The survivors
Old age is a strange time, you have no future, and tend to
to look back at what was a dream.
How long does old age last? It's a question that echoes the silent fears of mortality, inviting readers to reflect on their own fears of aging and loss.
My wife and I are closer than ever, but are we clinging
to a life buoy of eternity?
I look at her, she has a problem walking, and looks at me
And we both think the same.
So used to each strength and weakness,
How is she going to survive?
We have come to a point where our arguments are
a declaration of love.
The coward I am, I hope to go before her. I can’t cope
with the aftermath that can cause
resentment that festered for another generation.
And in early mornings, I touch a warm body listening
to her gentle breath, glad to be alive.
Teenage age
The adolescent stage, they call it
An age where you start to understand the world
A stage of supposed maturity
But how confusing it can be
Souls shrouded in endless mystery
Wandering lost in search of answers
Minds wavering like wild hogs
In the darkness of the night
There they seek solace
Like humans, yet with souls of vampires
Minds haunted by the daylight
At the heart of the night
There they find comfort
The trials of a teenager
Spread like a wild fire
In the blood of these tormented vampires
A virus cloaked in anguish
In the blood of these young ones, it evolves
In this adolescent stage
Lies a slim chance of survival
On this precarious road to survival
Lies the tears and blood of these innocent souls
Traumatized, but few emerge as survivors
The warriors who cling to the thread of hope
Victory awaits at the end of the road
It's called a stage of maturity
But how mistaken they are
In the lives of these young ones
Lies a dreadful stage of the world.
Old is a good thing.
Some people never
get a chance to be old.
At what point
did I start bragging
about my age?
I don’t remember, but
here I am – 94!
Anyone that old
has survived a
mountain of things.
We’ve been at an
ugly stage of growing up,
sometimes scorned, bullied,
or the butt of the joke.
We’ve lived through
awkward, embarrassing
teenage years.
We’ve been hopelessly broke,
eating things like
cheese and rice balls and
endless hot dogs and beans.
Our husbands had to
go to war and leave us
back home with babies
and small children or
we lived in Army housing
on dusty bases in nowhere land.
We’ve survived marital
problems and problems
with our children, jobs,
money, neighbors, health,
heartbreak, and loss.
Some of us have had
to bury a child.
We have taken care of
aging parents and have
seen them to their
final resting places.
We have taken care
of everyone else,
often neglecting ourselves,
and we have cried alone.
But now we are old
and can tell our story.
No other people has endured the constant persecution
3,330 years of constant suffering
From the Egyptian Pharaohs' enslavement and buffeting
down through 20th and 21st century executions
Yet we Jews are still here, still strong in our faith
Where are the Egyptians with their pyramids tall
The Babylonians and Romans, not to mention Gaul
We've outlasted them somehow, survived them all
Our secret is the Torah, given at Sinai to Moses
We chose Him, so He chose us ~
over those who oppose us
In my life, I’ve known bold men,
that laid down their souls.
We sing songs of their virtues,
through lyrics and prose.
But no one sings the praises,
of wives left alone.
Or the children who live with,
no father at home.
“To glory”, the soldier cries,
to battle they rush.
While their wives remain at home,
forgive them they must.
War is hell for everyone,
we must not forget it.
Say a prayer for the survivors,
who each day must live it.
Enow
enow. / (?'na?) / adjective, adverb. an archaic word for enough
Yes, We Survivors Do Live On But How
Many should die, millions or just enow
Yes, war and the fallen lives of war dead
Corpses strewn upon wet blood-soaked ground
In fertile fields, were farmers once did plow.
Many should die, millions or just enow
War the savagery of lost mankind
Death, carnage, loss and misery expands
In fertile fields, were farmers once did plow.
Many should die, millions or just enow
And tears fall like snow from a weeping sky
And mothers, daughters, many wear black dress
In fertile fields, were farmers once did plow.
Many should die, millions or just enow
Yes, we survivors do live on but how?
Robert J. Lindley, Sonnet
June 22, 1974
Note:
""Enow""
enow. / (?'na?) / adjective, adverb. an archaic word for the word= "enough"
America:
Does the Light Still Shine?
--------
"Freedom of speech,
Freedom to worship,
Freedom from want,
Freedom from fear."
--------
Travelers to this Blessed Land
Had many varied tales to tell;
Emigrants from harsh demands
Beset by woes words can't dispel,
Long suffered tragedies emerge:
Exiles condemned for their beliefs,
Scapegoats who fled a rampant purge,
Survivors who sought war's relief,
Elects reviled for social strains
Deplored as being risky foes
Left homes behind with all to gain
And persevered when tests arose.
