers in my military police company

At Arlington Hall Station, I felt compelled, by duty and

Love of my country to step forward.

My attitude, If you don’t love it, don’t feel honor bound to

serve your country, when asked, leave.

Leave now. I’ll buy the ticket.

Yes, I still remember that morning so many years ago.

I remember the solemnness of de Gaulle, six and a half feet tall,

standing beside Selassie, five foot two.

And John-John, with his small American Flag, saluting.

Here I sit today, some fifty-three years later,

enjoying the freedom we all enjoy.

And every single day since ‘the day,’

I say a simple prayer because that

Eternal Flame burns in my heart

Just as it does at his gravesite.

Hour 8 Prompt – Through Her Eyes

I brought her into this world,
But she is like a mother to me,
Darkness is the only colour for me,
Though I see the beautiful world,
Through her eyes only,
Every morning she holds my hand,
She walks with me in the garden,
Tells me the beauty of nature,
I see the magical creation of God,
Through her eyes only,
She sits next to me,
Tells me how water changes its colours,
When sun’s rays fall into the pond,
How swiftly the fishes change their directions,
There is only darkness all around,
Though I can see some light of hope,
Through her eyes only,
I can smell the roses,
I can feel the intense heat of the sun,
I can listen to the mystical sound of chimes,
But I can see none of them,
She clasps her little fingers around mine,
And makes me see beyond the darkness,
I remember to live every day,
Through her eyes only,
I cannot see my child,
But she is the apple of my eye,
I live because she is in my life,
I feel my existence in this world,
Through her eyes only,
I might give up on life,
But her indomitable will,
Helps me to survive,
I fall in love with the darkness,
Because it brings me closer to my child,
And I can see a beautiful life ahead,
Through her eyes only!

Eternity (Hour 3)

A decade ago, we were like lightning crackling across the darkest sky,
lighting it up with feral ecstasy.
We were raw electricity that hummed and buzzed wildly and blissfully through every dawn,
birthing jealousy within every sunrise.
We were that bright, fiery, meteorite plummeting through the atmosphere,
in a glorious trail of fire and ice.

Who says the stars that burn the brightest must die the fastest?
We burned so brightly, the flames of our passion lingering for years,
across continents and oceans, time and space.
An invisible cord binding us together, while I held eternity within my hands.
I could feel that rubber band like cord stretch within me and snap back
every time you left and came back.
I always knew, without knowing, when you were near.
The cord brought its own kind of sorrow, but I did not loathe it at the time.
I was too young and naive to truly understand
the visceral depths of soul ties and the perils of my own empath nature.

I remember the beginning of our fall all too well.
A bitter cold winter night, when the truth of your heart was finally revealed
in messages not meant for me.
I tried to let you go, but couldn’t.
The electricity between us always pulling me back,
craving your arms, your kiss, your breath, your smile.
So foolish, so hopeful, eternity around my neck bidding me to fight.
A hope that could never be.

Two years and my fight was gone. Back to one. Left alone.
I wanted to prove reality wrong,
clinging to the delusion that we were meant to be,
when there’s no such thing as “the one”.
But you couldn’t ever just let me be free, as I grieved you.
Flying in and out of the sunset,
six more years of you coming in and out of my life, for just days at a time.

Friendship was supposed to reign,
I could accept that I lost you… to her, to the world,
that you were never mine.
But we were lightning, we were electricity, and you never turned it off,
the spark igniting every time we were in the same room,
confusing an already broken heart.
Perhaps you loved my tears after all.

And then the finality of that fall, the impact of flesh and bone
as my left jab blackened your eye, severing the spark forever.
You never had a negative or nasty thing to say, until that day.
You were punishing me for having loved you instead of staying away.
It took years, but I forgave you for that cruelty.
Forgave – not forgot.

I healed, I learned, I grew, and I moved forward.
I wiped my mind, my soul, my heart of you.
The eternity of now solely mine, you just a faded memory.
But I don’t wish you ill. I wish you love. And kindness.
I wish you a happy eternity of your own.

 

— Saskia Lynge / Hour 3

 

Hour Eight

 

The prompt for hour eight is to write a golden shovel. Not familiar with the form? That is not surprising, it was created in 2010 by the poet Terrance Hayes in his poem The Golden Shovel.

It is pretty simple though. First you take a line or lines from a poem you admire.

Use each word from the line(s) as the end word of each of the lines in your poem. So for example if you used a line with ten words, your poem should be ten lines long.

Keep those words in order.

Original poem

I shall not care by Sara Teasdale

Golden Shovel poem

By Patricia Harris

 

In learning more about I,

The ego shall

In all likelihood not

Include how to for oneself care.

 

An undertaking of a bard

“.. In low pursuit , know , prudent, cautious, self-coutrol is the Wisdom Root.”

A Bard’s Epitaph by Robert Burns

 

Worthy causes always in low pursuit

Always keeps one to know

Using much times of person’s   prudent

Sitting in the life being cautious

Withstanding in all of self-coutrol

Redeeming in the life of  Wisdom

Taking ways and means for the root

Life escapades written down

For life familiar times

Escribing in the  age of bards’ reminder

 

 

 

© Roy Mark Azanza Corrales 06082017  4:10   AM PST

 

In the midst of the heat of summer, the

In the midst of the heat of summer, the

first fleeting impressions after the long

august rains, feel like the first sobs

of the end of our love story, the end of

the summer season, the

beginning of the practise of violins

Taking us straight to the first notes of the Christmas Oratorio of

Bach and on that Christmas morn we know already of the coming autumn.