Category: adversity

Tired of Same Old Endings

Tired of same old endings,
in which hopes are slaughtered
and tragedy and insanity win.

Raised by the bottle, learned
to set standards low –
still afraid of heights –
have fallen as the ground
beneath my aspirations crumbled –
a certainty under alcohol’s rule.

Tired of same old endings,
in which self is battered by indifference
and ego loses the battle for control.

Mother’s denial a coping mechanism
negating children’s need, obliterating
safety, disregarding long-term damage;
even in the older years, when we tried
to get her out, were powerless against
his manipulation, his eternal imprinting.

Tired of same old endings
in which the heroine, resources spent,
succumbs to the madness, suicides.

Want to believe in a future, greener,
hopeful, in which relationships
are fulfilling, and life goals are
supported, in which encouragement
is not fodder for deviousness, and
personal best is rewarded, sustained.

Tired of same old endings
haunting my dreaming hours,
taunting my waking dreams.

 

 

 

 

A Child Responds

Console me
when life, upended
shuns and ridicules
let me know I’ll be alright

Step out
of picket-fence thinking,
find beauty in my uniqueness,
show me that love has no boundaries

Teach me
to treasure all that I am
even if that all is beyond
your comprehension

Grow with me
encourage exploration
demonstrate courage
in face of the unforeseeable.

(A Child Responds follows yesterday’s poem: A Mother Asks. Both poems were inspired by a post I wrote a few years back: No One Will Ever Love You)

 

A Mother Asks

How to receive a child
whose untimely arrival
serves only to punctuate
existing turmoil; whose
cries further entrap
a despondent mother…

How to love a child
who differs markedly
from gifted sons
from idyllic daughters
bears only resemblance
to the crime’s perpetrator

a child who lacks
the finesse so carefully
imbued in siblings –
fiery eyes and attitude,
preferring solitude of nature
to niceties of family life

How to guide this child,
this symbol of a past best left
behind, this burgeoning woman
defying all expectations –
this enigmatic burden?

(Follow up to this poem is:  A Child Responds)

 

Appetite

The initial spoonful –
salted caramel cool –
consoles bitten tongue,
slides down burning throat:
appeasement for churning gut.

Each spoonful savoured
sweetness countering bile,
dark chocolate shavings
as bittersweet as the emotion
being pushed down, buried

Bruised by conflict,
words ineffectual,
ice cream an unworthy
compensation, cravings
turn to salty reprieve.

Cryptic

Is the writing on the wall so cryptic –
graphic images depicting 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 to the exclusion of nurturing
humanity, preserving lives.

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 messages
of priorities so divided.

Contracting

Problematic situations
invite expansion – ego
near the point of torment

I am outcast –
newcomers fail to understand –
this missing motor

so I retreat –
into distraction
fail to reveal
caregiver

left to seek
scattered connections
self-absorbed

needy, settled
idly moving towards
desolation

abandoned on the edge
of initiation –
ego contracting.

A Falling Out

Drunken bodies –
silhouettes of adults –
ignore posted warnings
and locked gates –
clumsily scale fences
and plunge into dark,
their hoots echoing
between uniformly
lined-up balconies –
pristine rows of duplicate
houses, trimmed beds
and cement curbs
punctuating order.

I watch, horrified,
feel the bile rise,
have signed responsibility,
will bear the brunt
of any damage –
am burdened with worry
unwilling and unable
to take such a risk;
walk away and await
the fallout…

A vainless fret –
two old women
testing the rules,
stretching the limits
of structured guidelines
more ridiculed than
prosecuted, but the rift
has been solidified

used, I feel, and
disrespected, enraged –
not yet able to examine
the tension settings
of self-imposed restraints,
carefully guarded decorum
choking out compassion –
sensibility rattled.

(The story behind the poem is posted at One Woman’s Quest II)

Blessings

Mother’s feet scream –
agony of her miserable condition,
underlying disease eating her.
My feet, free of calluses,
paddles slightly bent and fallen,
carry on with forgiving kindness.

Husband’s knees are red-hot pokers
shooting knife-sharp volts
with every rickety step.
Mine are knots in spindly
trunks that bear movement
graciously, allot me flexibility.

Father’s back grew weak
faltering in the end, hunched,
as if he’d born a cumbersome burden.
My back, not without its moaning,
carries me proudly erect –
like the spring sapling, winter endured.

Uncle’s heart beats erratically,
ceasing despite its mechanical support,
his life a testimony to modern science.
My heart flutters with expectancy,
aches with disappointment,
and soars with each new birdsong.

Sister’s tension rises,
the stiffness in her neck suffocating,
headaches blinding her vision.
My neck, slung now like a rooster’s,
puffs around my face like an old friend,
allows me the comfort of perspective.

Brother’s mind has seized,
lost somewhere between today
and yesteryear – never certain of either.
Mine, a constant churning cog,
gathers information, spews ideas
and bends in the face of creativity.

My eyes have seen suffering,
my hands throbbed with desire to help;
yet each bears their cross stoically,
and so I watch with compassion
and gratitude for the life I might have lived,
had my own vessel not been so blessed.

(This is an edited version of an earlier post by the same name.)

There, There

I wrestle with sleep –
need overpowered by unease,
senses on high alert,
as if a child
trying to intuit
the degree of volatility
in father’s drunken slur

what will it take
to find rest,
to reassure
the littles
that the tyrant is gone

and life will unfold
as it will
without the stress
of constant monitoring.