There are days when my capacity for anguish runs thin
I can’t grok suffering as deeply as once I did,
In those carefree days of work and timelessness
Lacking the necessary sense of direction to ask
Is this place where I find myself truly mine?
I’d gladly rehash now this desultory vision
To fill the desperate need of balance and calmness
But it always occurs too late to be changed.
Who can tell why the autumn brings this anxiety
In a hindsight, what looks like a budget movie, poorly directed
As if I’m passing some young guy
On a shady street, in a lunch hour
In whom I would never recognize myself
With whom I don't have a word to share.
She wore the mask for so long,
That she forgot what it was hiding.
At first, it was a shield,
A way to protect herself from the world,
But over time,
The mask became her face.
The smile, the laugh,
The things she used to wear on the outside
Now lived on the inside.
But one day,
she looked in the mirror,
And she didn’t recognize herself.
she couldn’t remember
What her real face looked like,
What she used to sound like,
Before she became someone else’s idea of who she should be.
And she realized,
She'd been hiding for so long,
She forgot what she was hiding from.
I think on the relief to remove my past,
Of failures and mistakes along the way.
It seems things would heal up fast,
Oh, the hurt, but what a cast,
That made me who I am today.
Cherished are things seen; now I know,
To hit rock bottom stop the digging.
Unfurled instead, their worth does show,
All the lessons firm I stow;
To sail so far is all in the rigging.
When I was born,
there was no one to hold my mind.
Only a faded sky and a mother
trembling above a forgotten prayer.
My thought was born fatherless.
And I raised it alone,
with hands dirty from paramedics and alphabet.
I wrote before I spoke.
I spoke before I was heard.
And still I search
in all the words I never dared to write.
When shall we learn to recognize the truth
That we are being preyed upon by beasts
Whose sugared words are not enough as sooth
For our wounds that rather increase like yeasts?
How many roads or bridges need to fall,
Or lives to lose fighting in others’ wars?
How many children need grow in the hall
Of ignorance, or tending their own sores?
When we go to the polls, let’s turn the tides
And put aside thoughts of personal gains;
Let’s break partisanship that just divides
And tramples on what decency remains.
They feed the beast that vote for selfish end;
They let the wound fester and never mend.
He is coming this way! My husband yelled.
I know he was hiding now, he is fearful of people.
Come on out, I told him. This is not a human.
He is a monster, like us.
The monster handed me a yellow daisy.
Welcome to the neighborhood, he said.
The rest of them are crazy, but I am sane.
I knew he was.
Monsters recognize other monsters.
Real recognize real
While I walk through the seasons of life
I meet alot of souls along the way
Some was nice
Some was wrong
Some was good
Alot was bad
Some was intimidating
Some was just friends
Alot was selfish
Too many was greedy
Despite all I meet on this Journey
There was the little few
Whose personality were beyond words cos
Real recognize real
Real recognize real
All I needed was what money can't buy
I don't ask for your ego or your level
I just wanted realness
No faking around
Life is short and I got no time
To retain it shorter than supposed
So I seek for my kind
They are not easy to come by
They are not everywhere
They are few who wear the lense of nature
They are not common
And when ever I find one
We connect so deeply
So happy with warming heart
We dont need money to stay in connected
Cos is not easy to come across realness
No wonder
Real recognize real
I recognized the hand immediately
Daddy never used cursive
He dropped out of school in eighth grade.
He always printed.
Maybe he forgot cursive?
His blocky dark blue letters were put painstakingly onto a page.
He wrote his memoirs more than once.
Having Alzheimer’s in the end, he forgot what he had already written.
The pages are a bit faded now, but the penmanship is Daddy’s.
He is braggadocio about the southside gang.
His pals and he.shooting rats in the city dump and chasing cats
their exploits captured for anyone who chooses to read about them.
My twin sister and I are probably the only two who ever will.
I doubt our children will be interested.
They never have been.
They haven’t even read my exploits.
Which I write daily.
I begin to read, recognizing most of the words.
As I have read this notebook many times since his death in 2014.
As it speaks through the Lord skies
Our hearts wide open
We have seen as you have spoken
Our Father we serve
All glory to our Creator deserves
Jesus Christ blessed us as his wine
Fear not you are mine
Our hearts of love
You receive grace from above
My beloved
I look into the mirror
I barely recognize myself
My skin is pale
My eyes sunken in
Inside is broken,
While the outside withers
Who am I but myself?
Something broken and dead
I feel my own heart
A steady rhythm
My thoughts are scattered
My smile bland
I feel like I am dying
Inside I am already dead
Who am I?
I no longer feel like myself
Hopeless and withered
My heart to break again
Did we want such a world where there is no
Cultivation of flowers, people die from
Hunger which way fishes die if kept on
Soil, for want of medicine women and
Babies fall down on the lap of Death while
The war-mongers are investing million
Million dollars in weapons-factories?
Which peace in killing men, in whom there lie
Hearts and river like love, who cry in pain
And laugh in small happiness? How will be
The earth without men? How will be your nights
Without the companions to love? Without
The touch of soft hands of child, how will be
The mornings and the evenings? How will be
Everyday life without the affection
Of your father? The mother who waters
Your path with prayers and tears, how will be
Your life without her? O Man, who do you
Kill throwing bombs from the sky? Who do you
Kill throwing the long-range missiles? Your eyes
Have got rusty; so seeing men, you mistake
To recognize them as Hindus-Muslims-
Christians-Buddhists and Jains. But you always
Recognize cows as cows and goats as goats;
You only mistake to recognize men.
He has the kind of evil inside that every woman wants
They follow him as if he is candy; a pied piper of sweet
he is anything but, so I guess this is what attracts them
I am an empath; being so, I can see through his purple heart.
Not the kind the brave acquire, rather the kind evil ones are born with.
His aura is murky and muddy, the darkest gray.
The others flock to him, sheep to the slaughter.
I do not warn them. This is their destiny, their life path.
I thank God that this time around it is not mine.
He used to try to get me to believe in him.
Transmogrifying himself in tiny ways, to fool me.
I always recognize the teeth of a wolf.
almost touched.
hearts that brushed
in passing.
lasted looks
with drops of rain
amassing.
memories enhanced
twigs of despair
grown to passion branched
cab, puddle, heel, ankle
eyelashes lost
in looks that were tossed
his way.
this day,
started differently.
heartbeats separated
by oceans of city ships
all yellow
lost, in seas
of soulful pain,
but two brushed hearts
in passing, kissed
in the mid-town
summer rain
come sit with me a while, my darling
beneath this apple tree
come sit with me, my sweetheart
do you not recognize me
come sit and keep me company, my love
i’ll welcome you every season of the year
come sit with me, my precious
i’ll listen as you pour your heart to me
AP: 3rd place 2022
Type A attempts to stress me up and make me do her bidding.
Too late.
I am lying under the rustling shadow canopy of my largest oak.
I can feel an ant on my arm, and it makes me smile.
I follow her progress for a bit. Then I flick her off.
Gently, not killing her.
Ambition yells “Come on! Do SOMETHING!”
I am doing something.
Learning to love the whistles of the flickering leaves.
Remembering my childhood self.
I am recognizing my soul me.
As I lie there, listening to the rustle of leaves,
I remember another spring day when I was collecting purple violets
Under this same oak tree. I was wearing a blue gingham dress and a white pinafore.
I filled up my very small pocket with violets.
I smile as I remember this day thirty years ago.
A soft gentle warm sprinkling hits my face.
April rain.
Perfect!
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