3~17
An ocean of love in me for you.
Do you see from above?
I miss us.
Prompt three
The snow came
As it did every spring
A fresh blanket
Over winters faded fast
Starving on remnants of wishes and want
The skeletons began to show
At first our eyes then cheeks did follow
The hunger rose to meet us
We could not contain what wasn’t ours
We let this storm
Deplete us
Her Facade
Behind her smile
no one can see,
the sadness that’s hers
when she takes her leave.
The eyes that look dim
despite how they shine.
she’ll cover her face
they think she just whines.
Her smile may seem bright
but tears have shone through,
they overlook
her feeling blue.
Hour three Once I Was a Home
03 2017 poetry marathon prompt: photo of derelict building in high desert, snow and tumbleweeds.
Once I Was a Home
by Paul Robert Sanford
I’m not from around here.
All there is to build with here is sandy dirt and scrub brush.
Every board and nail and roll of tar paper had to be trucked in
so I could stand out in the sere landscape,
a monument to civilization and comfort.
I know who lived here.
They had coffee in the morning and sometimes raised their eyes to gaze at the mountains.
Not a lot to do here but mountain gazing and walks under the open sky.
That’s okay. I was shelter for a quiet life.
Not that there wasn’t always something to putter around and take care of.
The fine grit swept in with the wind and on shoes and had to be swept out.
Wind blew the tar paper loose and it had to be tacked back in place.
The roof was too flat to shed all the snow, and once in a few years needed to be shoveled off.
Eventually the last house before the miles before the mountains
is a hard place to live in,
especially when you are alone and older.
The winters seem colder,
and the garbage molders before being carted out.
the place gets a lived in feel, surrounded by half mended projects,
windows begin to stick open or shut,
coffee doesn’t satisfy as well.
I remember an illness, an injury, a time laid up in bed,
when anxious kin folks rolled up on off road vehicles,
notified by the local storekeeper that it had been a long time since.
Arguments, sulking, demands and refusals.
Cycles of negotiations and calm followed by alarms and visits.
Sooner or later a person lacks the strength to keep the place up.
Sooner of later a person lacks the strength to argue or fight back.
The lowlanders win and I am empty and alone.
My only visitors stay long enough to bust out windows and throw trash about.
Soon enough I offer very little shelter beyond a bit of shade,
perhaps a windbreak if the wind comes from the right direction.
Once I was a home, but that time is forgotten now.
If it weren’t so much trouble, the lowlanders would probably tear me down.
Don’t worry, give me enough years and I will fall.
I don’t want to return where I came from.
I am home to stay.
Poem 3
I’ll shag you in the next life
When I am not me but the person you shag
And you and you
We are one
But our escapades take us abroad
Into threatening definitives
Like Westerns through the ravine
Or non-westerners through the west
But
Satisfied in the good grace of a shadow
Some of the lust safely offloaded to a deduced wormhole
All textural imagining true
Porthole
Under the rhythmic bridge
Beneath the coffee plant
But mass is harder
Clear passionate
Cope, glad
Care for the crying, incommunicative baby of your mind
Try shifting,
Try fresh air
And bring down the curtains
And make common the means
Make your stakeholder trust grow
Shrink out the vast state of ramrods and respect
The tomfoolery of the self declared king
Shrink out those who make a sport of your lives
Kick them out of their deckchairs, their box
Their sallow oblivious nihilist eyes
And we will have a safe life
Not without challenge
Not without graft, I expect
In the spinning seasons
But not our own worst enemy any more
We are sick, and mercy, we can be saved
For many many many
For the rapture of admitting reality
In its dizzying pain
Its versimilitude
Grip
If not you, who else
If not now, what lemon
My Solace
My solace
Is where I hear no cry
And when my heart
Speaks to the mind
For, things done
And the things undone
The heart, which is barren
And lost all hope
You can start afresh
Says the mind
This time, do as you fancy
For you can please none, but yourself
3 “NEVER LET AN OLD FLAME BURNT YOU TWICE”
A good reminder, yeah
To those who have been heartbroken twice, thrice
I’ve had my share of these old flames’ return
And oh boy!
Was I not been burnt but engulfed in flames!
You believed them, the second time, and again,
burnt you again
Whatever for?
Why did you let them enter your gullible heart again?
Say those titillating words (again) and again
Why entertain them again for what they did to you
the first time?
I am at a loss for words
I’m gullible, trusting, lovesick, a romantic person
I cannot, for the life of me, give reasons for the
whys, whats, whens, and whatevers
I believe that when they come back –
it’s destiny, we’re fated, the Divine intervened!
But who am I kidding?
If they did it the first time, why not a second
or a third?
Yet I’m not a lost cause.
I am aware of the heartaches, of the pains, aches
and unhappiness
Please bear with me
I am learning, and learning, and learning
Just bear with me
I can look at the ashes more clearly now.
Never, really never
(Ashes blown away by the wind…good riddance)
Broken Windows
Silence.
Finally.
I am open now, and empty
desolate, desiccated
and free from the meat bags.
It took them long enough
despite the hunger
the heat and the thunder.
Cold now,
freezing and blistery
I don’t have to worry about burning up inside.
There’s no more rage in here,
no more sadness and
no more laughter.
Peaceful.
Simple.
I certainly intend to continue
dragging the wind and
collecting the wets.
There’s coyotes in here
their cackle brutal;
you can smell the thrill of the hunt.
Scampering occasionally
I really don’t mind
it’s not constant.
I’ve been here for decades
but what does that even mean
to an old house.
I just wish I could see
those mountains.
A battered life
I stand in resistance
to the forces that would change me.
Taking blows from all sides,
my weathering shows.
I am dwarfed by the mountains
that surround my fractured soul.
Peeking out from dispair
trying to fill the hollow.
Beauty in the eyes of some
though they can see I’m weary.
The blustering wind is my company
through the tormented years.
A change is coming
now that you see me.
I have captured your eye
and I’m yours for the saving.
I am sturdy and strong
with room inside for love.
Let’s begin the healing
a gift has spared me.
Three- Weathered
Sometimes I feel
Old
Weathered
An empty house on a desert floor
Looking to mountains for answers
The wind for escape
To sky for purpose
To clouds for a cleansing rain
Paint peeling
Windows broken
Walls crumbling
My soul visible
Exposed
Perhaps once I was someone’s dream
Someone’s home
Someone’s purpose
But now I am weathered
Beaten by elements beyond my control
Abandoned
Forgotten
Sand blasted by life
Still standing
On a weak foundation
Frail and fragile
But strong in who I am
Proud of what I once was