by

The Battlefield

The battlefield exists in my head

The combatants are regrouping

Re-arming for their next attack

The home team takes comfort in what they can see

The logical progression of familiar scenes

Narrated in crisp tones with familiar dialogue

While the visitors nod with knowing smirks

That behind the scenes a chorus of naiads

Suggest other worlds in their songs

 

If you choose to listen to this seductive siren

Be prepared for swift ascent to a world of ephemeral joy

And a precipitous plunge to despair

So my Head coach cautions

The sirens sing not only for you

They sing for whoever is fool enough to listen to their melodies

And often their sweet harmony will take you down unintended paths

Betraying your trust for their own gratification.

 

The battlefield languishes

The combatants bide their time

When hope is at its highest

When I am start to utter victorious words

They will once again take their places

Brandish their cruel weapons

Camouflaged in beguiling images

Destroying certainty confounding rational thought.

by

Zombieland

Zombieland isn’t half as bad as reputation alludes

The place I have in mind is a mindless boring pit

but looking better by the day

half way there by lunch tomorrow

No more crying jags that last 2 hours

No more disappointments, no more slammed doors

No more ambushed dreams

 

Just a numbing inertia- driven tub of dulled

nerve endings shrouded by molasses thick apathy.

Sight dimmed by dusty cobwebs.

Ears tuned to the ordinary.

Thoughts never straying to dangerous places.

Hopes abandoned.

Sweet thoughts erased.

 

Last flicker dimmed deprived of air

choking on truth afflicted with blindness

what is real, what is imagined

matters not when all is gone forever

many painful losses should have paved the way

for this most hurtful time of all

Abandoned, lost, no more trust to give.

 

Cruel irony played a trick

when blindsided by a passion

never dreamed of feeling

Whimsical fates intervened

upending my ordered world

adding unanswered longings to a

newly wakened sensibility

 

So my friend you see that

Zombieland is meant for one like me

a perfect fit for an imperfect heart

that lost direction while seeking nothing at all.

that lost her mind to the riddles never solved

and handed her soul to a stranger.

now waiting for oblivion.

 

by

Writing While Happy

Why do words get put on paper at moments of despair?

When it’s a race between the ink and the tears

to transfer their essence to the page?

Aren’t the giddy moments to be memorialized?

Isn’t delight worthy of choice phrases?

 

True elation – a moment in time

when your heart could burst and spill the joy

as far as the edges of your universe.

Fragments of time to be savored

And later reviewed with fresh pleasure.

 

With deepest meaning of their own

and needing no embellishment

to sparkle in the gloom of winter

to keep you company with warmth engendered

from treasured artifacts.

 

Happiness is not simply the absence of pain

It is a balance of accepting what is

while maintaining a tenuous grip on what could be

of comfort in your true persona

of knowing how to love.

 

And when, combined with long awaited

declarations and promise of new directions

your heart gets to that bursting point

Catharsis is as close as a pen or keyboard

expression venting the swell of feeling.

 

Preferable to indiscriminate disclosure

The wrong word in the wrong ear

Longer lasting reminder of

an exquisite moment,

part of your special history.

by

Desolation

Desolation is now

Desolation is today

Fearing I’ve pushed you away

Cringing from the memory of my written words

The blame was never yours

The fault lies within myself

What good is a gift

if you cut yourself with it?

 

There is a skill that I sorely lack –

leaving along that which is imperfect,

Driven to smooth the edges

and to whisk the invisible dust.

That imperfect state may house what otherwise can’t exist at all.

Frivolous housekeeping provokes too much unsettling of debris,

exposing that which should not be uncovered –

blinding spotlight on the unacceptable flaw.

 

What seemed full of clarity

becoming more obscure as layers peeled away

Having long acknowledged the limits imposed

but steadily losing the resolve never fixed.

One thing emerges as unequivocal.

In any form deemed proper

I must have you in my life,

I must know you’re there

 

Knowing it can never be more

Accepted with stone filled heart many moons ago.

But complex feelings sometimes offer

a wider range of what becomes acceptable.

My panic increasing by the hour

Not just threatened with yet another loss

but the loss of you

No other choice, caring too much.

 

November 29, 2011

by

Do You Ever?

Do you ever feel  that peculiar tightness in your throat making you think of suffocation making you catch your breath and all the while the stinging starts behind your eyes and you think damn it not again I’m so sick of crying?  Do you ever?  Cause I do. 

Do you ever feel wetness on your cheeks as you’re driving downtown listening to your ipod playing that song you know you could turn it off but you don’t ‘cause even as the tears fall the pain you feel  right now just might be the last time you feel it?  Yeah I thought you might. ‘cause I do

Do you ever hold my photo and run your finger over where my cheek meets my lips then you close your eyes and the unbearable weight of reality hits you full in the chest and takes your breath away and a sob escapes and you shake your head  and yell at yourself stop it now? You can admit it if that happens to you ‘cause it happens to me every time and like the ipod no one makes me go there but I do there is no force strong enough to stop me and if there exists such a power please help me. 

Please numb my senses for at least one day of peace calm no tears no pain if I can’t hear that love song if I can’t see your  beautiful face if my breath remains steady and the tears don’t flow just one day of peace .  

Do You Ever?