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parchment paper birch
standing bravely white on white,
deep in snow… on snow.
its textured history bared
like ours… in subtle details.
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slow nuanced layers,
peeled away in time… with trust…
from pretense and fear.
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patiently waiting…alone,
hoping our Truth will be found.
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pencil, watercolor pencil, acrylic paint,
paint markers, approx. 8″x8″ on vellum paper
sourced from various Google pics and my imagination.
click image to enlarge
a relentless snow
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drifts in consuming whiteout…
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will i disappear,
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succumb to the vampire wind
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that would drain my soul to numb?
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these eyes half open
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in waking hibernation,
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this heart a frail beat.
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a frozen flatline…
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waiting in emotional
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ambiguity
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for the morning Sun
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to light… this desolate sky…
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to wake… from this sleep…
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the ambivalent
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stare dead eyed past the wounded.
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yet time and again
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your brown eyes warm my shadows,
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and mend these oft broken wings.
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Hope turns skyward now…
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beyond… this Season of Fear…
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snow… falls ever white…
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and Winter’s death has it’s Spring,
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even the sparrow… finds food.
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watercolor pencil, pencil,
black and white marker,
white acrylic paint
12″x 12″ vellum paper,
sourced from various pics
and my imagination
click for larger image
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for years suspended
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in the crevice of between…
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regret or forget…
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speaking or silence…
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numb silhouette safe between
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love and protection.
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shadows disappear
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in the white of fallen snow,
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each Spring forgives the
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impatient crocus.
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Time erases shadows and
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Love resolves the wounds.
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dear friends.. i felt the need to write some prose while i worked on the co write poems i mentioned in my last post, the song was chosen not for the title or video but for the close your eyes experience.
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The Bridge of Time and Promise
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Chaos was the default setting in my family. The earliest memory of my uncertain future, was me sitting in the sturdy chrome legged high chair that provided a perfect mezzanine level view of the kitchen table. From the relative safety of that private perch sitting plush as a prince behind my oversized formica tray, I could hear and see everything.
It was a cruel foreshadowing of how I would eventually view the world.
Wednesday meant spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, and not ’50’s style Americanized Chef Boyardee spaghetti either. No, not in our house. I can remember watching for hours while my mom made the meatballs, prepared the ingredients and slow cooked the deep red fragrant sauce on the stove. With her large spoon disappearing into the open topped aluminum pressure cooker to take a sip then dolloping some into my plastic bowl, I was a red saucy mess by dinnertime
Though I was much too young and preoccupied as curious kids are,
to understand exactly what all the words I heard actually meant, I knew something was amiss that night. Kids learn by repetition and it wasn’t until my personal spaghetti feast was suddenly interrupted by a very loud thwack followed by my father yelling at the top of his lungs, did I realize the words ‘not good enough’ was…uhm, not good.
From what I could gather, his ‘not good enough wife’ had once again tried to cook a ‘not good enough sauce’, not like his mother would make it and said sauce and spaghetti ended up on the ceiling in so furious a motion, my mom and I sat in stunned mouth agape awe.
Lost in my kid reverie of seeing something new for the very first time,
I don’t recall hearing the plate crash down on the table but the white porcelain shards were everywhere. The inevitable commotion and chaos trailed quickly down the hallway without so much as a glance from me, I just couldn’t take my eyes off that Rorschach red splatter on the low ceiling.
So there I sat in our little kitchen alone in my high chair, howling with laughter as one by one a spaghetti strand would peel away from the ceiling only to flutter and plop on the linoleum floor.
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Apparently the spaghetti was cooked to perfection, al dente pasta will cling if you toss a strand on the ceiling; an old school trick I learned from my few years as a chef. The recipe is memorized now I’ve made it so many times though I wish just once, mom could have slow cooked
it for her grandchild. Shining that red saucy face grin, my daughter has been happily wearing that sauce since she was in her own high chair.
Mom deserved to live that memory… the world and our lives are less that she didn’t but the regret has tempered with time, and knowing mom would have been tickled that her recipe was still being savored.
And there is solace in knowing the weight of her life has lifted some,
that the generational abuse in our family finally ended with me…
a promise I whispered in my daughter’s ear
the miracle night she was born.
in whatever I have or may succeed,
I find joy in the vast and
tranquil oceans of her innocence.
and my life’s full reward
witnessing the budding dreams
of clean and open sky…
of song and flights of angels soaring…
of pure… in her adolescent eyes.
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as the Universe intended.
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i woke today to an earlier light,
slicing sun… between wooden blinds.