Now, citizens with Rights-in-hand
Delivered to this Blessed land.
.
G L I N T
Unmistakable
Memories Swell
There’s a reverse
I survived. Why
Me over others
petrified Tears
are fossilized
The Phrase
Survivors
GUILT
Is
Evidence
Humans are essentially
Compassionate
.
so many people dying
we cannot keep up
so we hold each other tighter
so much unpredictability in the world
we are not mind readers
so we make each other's world brighter
such an abundance of bad and sad news
we just shake our heads and go
so we make a renewed effort to enjoy life more
so many beautiful flowers that are wilted
we cannot control the rapidity of the water shortage
so we ride the boat of our hard earned love
so much Beauty UnSeen
we open our green brown eyes to what we can
so we stop, take a breather, and remember to Put God In It....
To see the world, all the good
as a child at a seasonal faire
counting months in inches grown
and inherited faint-colored hairs.
All days number
three hundred and sixty five
so glad they still are..
same as the nights,
in eternity of a young life
under crackling camp fires
and countless unnamed stars.
We survivors, a wisened few
or perhaps just lucky, know...
a year pass's quickly as summer rain
where dancing steam of scorched pavement
slowly rose.
Trade all your old moments
by my side if you would,
we'll take a daring ride
on swift sled
tomorrow's eyes
never could.
Plants that grow on arid spaces,
They thrive in the midst of the driest deserts;
They survive on slopy rock edges;
They bear the scourge and ravages of ages.
Even in the depth of gusty circumstances,
like the sun, they shine, even in chancy races;
They always light up a glow in their faces
like an image of true love, full of sweet gazes.
Like love that comes from unexpected places,
they are the signs and the latent traces
that hopeful hearts can unravel their mazes
and survive to dwell in their eternal bases.
i was searching for survivors
in all the right places, finding none
my deepest wishes dissipating
probably for the best i always tell myself
watching it come apart
was half the pleasure
as well as half the pain
never needing a rhyme, nor a clue
and will leave none here
it is best these parts are played
upon non-existent fields
where the scores are left to the wind
turning in the snow, heel to toe
the season is leaving
soon the angels where we laid
will fill the gutters
from there to stream and river
flowing into a vast and nameless sea
in depths where light never graces
the seasons have no meaning
and time gives an illusion
of just another corner
one more step into yet another direction
prime numbers and infinity
seeking some perfection
in depths that only darken memory
the shadows within reality
where chemical reactions replace the light
the warm human touch
and deaden the senses
when the winds whisper a name
and the integers fill the day
no different than the insanity you bring
to a table set for one
Fergus Falls 2000
Blackened potato
rock-hard tomato
Piece of stale bread
filthy mattress, a bed
All luxuries at Auschwitz
Bergen-Belsen and Dachau
The question is not why they
survived ~ but How
Global Warming***
————————
In the future, surviving
Generations will pray…
From the cosmic heavens
The blue beauty,
Third from the sun, Earth
Will still orbit.
But, the survivors kneel
For hours
With their whole souls
Longing for forgiveness
Of ancestral greed
With its resulting causes of
Unimaginable mourning.
And,they will explain
The Earth’s beauty blue
As not due
To the oceans and seas,
But,in truth
(As well they knew),
To all the fallen tears —
For the all-created —
Which still continue
In the rainfall
Of God’s weeping.
——————————————————————
11/2021 sally young Eslinger
Glory to God
Paper spiders everywhere
Crawling through pinholes in my brain
Cutting the corners of my mouth
Tartaric taste curls my tongue
Forming words I would never say
An inferno of verbs
Flying through gutted roots
It’s warm butter to a blade
Until the right ones land and spread
That's when they begin to ricochet
You’re only hurting yourself.
That’s what they tell me anyway
I’m a dirt digging plant
Living in the embers of memories
That took decades to slowly fade
Put out in tiny doses
On a slow drip of acid rain
It’s the smell of melting gospel
Revealing monstrosities
Awoken from pits of smothered rage
It’s inhumane
To mistreat animals like this
Yet they do nothing
As innocence is stripped away
Some of us still live in cages
Gnashing teeth
Snapping necks at the end of chains
Some of us still live in the embers
Feeling a burn that never fades
I’m recording scars in tree rings
As bark covers wounds with age
Building cages for the demons
Nesting in my conjured rage
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