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.
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.
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.
The Spirit of the Goddess 