Spring soil…it shifts and yearns
in shy murmurs… of shoots and wings.
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how the wind is alive
with the long forgotten calls
of weary immigrant birds,
floating currents… returning home.
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and maybe… my day is here
to shed this curfew of skin and doubt,
finally… free myself forward
shutter eyes that lurk behind my head.
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let my instinct… map a ready sky,
a fragile trust and mysterious as flight.
let unfurl… these inadvertent wings
and surrender my will to each unknown.
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there is stubborn in my bones
a rain worn feather remains as resolute,
and how much fear… i’ve let fly
oh, sweet wing of creation… take me home.
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thresholds
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When I began this little blog a year ago, I had such meager and modest expectations that anyone would pay any attention to what was being written here, let alone take the time to leave a comment because of something I happened to write.
I wrote short stories then, a memoir of sorts, recollections of a kid from a troubled family living in a poor and forsaken neighborhood in Brooklyn. And that’s all I had plans to write until I just happened to see a link to a poetry site on someone’s blog. It was the first week of April, and just happened to be the first week of National Poetry Month.
I still can’t explain what compelled me to submit a poem, I’d only written one until then just a few months earlier. But I did, flying by the seat of my proverbial pants, against every fear and anxiety I wrote renewal. I was so heartened and overwhelmed by the response, I wrote another.
And the rest, as they say is history.
But I believe our history is a living thing, and so very humbly here I am… 150 poems later. This past week this little blog surpassed 16,000 page views and recorded its 5000th comment and on days like this when I sit back and reflect on this profound improbability, I have to clunk myself in the head with the heal of my hand in a “I shoulda’ had a V8′ moment to make sure this isn’t a dream.
Me, who feared poetry all his life… is now obsessed with its writing.
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shoots and wings
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And now I think it’s time to ‘unfurl these inadvertent wings’, cast aside the fear and doubt and accept the gifts that are being presented. In the coming weeks and months I’ll be busy with some collaborations and personal projects I wanted to tell you about.
A dear friend and most talented writer Bianca (B.G. Bowers) is dedicating her blog for the entire month of April to invited guest poets and challenges. She has very graciously asked me to participate, and I was honored to accept. On April 20th my poems will be featured and I’m really excited at the prospect. Thank you again Bianca.
In the next few weeks, 3 poets who are held in very high regard for personal and important reasons, and I will be working on co written poems. The themes of each of these poems are so dramatically different, the challenges will likely take us all to places we haven’t been before. With the enormous energy and talent these poets possess, I have no doubt co writing these poems will be an exciting and rewarding creative experience and I thank them all for this opportunity.
When you have a chance please visit
Melanie (Wordifull) Chloe (Sirena Tales) and teardropsofink
And lastly, many of you might remember that this past summer I was invited to apply for residency to the Ragdale Artist Retreat. Considering the prestigious alumni that have and still spend time there, it is an honor for me to even be considered. I’ve hesitated to apply because the one requisite the board asks you to have, is a worthy goal, something you can or want to achieve while you are there. I didn’t…until now.
In a recent comment thread with my wonderful new poet friend Nomzi (Nomzi Kumalo), she mentioned that she’d like to have a collection or a book of some of her favorite poems of mine. And of course I gave her my standard ‘oh I’ve never had the dream or desire to be published’ response. She hasn’t been the first friend to tell me this…
well… I finally got the courage to ask ‘why not a book?’
So I will apply now and whether I get accepted to Ragdale or not, a book will be self published in the coming months. I do have a tentative title ‘poems of Hope from a wounded heart‘, and dear Chloe has so graciously accepted to write an introduction. Thank you Nomzi for the spark and thank you Chloe for being generous with your valuable time. Love and Hugs to you both!
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thank you all
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And of course none of this would have or could have happened without all of you, who have read this poetry of mine and written so many profoundly heartfelt and encouraging comments. And a very special thanks to Melissa Hassard and the 20 Lines a Day community.
What an incredible gift this Circle of Encouragement is!
so ty, ty, ty, from the bottom of this very grateful heart.
Love and Hugs to you all!
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evergreen boughs weigh
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heavy with hungry sparrows
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awaiting daybreak.
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their hopeful chirping,
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like sweet memories waken
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a sleeping landscape.
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our nature entwined
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in Faith that a warming Sun
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will rise once again.
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in the sleep of Hope
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flowers surrender…
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hushed in restful dormancy,
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dreaming of Summer.
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to her….
will be random posting
of Haiku devoted to
Scout, my partner
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i almost lost. H o p e.
