As my eyesight dims
nature's colors fade in shaded whims
books treasured, now unread,
may not forge the future ahead.
I would give the words away
but I know too well today
how few of them would find a place
where the messages could flow safe;
Walden, Leaves of Grass, the Caged Bird, Beloved... and others
now considered prohibited, forbidden, anathema, waifs to be rediscovered
in the minds and eyes of spewed rhetoric burned,
seeking out of ignorance of lessons learned;
but history is written and swirls
not always in books or in archives of the world,
wise men speak and hold sacred
truths that will always be heard.
Too hot too hot yells the boy then he shouts
with four little waifs on the run he has clout
they jerk him around
by a swimming ground
poor little guy soaked and wet, like a trout
Too hot too hot he cries as he dips his head
still as a stalk they mistake him for dead
they yank at his shirt
four brats and a squirt
he stands there all wet in his soppy red Keds
Stop it stop it he hollers then he begins to run
with heart pumping joy he heads for the sun
its a fun loving day
for this small cast away
too hot too hot he shrieks but he doesn't shun.
"Sometimes things only become clear when we are old enough to grasp what the universe is trying to tell us." ~~The Poet~~
Had it been labelled charity?
Gazing at that star of clarity.
Watching it make its trajectory
Drifting through my memory.
Long lost from my childhood days,
Motherless, a father to praise.
Though I was told of her love,
Left me, now lives in heaven above.
I recall his love as he took care of me,
But he left me there when I was three.
To play with orphans and waifs like me.
Was the last of my father I was ever to see.
Gazing at that shining star of clarity,
There creeps a ray of unfamiliarity.
Now though what seemed prison bars,
The orphanage window frames the stars.
I see many stars of clarity shining fair,
A vison of him handing me that tiny bear.
It was cold, not cuddly as a bear should be.
It wasn’t for play, unsure why he gave it to me.
Now, all these years later I gaze at that tiny bear,
Looking deep into it, I see him standing there,
Giving me something he knew would last.
In crystal clear clarity his love was never surpassed.
Oh, so bluest the sky doth shine
A hint of the new season’s ploy,
Sweet November a springtime shrine
Grains of golden sands of pure joy.
Towards December’s hottest sun
Where the dust is stirred to a tune,
And winter waifs become undone
When gone the drowsy days of June.
Wild Lilac flowers bend their heads
Touch rainbows of unwasted weeds,
Swell the colours of feathered beds
As rainfall shrinks forsaking reeds.
End of year is the beginning
As nature moves in lucid tones,
Dawn’s chorus keeps the world spinning
While Cockatoos perch on their thrones.
Entered November, December Poetry Contest
Sponsor Karen Krutsinger.
poem wrote 15/11/2022
So strange this land, old and yet young.
Where is this place of tall green trees,
and grey-haired men in unknown tongue?
they must have traveled summer's breeze.
Adobe brick quonset "chalets"
mud-soaked roadways in all the blocks.
WACs and wives and waifs everyday
midst hollyhocks and four o'clocks.
Los Alamos*, this place must be.
A land of Oz 'neath bluest sky.
Where science dealt humanity
a fatal blow, then watched it die.
A perfect paradox is this.
How splendid to contrast the two--
a lovely place/a devil's kiss,
and wisdom sprinkled like the dew.
I left quite soon but still recall
the secrets hidden on each page.
The lilac mountains looming tall,
their perfume of fission and sage.
August 5, 2022
"Terra Incognita"
for This or That, Vol. 13, poetry contest
by Edward Ibeth
*Los Alamos Laboratories, New Mexico, are where the atomic bombs were
created then dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan in WWII.
The children sang “This Little Light of Mine,
Hide it under a bushel, NO! I’m gonna let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!”
My heart was touched by their sincerity,
For they put into it every bit of the raw energy
They could muster, and I realized then
That hiding my light was a dreadful sin,
So, I began to seek ways I could be a light
Shining a bright beam on the world’s plight:
Hungry children, homeless waifs, victims
Need more than our sanctimonious hymns,
They need food and safe places to lay their heads
They need freedom from predators, clean beds,
And though I cannot provide these for everyone
I can give money to support the need for some
And I challenge you to let your little light shine
I’m sure it can be even brighter than mine.
“This little light of ours!” can wipe out need
Together, each one reaching one, we’ll succeed!
SECOND PLACE WINNER
Written March 11, 2022
for "Being a Light to Others" poetry challenge
sponsored by Anoucheka Gangabissoon
Wild
sea cry
tsunami
wave of sorrow
in response to the harrowing exit
of a human lantern who cast spells on
ghetto street waifs
homeward bound
in her
wings
Date submitted : 3rd January 2021
Contest : Podium Placing Promise(4)
Sponsor : Brian Strand
This work is a double tetractys with 10 lines in total.
As the crickets fiddled in the
tall dark grass and the
bats swept through the sky,
I sat in front of my chiminea,
feeding the flames dead twigs
and dried leaves.
