The pictures of yesterday
tell a truth we've forgotten,
with our every instant
recorded and filtered,
rehearsed and scripted.
Our parent's snapshots,
though some black and white,
imperfect and tattered
from so many witnesses,
are frozen moments in time.
We will never be as honest again.
Categories:
albums, change, culture, truth,
Form: Free verse
Electronic books of your face and form
taken with a new camera.
The eyes that see it are older now.
You, all of you, digitally sewn together,
pixilated into our history.
Long bygone visions
of your once and before images
caught in thin scraps of time
and clipped from much longer threads;
Something else,
a partial portrait,
a revealing of a heretofore
of what we both left within each other
after.
Categories:
albums, poetry,
Form: Free verse
Old photo albums give a glimpse
Of how we used to look.
We try to gauge our happiness
From pictures that we took.
Some snapshots catch us laughing,
Maybe in a silly pose,
Or with clothes and hair so retro
We’re surprised that’s what we chose.
There’s a sadness, too, in pages
Where the posers, filled with mirth,
Are a stark reminder life is short
Since they’ve now left the earth.
Still, I love to scan the faces
And remember each event
When we couldn’t ever picture
All the people we’d lament.
Categories:
albums, appreciation, memory,
Form: Rhyme
One of my Favourite Albums
One of my favourite albums and I’m sure it’s not just me,
Is Hunky Dory by David Bowie,
Because no other album sounds the same,
Except for Ziggy Stardust but not Aladdin Sane,
Nothing sounds better than Bowies guitars,
I know it would be nothing without the Spiders from Mars,
Mick Ronson does it a wonderful job,
And many people say he looked a heart throb,
Trevor Bolder and his awesome chops must have helped it sell in the shops,
And who can forget Woody, drums was his game,
Problem is, no one remembers his name,
I’m just a big fan of Hunky Dory,
And the amazing artist that was David Bowie.
Categories:
albums, art, celebrity, fun, music,
Form: Rhyme
families collect
time-stamped smiles of memories
proof of happy times
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Written 1-28-2016
Categories:
albums, family, history, imagery, life,
Form: Senryu
In photo albums of the past,
The pictures stayed in place
With little stick-on corners
That today you can’t replace.
The albums after that had pages
That you had to lift;
The photos rested under plastic,
‘Til they’d start to shift.
I have a bunch of those, with pages
Turning brown or loose.
Instead of getting them in shape,
I find a good excuse.
When I’m no longer here, those pictures
Likely will get tossed.
Those moments captured by a lens
Will finally be lost.
So even if my albums are
Intact, with full repair,
I seem to be the only person
Who might really care.
My recent photographs are kept
In books I make online.
I choose the backgrounds and the fonts –
Each masterpiece is mine.
But someday they will, too, be gone
As memories do fade.
Until that time, my albums all
Are front-row-seat displayed.
Categories:
albums, introspection, nostalgia,
Form: Rhyme
I saw those men in solemn chain trooping from the line
hand on shoulder, link to link their bandaged eyes gas blind.
The image burned upon my soul, and tied me to their chain
A scene imbued with haunting light, my retina retains.
The pock marked fields of battered earth with human debris clad,
the lifeless shell shocked look of men, stare neither sane nor mad.
The sepia tinted photographs of horrors captured mime
Burst like exploding shrapnel in the crater of my mind
The pages turn and blur the eyes of we who gaze aghast
and rational defies the sombre images that pass
The jaundiced eye of victory, a truth tells through the lens
but monochromes in battered frames declare true fate of men
These albums of the ghosts of war demand a heavy toll
with nightmares of the conscience that stain the very soul
Untidy groups of forfeit men awaiting fates last chance
accuse from yellowed paper in their posed heroic stance
Gaunt and lost they blindly stare with sad and frightened gaze
their memory like photographs are fading with the glaze
Creased and tear stained photo cards, memorabilia of a war
Evidence and remonstrance like poppies bloody flower.
Categories:
albums, warmen,
Form: Dramatic Monologue