Author: VJ

Permission to write, paint, and imagine are the gifts I gave myself when chronic illness hit - a fair exchange: being for doing. Relevance is an attitude. Humour essential.

Sorry

Sorry –
so much inadequacy
bundled into one word
as if five letters
can convey
depths of regret,
shock, dismay

Seems I am the spark
to your lighter fluid –
unintentional, I swear

Still reeling
from the aftermath
of the explosion

Attempting to
deconstruct the
formula –
precautionary

I am sorry –
that you are enraged,
that you are so obviously disappointed
that you are consumed with resentment –
except, it is sadness, not regret that I feel.

I cannot own this,
was always honest,
forthright,
did not feed your expectations

Besides,
learned long ago –
we don’t have the power
to make anyone
feel anything
least of all,
sorry.

So I’m not sorry,
but maybe
if you could just tell me,
give me an inkling
of what you might need,
I can help us out of this hole.

(Sorry first appeared here 2018. Image my own)

Childhood Home

The place remains in my dreams
like a movie set preserved…

Have assigned each room
a critique – disclosed the crimes

Yet, it remains, like a beacon
draws me to it, begs reflection

What if I could go back
now that I can breathe

Now that I’ve laid claim to maturity;
would I discover a sudden windfall?

Makeover conditioned motifs;
reevaluate ceiling heights?

With resources to remodel
heart open, connected

might I uncover abundance
like a personal embrace.

(Childhood Home first appeared May, 2020. Image my own)

Cryptic

Is the writing on the wall so cryptic?
Graphic images depict rage
flames of dissonance
young men bleeding at their own hands
compassion incapacitated.

A sad awakening
for a society fixated
on rights and privileges,
dominating culture
excluding the nurture
of humanity,
or preservation of life.

How can we continue
to closet our children’s pain –
their vitality oozing –
hopelessly abandoned
by morality’s shelter?

It is the wall,
not the spatters
of blood upon it,
which needs amending –
adolescent minds too tender
to wade through
the cryptic priorities –
messages divided.

(Cryptic first appeared here May 2018. Edited here. Image my own.)

Needing a Sign

Restlessness accompanies me
on this sojourn today –
unfazed by ripe red
belly of robin,
or shimmering emerald
of breeding merganser’s crown.

My lens seeks out decay –
rotting wood, darkened cavities,
as if my soul craves reassurance
that life persists even where death
hovers – I need a sign

Discontent, I move on-
drive the river road
snail’s pace – praying for
something to shake
this malaise –
birds come and go,
trees radiate Spring green,
I pause, unmoved.

And then I spot it,
across the river, up high,
a massive hulk;
lens raises, adjusts, snaps,
the regal hunter turns toward me
regards me with ferocious intensity,
does not falter on his perch –

All-seeing, fearless,
he is spirit-manifested,
a messenger, lifting me
from stagnation –
momentary redemption.

(Needing a Sign first appeared here, May 2019. Image my own.)