Cross-legged in my beach chair,
with a salty paperback and a bowl
of shelled peanuts at my feet,
I sat under the towering twin oaks
that stood like sentinels
next to the door of my old cottage.
Gray smoke and waifs of ash
filtered through the leafy limbs
that offered shade hours earlier.
The field behind the back of the
chiminea was almost pitch black,
save for the moon and the fireflies,
and depending on my mood,
I sipped a chipped mug of coffee
or a sweaty bottle of beer
as I found solace while listening
to baseball on my radio and feeling the fire’s
warmth on my bare legs and arms.
The clouds like to hang low over the mountains to fill up with rain. The air gets warm and thick. Whitish mist meanders through the hollers in the early morning like the ghosts of fallen Cherokee braves. Coffee is brewed and sipped slowly. Only some of the clocks work here. The Bed and Breakfast smells of fried apples and buttermilk biscuits. There are no hotels. I come for brief visits for a glimpse of the past. The sound of chirping birds erupts from a still and stagnant air. Every now and again a draft waifs through the pines and red buds. On it the scent of a nearby tomato patch. Everything moves slower in the countryside. The language is spoke more slowly as is the pace of the horses. Breakfast is consumed slower as is the service. There is little rush in places that time has seemingly forgot.
Relatives hanging out of every orifice, window, ledge, and lawn chair
Hands out, the two starving children beg as people walk by, ignoring them.
In Great-grandma McCormick’s teeny tiny farm house, during family reunion.
No more bowls of rice, no more bread, there is nothing left. Hunger sets.
Laughter wafts from the barn, behind the shed, and especially the kitchen.
Their mother hung on as long as she could, but she died of flu yesterday.
Too many women are in there, some wearing aprons, all of them in the way.
Those who took their mother’s body away left her two small children, knowing.
The men are hiding out in the pasture, barn, beside tractors, sharing stories.
They had their own unfed waifs, they could not worry about these two.
Sixteen kinds of pies and two cakes are trying to find a place on a shelf.
It is expected they will die soon. They probably will be gone by morning.
Beef, pork, chicken and fish that prances in would feed three or four armies.
Two urchins are resilient and refuse to die easily; they are alive the next day.
spring breeze
on back deck
hair dryer
-----
morning walk
on side street
twisted ankle
----
sunny morning
in neighborhood
coffee waifs
The eve of darkness they come out to play
creepy crawly with our senses. The street
wise, the waifs, the tiny cherubs all blend
together to form a society of sorts that is
out of step with time; they become invisible.
They come with their drums, their guitars to
serenade the unseeing humans in tourist
tee shirts. You can see the beauty of
this youth who dances and plays from a
heart that just needs freedom.
You look into their eyes and you fall in
love with the innocence of a child who
sees his place in time as cosmic.
You smell their odors, their very essence.
A not so spent youth and you wish you were they.
You find yourself being pulled in by
their ethereal nectar and song...you see
for the first time what you could of had.
You are pulled in and the fight leaves you
the unseeing being the unseen...welcome!
*My impressions of the homeless youths of Ocean Beach, San Diego
Moonbeam's Love Song
Moonlight waifs into the shrouded garden
shimmering on the still, quiet pond
A bench built near the lily pad offerings
a restful place for love’s spirits to bond
A white dress glows among the shadows
soft now against the graying light
as greens dissipate as if in mourning
escaping from the specters of the night
Back set against the softening tree’s bark
arrested in the melody of moonbeams song
drifting away to another time and place
where love’s inner essence is never alone
© Debra Squyres
In the dreary whisper of midnight’s groan,
when streets escape the punctured cry
of thinning breaths, a line of stars blinks
trading some warmth with human arms...
beyond numbing sighs this dark possesses,
there are more wrists handcuffed on tainted
metal of cups and breadcrumbs for waifs,
as youngsters huddle in damp corners, till
a single violin strain bites the screeches
of grief and pain, of a crowd rendered
by lesions worn: a gauze of dingy shapes
coiling in fetal postures like bruised grass,
................
For Rob Carmack's Contest: Screwed lll
Theme: Pain of night
3/01/2015
/Locks and Clocks
We change locks
like we change clocks,
as flippantly as daylight dims,
as easily as days grow slim;
we try to bolt the sunlight out
with combinations masked in doubt
to shorter hours, as if we could
feel like the conqueror who would
shut out those close and dear to us
who used to be the ones we trust.
Clocks and locks are both the same
as tokens in some wordless game
to keep out fear and trusted waifs;
our meager souls no longer safe;
the locks have failed and so the trust
is gone and turned to flaking rust;
the moths have eaten through
those things we hoped to keep brand new;
again our dark night will descend
and we will once again offend.
Like locks and clocks we change our friends
(if ever we could make amends
for things we did with ignorance in place)
and do not receive the coveted embrace
from absent friends who come and go
as night to day diminishes its glow;
where hope runs true within,
returns to come around again
to lengthening days where suns shine bright,
and will dismiss the darkness of our night.
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