Piece by piece, bit by bit,
biting the steak, drinking the wine,
burying each cutout into its place.
My place in the banquet of life,
just like a puzzle, sometimes
sunshine yellow, sometimes fear,
midnight blue, a little unclear,
smiling when the quagmire
is revealed as a masterpiece.
Tight corners, dire straits,
when observed by passing time,
mere mosquito mementoes.
Souvenirs, those war wounds,
that touch the grandkid’s ears.
Many pieces will be picked up
through their years, as I disappear,
never completely, but eventually
melding into their big picture,
and so it goes through the generations,
biting the steak, drinking the wine,
reflections of time; crumbling cardboard
refined, sublime, wizened, sharp,
suspended, haloed; will progeny
interlock generations with gratitude?
S
Within the fragile frame of my fervent heart,
tinged with the tinsels of the amorous night,
my love shimmered with an enticing shine,
suffused with the sequins of your sparkling grace.
I tried to feel fulfilled the enthralling embrace
of the flair of your intangible mesmeric charisma,
but you glided away from my entranced sight
like the autumn cloud across the sky of my dream.
From the collapsed threshold of my craving reverie
your footprints disappeared, I didn’t know where.
With the turquoise thread of my lingering longing,
I weaved tapestry of fantasy with my dwindled dream.
From the ebony edge of the night of despair
storm clouds blew with thunders of shearing strife,
splintered my dream to disperse in the debris,
making me realize my heart didn’t desire enough.
So, you flew away to another sun-soaked sky to soar,
left me to suffer secluded in the sad winter of discontent.
As the squall of discord surged with the shattering rage,
my love crashed in the wreckage of my crumbling heart.
When life's falling apart it seems
Even though you've done all you can do
Will you give up now on your dreams
Or look for help to get you through
You should not be going alone
When life's falling apart it seems
Instead seek help from those who've grown
To where your life can be redeemed
In failure you can wisdom glean
As long as pride's not in our way
When life's falling apart it seems
We should then get on knees and pray
I've seen that help that's from above
Will be to you a well-placed beam
That comes from Him who's full of love
When life's falling apart it seems
For the Open the Door and Enter the World of Possibilities Poetry Contest
Home is not a safe place
People die at home
Trapped under books and papers,
Carriers of culture, which
Should be there to save you
Yet, beguiling blindly,
The termites of destitution
Bore into the substance
Which crumbles gently
And lets you down at last
Desert shrines were canonical
before the Deluge.
The bamboo and fronds of their mouths
waved well in the sun,
and the strength of their arms shunned
the devilish romances of swift gales.
Oh, the heaths of the shrines
warmed the heart of the ancient world,
who brought the Rainbow as a gift! ...
And the shrines were holy
and kept the peace;
befriended the skies; flirted
with the blessings of furry, velvet clouds
and slept and rose with the vagaries of
a wild world.
But one day
the sun went suddenly wild;
the clouds in flamebursts tore off
their rain garments...
Deluge!
A watershed in the history of
Desert and her shrines.
Cannons boomed in the Deluge,
shook the roots of Desert
with the perdition of Pompeii
lying in one stretch of sleep...
And the shrines came crumbling!
I've always had the sneaking suspicion I'd never grow old.
I'm decaying prematurely,
slowly rotting in my core with every mind-numbing day.
"Why must every good thing get ruined?"
Home is no longer where happy is.
So why have you staked your claim on my psyche?
Cold blue tile is the foundation from which two children build their world.
I can discern from it nothing but terrifying probabilities.
Everything has an end.
Here we are timeless.
Poems selected (some from this account, some from another, some never posted):
1. Blue Marker Castles
2. Decaying Prematurely
3. Saturday, December 22nd
4. Words I'll Never Say
5. ComeHoming - Matthew 15:4
6. On Cybercoercion
7. Airport Cherubs
8. Winter's Warning
9. Who am I without achievement?
10. Nothing really changes in an airport
Arecib-O
Radar N-Oted
cause f-Or its size.
Ponce is -A
nice sort-A place
at -Our south point.
Puerto Ric-O
I am h-Ome at
last, O-h I'm blest.
San Juan is stil-L
so a-Live like
mobi-Le peppers.
Onboard the P-lane
it was sh-Aking
a B-it scary.
Nice aeria-L
shows centra-L parts
home-Land of mines.
At the airpor-T
used credi-T card
buy firs-T class seat.
Went to first clas-S
lounge for drink-S of
their Hou-Se Champagne.
A special-Ty
license pla-Te had
been sen-T to him.
He was ve-Ry
pleased with I-t when
the sh-Ipment came.
A tin rain ticks between
the scrabble of pigeon claws.
Time drips off a shingled edge.
In moments you can land years behind
as just the shrunken rolling head
of a whole decade.
Eyes open, you watch,
a bushel of owls hooting
as aftershocks shake
a crumbling roof -
one you are no longer under.
Listening as if on a phone,
sliding into the woe-be-gone,
you are now,
back in the backyard of nowhere.
Pigeon wings clatter,
a rain softens,
to a slow
measured splattering.
White foam crashes with memories of conversations here, an awful date there;
welcoming steam floats around work deadlines, lecture notes and scrawls.
Cupped hands warm around porcelain gossips with friends,
secrets crumbling like biscuits dipped, as thoughts are awash
with scents from a city café then and a train station dash back when.
That brown bitter liquor lazing - regal, rustic,
the foreign familiar that can cleanse chaotic hours had.
“I’m sorry I complained. I just like it made a certain way.”
- breath by breath and sip by sip, clink by clink and stir by stir -
but what I really meant was, well...
“I come here for the company of strangers.
The whirring of machines and the babble and the bustle
of a place, less empty than home.”
She is an image of grim loneliness,
Her gloomy withdrawn countenance
struck me in the middle of a joyful gathering…
A shroud of melancholy surrounded her
face like a black veil!
a wedding celebration going on, plenty of
wine, food, cakes…pounding, throbbing music,
beautiful bride in white dress,
crowd brimming with happiness!
Is depression taking over her?!
wistful memories of her youth
drowning her feelings with inexplicable grief!
Does she remember the promise of
a young man in his twenties, strong
and handsome…who never came back!
Fire, cries, screams,
In the centre of the busiest city,
The tall concrete buildings were crumbling down
like dominoes, a few lives trapped in the inferno ..
that’s the only picture she can see in her head!
She never saw that beaming face again!
Even in a rapturous crowd, her mind is vacant!
“Can you feel the soul of an abandoned house,
can you hear the whispering”...by Constance La France
An old, abandoned house touches the heart
its walls whisper of the lives it once held
though pillars and stairs now crumbling apart
lingering stillness stirs a mystic spell
as it yearns for those who long ago dwelled
Children's laughter echoes in nursery
their toddling drawings still hanging on walls
Gone are dinners, dances, lights strung in trees
walls sigh with memories, as darkness falls,
shivering with cold, the emptiness calls
In walls' whispers, I hear their plaintive mourn
their loneliness felt in the splintered wood
in rose-hued wallpaper faded and torn
shells of their dignity, once bold and good
their whispers only by wind understood
May 25, 2023
for "Writing Challenge - C Quotes" poetry contest
by Constance La France
howmanysyllables.com=10
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