Eleven Years
Eleven years gone
hole filled
new whole stands
on the scorched earth where blood dried,
Hearts remain unfilled.
Becoming
Eschewing comfort
of his self-imposed
cocoon, frightened
of outside life, thinking
it wholly brittle, filled
with strife, he still
had to know if he could
ever trust the tongues
of others to match
their actions. He ached
for his past to blur,
to no longer feel rough
scrapes of boyhood
survival, bouncing
from a foster family
of flinty, austere adults,
to one of chaos, where
he was largely ignored
like fading white chalk
on a blackboard, or
a barnacle, drenched
and clinging to the under-
side of life, unable
to extricate himself.
Feeling less but wanting
more, he burnished
his body with lubricant
of life, enabling him
to slide like a newborn
into a world he might
embrace.
How to Make a Poem Practical
In the tradition of pocket poems,
each may be composed, carried,
and tagged for boosting
morale, ditching doldrums,
fending off fear, and breathing
through boxed in-no control
situations of desperate discomfort.
Petit poems declare,
I walked once in your shoes,
tightness turning confidence
blue, but they stretched
until I walked on air.
When I could feel oppression
of the bulky baggage
of depression, I sought
help to lift the onus,
and my shoulders straightened.
When stuck between rock
and hard place, situation
seemingly impossible,
patient thought patterns
promote a way to crack
the rock and soften hardness.
Pocket your poems for lubrication
of life’s rust spots, removing them
as appropriate.
Dad (a terza rima)
He was any army veteran World War Two,
feeling lucky he made it home to his wife,
seventeen when they married, and she stayed true
to my dad; they shared sixty-four years of life.
Happy to make acquaintances of new friends,
he stayed loyal to them always, through joy and strife.
He made us laugh, when he switched fairy tale ends.
He taught neighborhood kids to ride bikes and swim.
During our teen years he poked fun at new trends.
Never judge people you have not met, he said.
I honor his words as my life moves ahead.
Pine
Start with a rumor
Of pine scent. Wait a few years,
Stand deep in forest.
Roads Narrow and Wide
When I was a teen,
there was only one road
open–the following,
fitting in road.
My next several roads
were detours, divergent
due to emotional issues
that steered me straight
down familiar paths,
with familiar people,
because I could not crack
the fragile shell that held
me in its suffocating spell
of false security.
Older may not make you
wiser, but you do decide
on your priorities,
and learn to cast over
the side, other opinions.
Now on my widening,
yellow brick road, I live
across the country
from where I grew up.
Emerging from that shell,
gave me, my self.
I Do Believe in Ghosts, I Do, I Do!
Doors creaked
mice squeaked
maybe that was the peak
of the unique
goings on in Castle Geek.
Suddenly ceilings leaked
bloody drops, eek! eek!
Dared, we had to peek
at the rooms garbed in bleak
furnishings, in Goth Antique.
Rumored haunted by Jimmy the Greek
who laid odds no one had the cheek
to spend a night among the freaks.
Out popped blackbirds with three beaks.
With hair on end, white and streaked,
leg muscles growing weak,
we sped away from Castle Geek
which never again, would we seek.
Our brush with danger left us meek.