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i almost lost H o p e,
from all the beginnings… from
such tragic endings.
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of trying so hard
to find. L o v e. where there wasn’t,
of tears shed alone,
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another year gone….
of doubt there was someone there
waiting… and waiting…
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i just wanted. L o v e…
in a life spent untethered,
rootless… adrift… and
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without .F a m i l y.
spinning my lonely circles,’
’round and ’round and ’round…
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why was it so hard?
had i become… L o v e ‘s. misfit,
would that be my fate?
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it’s doubt that i knew,
why would this wounded heart ask
again for… more pain?
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i almost… lost. H o p e,
i nearly lost sight that we
are… meant to be loved.
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i almost lost faith
that… Y o u .would ever be found.
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i couldn’t give up,
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and i’ll tell you why…
i heard my .H e a r t. whispering,
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it told me… try… try.
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Multiple Love
I still believe in love at first sight.
A skip of your heart and a flicker of light.
So maybe there’s two and maybe it’s you.
But I don’t go quietly into the blue, cos
I am happy alone.
I am happy alone, and I don’t
Need another half if I am whole
But maybe, persuade me,
And I’ll do the best that I can
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ty Tiffany Coffman, a special poet
for the music share, this beautiful
song inspired this poem and
was written to its tempo
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in this concrete, and its rolling steel,
this incessant clutter of continuous motion…
in the rushing hours of my city…
you either get in line or get out of the way.
there are though, many among us
living thinly on the margin,
who would, gladly…
if they only could. the
permanently uninvited, the lost
who never quite or never will…
and whether
you despise a job
or can’t wait to clock in
there is unspoken comfort
in belonging…in the queue…
of even a small cog
in something much larger…
i notice the, outside looking in…
i’m drawn to them, sigh a hopeful prayer to
those who can’t yet find a reason, untethered… because
i was them…but
the rushing hour is no time
for quiet contemplation… i sit
parked at the corner of four lanes
of one of the busiest thoroughfares in this city
i’d rather not call home. a couple walking by
clasped in an old fashioned arm-in-arm embrace
bouncing in their step and from the
waist up view i had through my windshield, they were
salt and pepper haired, past middle age.
and oh did they ever have so much to say!
their heads were bobbing, mouths moving
and walking their perfect unison. joyously oblivious…
i smiled to myself, ‘they really are in love’.
and it’s a funny thing,
we can always spot two people in love…
they turned, stopped at the corner and
he was slow swaying listening to her every word,
to the steady beat of her heart…as she
reassured her ponytail was perfectly in place.
as minutes ticked by, suddenly seeing
the two white canes brushing across the curb, waiting.
a smile replaced by concern they might
attempt to cross 4 lanes of rush hour traffic.
so, me watching the stoplight digits count down
5, 4, 3….my hand on the door
ready to intervene, help if i could but
i stopped myself… i had to,
because trust really is such a fragile thing….
2,1…and charging across the road they went
without even a care in this world, not
missing a single word of conversation, heads bobbing again
their love locked arm in arm, open heart to open heart. i watched,
exhaled, and saw them disappear slowly into the cool, close
shadow of tree canopy along the narrow street.
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Don’t Dream It’s Over
Hey now, hey now
Don’t dream it’s over
Hey now, hey now
When the world comes in
They come, they come
To build a wall between us
We know they won’t win
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‘conversation with you
was like a drug
it wasn’t your face
so much as it was your words’
Lucinda Williams
with light in my shadows
and cuts soft through my circles
you keep me from falling once again
but your words always did that for me
like that very first time
sitting in my old pick up truck
listening to Lucinda’s twang tell us
why we didn’t want that night to end
only you could convince
this shy boy to sing harmony
when it was your perfect voice
all i ever really wanted to hear
and my muraled furniture met
your folk art painted window panes
we got poor when greed burned the economy
chasing dreams i got crushed in its crossfire
‘We are not selling that truck!’
oh darlin’ you didn’t have to shout
everything i could ever hope to know about you
i would have heard your devotion in a whisper
and now our old truck
is getting some love in return
we shared these past ten years
and when she comes back
all painted blue and purrin’
wait for me again to turn the corner
from the side window like you did
and darlin’,
snuggle up against me
on that old bench seat
let’s listen to our song windows down
summer and hope blowing through our hair
talk to me like poetry
its essence of our love in your glance
and every word knows when to be
we can talk again ’til dawn
yeah, we can just drive all night long
reblogged to 20 Lines A Day
who could know then 