Life

The Stuff of Broken Dreams

lillian8 Comments

Broken dreams like shards of glass
crushed by careless once-knowns,

left behind on some godforsaken alley
below rusted tracks of elevated train.
Metal wheels scrape on steel
masses of humanity pass overhead
remnants of hope ignored
in their hurried blur.

Not like sea glass
tumbled smooth by life’s surprises
at rest in damp rippled sand
still warm in setting sun.
Collectors approach, soon to stoop, lift

and gently hold pieces of transformed shape
faded colors aged by time
defined and valued by place.

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Broken.”

Life’s Measures

lillian12 Comments

There’s a place outside my universe
just across the street
viewed from my living room window
one elevator and a three minute walk away.

Purgatorial stop for innocent souls
once scourged by searing flames
they claw, stretch, adapt to live
ignore death’s too soon call.

Red yellow flames once licked their skin
lit pain in fissures blackened deep
now loved ones stand and pray
plead for angels’ breath to soothe.

Their passage, mythological in scope
an underworld of white-masked faces
wrap and unwrap shrouds of gauze
each treatment claims a toll.

I sit and stare from comfortable skin
commuter rail late, supper cold
he-said-she-said politics at work.
Tears erupt as eyes seek light.

Suddenly see through the panes
eyes pop open, slapped to senses
you have life, move on and live
as they struggle up from hell.

 

This poem resulted from a prompt in my poetry class, to write about something you see all the time, IE perhaps look out your window, or note what you see on your daily walk to work, something in your house….look more carefully at something you see every day. Photo is actual view from our window — motivation for the poem.

Those Were the Days

lillian13 Comments

May12:  All poets, even house-poets, share bits and pieces of themselves every time they set pen to paper.  My poetry writing started in February, with an online class, and then another and another, with a wonderful teacher/mentor. A recent assignment: write a poem of celebration,  in an exhuberant mood, made from a list, possibly including negatives and positives.  Tall order.  This is what happened!

Those Were the Days

There’s Florida! I’ve got Maine. Shout outs
from the license plate game. Insert tapes.
Sesame Street morphed to Aretha.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T at the top of our lungs,
windows down, rolling along. Campfires
and that sloshing green water jug we lugged.
German shepherds, standard poodles.
One cat named Blossom, not mean like Siamese.
Recitals and running for yellow school buses.
Clouds of Aqua Net created almost asphyxiation.
Legos and taco suppers accompanied by
Circle of Love, our sung not said table grace.
Saucy beef stroganoff caused upturned
noses, just like Alice’s jello salad – green not red.
Escanaba cabin seven, just steps away from cold
Lake Michigan. Real play pens. Emphasis on safe and
play, not pen. RC Cola and Cool Ranch Doritos. Cold milk
and Oreos, no oatmeal and definitely not fish.
Birthday parties in 613’s orange and yellow family
room not at Chuckie Cheese or bowling alleys.
Singer sewing machine hummed near clunking
barbells by the chest freezer. Teenage angst appeared
with hot hormones. Not bad. Just challenging
and sometimes loud. Cymbals swished by foot thumping
bass drum while sticks twirled and beat. Juxtaposed
to sonorous organ chords or piano arpeggios.
Sweet Iowa corn with fresh-from-the-garden red
tomatoes. Melted butter and cherry juice slid down
licked fingers. Tractor tire sandbox in a city yard.
Pals walked to grade school with metal lunch boxes.
Not metal detectors. Split foyer house with upstairs
kitchen and one shower for all. Those Were the Days.

** Title inspired by the folksong, Those Were the Days….watch and listen to the original song by the Limelighters.

End of the Line

lillian6 Comments

Caught in depression’s dark place
she hopped a no-name train
out-bound from her no-where life.

Metal wheels grate steel on steel
vibrations scream to emptiness
emotions scraped raw, again and again.

Unseeing people clamber on and off
cellphones plastered to deaf ears
unknowingly define her nothingness.

Surround sound automatically
projects periodic hypnotic names
leads lucid riders home, town by town.

Destiny speaks the loudest words
cut into her ragged soul
Last stop, Wonderland.
Thousands ride the subway system in Boston every day. They’re anonymous people, right? . That idea is the Muse for this poetic story. And yes, Wonderland is the last stop on the Blue Line in Boston’s subway system.

