Tag: Reality

One Cobalt Morning

On By Beleaguered ServantIn Original PoemsLeave a comment

From dreams of iridescent blue,
  she woke to damp and cinder-block,
  the stone-gray sunset smeared across
  a pane upon a window by
  a door with broken lock and splintered wood.

A creaking spring, a bleary glance,
  her glasses off a windowsill,
  as slippering her feet, she rose
  to wrap a shawl around her, and
  to walk onto a courtyard looking out.

She waited in the cold and still,
  the night before a hazy mess
  of cigarettes and alcohol —
  and saying “I’ll enjoy this life,
  or die, at least, at last, in the attempt –”

A man she didn’t know at all,
  came out his door with coat and boots,
  and weary as a dying breath
  trudged off and up the hill and towards
  the distant town a half a mile away.

There was no warm to calm her soul,
  just unrelenting hollowness;
  but yet, a silent fixed intent
  to find again the dream so brief
  of cobalt blue and one love’s luxury

Just Another, Love

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Allow me to enumerate
Your virtues this December:
You’re better than those other girls
Whose names I can’t remember

You’re better than all Hollywood
For you are far less fakey,
Although, like California, you
Can make my whole ground quakey

You’re smarter than you’re beautiful:
But somehow, yet, I’ve found
It’s also a true statement said
The other way around

You’re strong and unpredictable,
You’re tender and yet wise;
There is a morning in your voice
And sunset in your eyes

I know I write these poems oft,
It’s just another, love —
But there was no one then, or since,
I’d rather scribble of —

For you’re the sun, the moon, the stars,
The sunshine and the rain,
And I am sorry I forgot
To put trash out

Again

The pattern of the waves and wind…

On By Beleaguered ServantIn Original Poems1 Comment

The pattern of the waves and wind
The people on the beach out there
The choices I cannot rescind
And all the memories I’ve yet to share…

The life that I have now is good
But scarcely free from care and grief
I’d lighten your load if I could
We’re here to do that – such is my belief…

I feel her fingers on my hair
As lightly they express her love
Why do I always search out there
When what I have is all that I’d dreamed of?

Red Roof

On By Beleaguered ServantIn Original Poems1 Comment

If I today could just unfeel
  in someplace open and remote,
  and wear my age like peeling paint,
  with none to question, or misquote,

I’d settle into solitude:
  a red roof in a world so wide,
  and revel in the emptiness
  that mirrors how I feel

  inside

another great wall

On By Beleaguered ServantIn Original Poems1 Comment

in disrepair, neglected,
emptied out of much of value,
a part of town where you and i
don’t go

in corners made for sitting,
and in windows stark and glaring,
a couple of chip wrappers and
some blow

in kindergarten, once, there were
some gold stars and a ribbon,
a child disremembered
and abjured

in disrepair, neglected,
emptied out of much of value,
beside a wall where nothing is
assured

except that minutes
have to be

endured

hospice.

On By Beleaguered ServantIn Original Poems7 Comments

i only know what i have known:
the day comes there is no avail.
the great translation’s yet to be,
the moorings disconnected —

  i was her son before all other things,
  a child of music, poetry, and teeth;
  the voice so shaky now in my head sings,
  the lyrics and the verses, her bequeath —

i see the spirit’s mostly flown.
disease can make a home a jail,
and simple things a misery,
until the path’s elected

  to turn herself into a summer flower,
  to live within the heat, and know the price:
  a hospice choice, the last one of her power,
  before the coming of the dark

  and ice

The Darkness Always Comes

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Behold, the darkness always comes:
Predictable as your next breath,
A radio plays far away,
And strangers move through shadows —

An orange slice, a child’s tears,
The beating of forgotten drums:
Another hour started light,
Behold: the darkness always

Comes

If love could make a place for you to fall…

On By Beleaguered ServantIn Original Poems5 Comments

If love could make a place for you to fall,
A place where life would never come undone,
I would pay any price, I’d risk it all,
To try to shield you from yourself, my son
 
There is no heartbreak I could undergo
I would not take, if I could help you see;
But no amount of love has worked so far,
No guidance kept you from your misery
 
Because I’ve seen your joy in minutes past,
Because I know the good that’s in your heart;
Because I’ve also seen the opposite —
The mental conflict tearing you apart
 
If love could make a place for you to fall,
Where I knew you’d be up again, somehow,
I spend my every waking hour at this –
My son, my son, to help you
Help you
Now

Still My Older Brother

On By Beleaguered ServantIn Original PoemsLeave a comment 
I reach out to my brother,
And his answers
Indicate
A lack of interest

We shared a room for years,
And common memories
That shaped us
Differently

But then a joke,
A start,
And we begin to talk
In our weird
Halting manner

About our
World Cup teams,
And not so much on how
Our mom is doing
Better

In everything I am
So much a part --

He's still
My older brother
Still
A certain age
Inside my weary
Heart