Cigarette butts
no longer linger
concrete, but
I swear the cloud
of smoke lingers,
the sweat of adolescent
anxiety – the suffocating
pressure to comply –
Names escape,
but I remember
smugness and
rivalry, and
the spine-crawling fear
of confrontation,
and indisputable
in my mind
are the scars
of being so alone.
(Written for Twenty Four’s 50 word Thursday prompt. Â Image supplied by Deb Whittam.)
Rock solid,
biding time,
fixated on
a future
born of
movement.
Frozen –
iced snapshots
of possibility,
immobilized by
misperceptions
Role-playing
expectations
carved from
generations
of staging.
One falters
all tumble,
lives shatter,
sink, lies
bottom out
sediment
disintegrates,
settles –
strength emerges
resurrecting
rock by rock,
precarious at first,
then gradually
re-building,
balance restored.
(Submitted for Willow Poetry’s challenge: Â What Do You See, based on featured image.)
Somewhere, searchers are combing through rubble
to find signs of life, or remains, while I fret over the
size of my belly, bloated by excess, filled by gluttony.
Somewhere, a mother pleas for the return of her child,
a daughter stolen, held by authority, while another cries
because her toddler’s coiffed appearance fails to win.
Somewhere, their village destroyed by war, families
flee to find peace, encounter rejection, and worse,
while a son murders his sister to honour family pride.
Somewhere, parents wait with terror-seized hearts
as a gun-wielding lunatic holds their children hostage,
while businessman fatten their wallets over arms sales.
Perspective tells me that I am unjustified to complain
over my first world problems, am selfish to bemoan
the trivialities of my self-centered existence, that I just
need to shift my viewpoint, look outside myself, and see
that inequalities and hardships beg for my compassion,
alter my focus and become a beacon for the world; and,
yet, I am overwhelmed by the tragedy that floods my
large screen TV, desensitized by the staged and unstaged
images of brutality, tired of the unsubstantiated claims
of terrorism, and the political garnering for votes; cannot
bear to hear of one more gun attack in a country where
the right to bear arms is confused with personal security;
feel out of control when I listen to stories of great loss,
am compelled to shut off the media, turn my attention to
self-criticism, and find a manageable issue close to home.
(Tonight is Open Link Night at dVerse. Â I am also linking this up with One Woman’s Quest II weekly challenge: attention. Â “It’s Not That I Don’t See” first appeared September 2016.)
Memories are boats
anchored, idle,
awaiting calm –
quaint ideals
keep them docked,
undermine progress
never intended to harbour
so many secrets –
lack a personal compass
reliable enough
to navigate solo –
a necessary tactic
to release these boats
cluttering my
story’s shoreline.
(Written for dVerse, whose host Lillian challenges us to write a quadrille (44 words) around the theme: harbour. Â Hats off to the daily prompts from Ragtag Community: quaint, Fandango: personal, and Daily Addictions: solo. Image from personal collection.)
Laid out, in a tapestry,
I suppose the overriding
message would be inconsistency –
a montage of seemingly unrelated
images, the blatant disconnection
offending to the eye, and yet…
closer inspection might reveal
a thread of commonality –
the presence of orange,
in its many incarnations,
woven into each tableau…
a hint of the woman whose
wanderlust has driven her
in so many directions
a passion, that like the sun
cannot contain its rays –
a willingness to embrace
the unknown, acceptant of
endings and beginnings.
I regard myself as inquisitor,
charged with assessing motivations
of crimes, turning over choices,
looking under rocks for disclosure
of weaknesses and fallacies,
questioning the what ifs and whys,
as if life could be rewritten –
the interrogator has no appreciation
for colour, does not allow credit
for tinges of orange, judges only
in terms of black and white…
lacks the empathy to behold wonder
in a life, that despite its incoherence,
depicts a tapestry of survival:
a testimony to the art
of a creative soul’s passage.
(Written originally as way of self-introduction for my writing circle, submitted here in response to Willow Poetry’s challenge: What do you See?)
Photo courtesy of Willow Poetry.
Front porch –
a balcony view –
retirement’s play.
Novel – this place –
silence stretches,
pauses briefly –
a car creeps by,
or a dog barks –
my heart beats…
inside – commotion –
pounding hammers,
swoosh of legs in motion –
not mine – body bankrupt –
mind impoverished –
no – not that – just struggling.
empty boxes pile up,
others – contents lingering,
unresolved – call my name,
but the front porch
makes promises –
there is time…
(I am a day late for dVerse, but intrigued by the challenge, decided to join in anyway. Â Today’s prompts are: commotion (Fandango), novel (Ragtag Community), poverty (Daily Addictions). Photo is front porch view – our first sunset.)
A single, blow-up bed
claims my stake
on this house
mostly empty –
dust remnants
of former occupants
rise at my passage –
I chase them
Renovation
will precede
settling in
yet, I will not leave
wrapping myself
in these walls
waiting for
the revelation
that this is home.
(Linked to V.J.’s weekly challenge: home.)
Outside, clouds hover,
heavy, threatening.
Inside, men haul –
china cabinet,
weathered couch –
accumulation
marking years,
exiting under duress
echoes fill in the spaces
scent of soured sweat lingers
kitchen counters
glare, empty
layers of our lives
stripped away
our vacated shell,
an emotional tug
Is it fear? Â Sorrow?
What was it all about anyway?
closing the door behind us
locking memories in the past
we load our small boxes
essentials for a simpler life –
a home on wheels life
point our nose forward
and drive away
as the sun breaks through.
(A year ago, we sold our bricks and sticks house, along with its contents and moved into a motor home. Â Now we are reversing the process – accumulating and setting up house again. Â Apparently, we like change. Â V.J’s weekly challenge is fittingly about home.)
Solitude.
I dream
of expansive landscapes,
crave your panoramic
silence, thrill to the ideal
of your boundless sanctity.
Solitude.
You wrap me
in separateness, strip away
my cardboard walls, tear
at the corners of my instability;
no refuge from the stillness.
Solitude.
I am smothered
by your starkness, by my
starkness, cries of madness
reverberating through vast
canyons of aloneness.
(Solitudes first appeared here in May 2017.  From 2014 to 2017, I lived in isolation and silence due to ME/CFS.  I examined the phenomena often through poetic expression. This edition has been altered from the original.  I submit it here for dVerse’s “Sounds of Silence” challenge.  Thank you Dwight Roth for hosting.)
One Woman's Quest 