 

Life’s Choices

lillian5 Comments

City life can be invigorating. Sometimes I crave the natural of the sea.  The juxtaposition of these two got me to thinking about the two sides of myself and voila, this “person” resulted. I do think that sometimes, there’s a “reclusive idyllic” in all of us…..as in today’s Daily Post Word Challenge.

 Life’s Choices

Reclusive by nature
she lived everyone else’s dream
a New York-Wall Street-Starbucks life.

She woke ten years ago, exhausted
ignored the ticking clock
sipped coffee slowly and decided.

One greatly, not gently used car
stuffed suitcase, and road map later
she searched the road for seaside serenity.

Dune shack dweller these many years
she fancied herself a Crustacean
sliding through life sidewise.

Exo skeleton deliberately developed
avoids tourists, sudden noises
eye contact and sand castles.

Off-season, she feasts on quiet
vast stretches of sand, sea and sky
shell discarded, she feeds her soul.

The Sculpture

lillian3 Comments

 

I stare. The smooth white sculpted figure
completely captivating. Cold, unmoving
lids closed for eternity. Eyes created
into white darkness.

Serenely sits, back bent with chin in hands
pondering thoughts, alive in past reality.
Captured contradictory calmness
while lungs clogged and marble dust swirled.

Chisels scraped and coarse hands shaved
layer after layer, coaxing, manipulating curves.
Demanded and willed, she bent to stillness
life siphoned from blood to stone.

I imagine her resentment
concealed in beauty replicated
bent deeper still, pain unseen
words swallowed into stone.

NaPoWriMo — without a prompt. Day 21. I’ve found that since my forray into writing poetry, I look at things more intensely. Has this happened to you?  In Bermuda, I came across this amazing sculpture — I couldn’t take my eyes off it.  And then I read what the artist said, and I understood. 

Sculpture credit: Pensativa 1984, white marble. By Felipe Castaneda….in the Bermuda Art Museum. Of his artistic process Castaneda says “I still consider it a kind of miracle that forms almost identical to human beings are born out of rock – and in some cases the only thing lacking for them to be alive is for them to move of their own accord and speak.”

 

Choose the Light

lillian7 Comments

NaPoWriMo  Day 20:  without a prompt.  Who needs a smile today? This poem should be in my About. 

I choose life in lightness
sun or clouds, day or night
seek the circle’s upturned half
peripheral vision, occasionally required.

We wake up watchful ready
sweetly taste our morning smiles
tickled baby beams a toothless grin
dimples born in happiness and glee.

Grandkids’ knock-knock jokes
silly faces feign gargantuan guffaws
I choose to step lightly through life’s travails
aging knees, fingers stiff, imagination in Neverland.

Moonwalk

lillian5 Comments

NaPoWriMo day 10:  without a prompt.
Nostalgia. Reminiscence. As we age, these words come into play. And sometimes, like me, you go back to revisit your childhood haunts.

They warned me
but I still tried to moonwalk.

You remember that smooth
walking backwards to Billie Jean?

This time, I glide back
for a one day return to where I began.

The house at 144 is there. Paint peeling,house 2
flecks of grey-white decorate the yard.

Rusted poles, frayed clothes line
bereft of flapping sheets.

I meander down a one-way
and circle back searching

for the corner shop. Marble topped
counter with stools where we perched

to share chocolate or cherry cokes
and carefree cheerleader talk –

now your friendly neighborhood
hardware store. Without those silver

keys to tighten clamp-on skates and
rush down Washington Street so fast

we didn’t need my brother’s Radio Flyer.
Next door sits a Dunkin’, eclairs filled

with counterfeit custard. Past blurred
in the too-large magnifying glass

of my mind’s eye. The moonwalk was
and still is, well beyond my grasp.

Phraseology

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The power of words – made into phrases – dependent on circumstances…

Words to a baby small
said with a grin
scooping mashed somethings
from a dripping chin.
All gone.

Long buried
dark transgression
in the almost unreachable
back room of my mind.
All gone.

Brother sudden, father slow,
mother slower still.
My lips whisper:
now – just me.
Almost – all gone