Poems

Addiction by KTJ

Addiction

Joy, desire, companionship, laughter,
sharing feelings, caring, and dreaming.

Two people so alike in many ways,
painfully different in others.

All my cravings, and desires
set out before me in a beautiful world
so different than my own.

A broad chest to lay my head on,
listening to a heartbeat
that is not my own. 

Strong arms holding me close,
providing comfort.

Cool grass between my bare toes,
earth from the gardens
embedded under my fingernails.

Like an addict,
craving love and validation.

Basking in the glorious
short-term feeling of bliss.

This world, this person,
both my drugs of choice.

Fantasy, then reality,
going from one to the other,
walking out of fire into
an ice bath over and over.

A fantasy world
hiding beneath
a dark cloak of reality.

Comments:

It’s funny how your paintings speak to me. As soon as I opened this email, my first thought was… this is the perfect painting for my poem “addiction”. The colors and the art work bring to life the sentence, “like walking out of a fire and into an ice bath”. KTJ 

So, here we are – the poem and the painting can now be found on the same page. I don’t usually put other people’s poems up on my blog. However, should any of my readers be inspired by one of Moo’s paintings, and should that reader decide to write a poem about it, I would happily consider publishing both poem and painting on this blog. No money involved – my pitiful pension won’t stretch that far.

No promises. But an interesting start to a new idea.
Pax amorque –
rogermoorepoet.

What sacrifices have you made in life?

Daily writing prompt
What sacrifices have you made in life?
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What sacrifices have you made in life?

Oh dear, so many, many sacrifices. Here, let me count the ways. This morning, for breakfast I sacrificed a banana, followed by an orange. Last night, for supper, I sacrificed a lobster – and it was lovely. I thanked its spirit for allowing me to nourish myself upon it. Then, for lunch, I sacrificed three eggs and cooked them in an omelet. You know what they say “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs”. Nor can you be a robber baron without breaking legs. Sorry. Wrong post. That belongs under “Have you ever broken any bones?” To which my answer is – “Only those of other people.” Maybe I’ll write that one later. But for now, two poems for your entertainment!

Squeezed Orange

Clock greets the hours
with hammer blows,
on a quivering anvil.

Rooster crows
his thick, rich cocoa rico:
morning provides
smells of roasting beans.

Squeezed orange –
glass fills with a golden liquid,
as fierce and sweet
as sunshine on a branch.

A wasted globe,
this orange bath robe,
spent and exhausted,
soon to be transubstantiated.

Breakfast

Yesterday,
I sacrificed a chicken.

Unborn,
it lay within
it’s calcium cocoon,
dormant,
a volcano sleeping
beneath thick snow.

Tap, tap, tap,
the silver spoon
bounced off
the hairless skull:
a sudden crack,
a spurt of orange blood.

Note: This poem is taken from my poetry collection Obsidian’s Edge – From Morning to Night: A Day in Oaxaca

Son Spots

Sun Spots

A painting and a poem dedicated to an only child who, in spite of all his achievements, was never good enough to earn the love of his parents.

Emptiness

The emptiness of air
          leaves the birch standing there,
framed by a space
          that will fill with chatter
and a flock of birds.

When evening comes,
          darkness frames the ash.
It sparkles
          with the gold dust of stars,
that swim through space.

Beneath snow’s empty page,
          grass and flowers root.
They will grow green tongues
          and rage next spring
at the coverlet
          keeping them in place.

A touch of warmth.
          Tiny flowers start to show.

What language do they speak
          as they spread their petals
and let fresh spring words flow?

My head fills with emptiness.
          My mouth is a silent space.

I sit and wait for words
          to break like sea waves
and create, who knows what,
          when they fill that empty place
within my heart and head.

In Place of Grief

In Place of Grief

A double meaning of course / wrth gwrs. (a) to be in a place of grief and (b) to do something in place of grief i.e. instead of grief. Take your pick. One of my close friends immediately called it Chains. I replied – Ray Charles – “Take these chains from my heart and set me free.” Sometimes, with a great effort, we can do that ourselves. But, if the hole we have dug for ourselves, or that has been dug for us, is too deep, then we may need help.

Creativity is always a help. Painting and poetry, for me. And sometimes the hand of friendship, reaching out from the anonymity of hyperspace – the space beyond the space in which I live and with which I hold my Bakhtinian Dialog what he calls my chronotopos – my dialog with my time and place. Alas, sometimes it is a monolog – and then, when I get not reply, either from time nor from place, I feel an existential grief.

Door

A door slammed shut
          in my heart.

That closed door
          left me outside,
shivering in the cold.

Now I no longer know
          who or what I am.

The shadow of nothingness
          wraps its black shroud
around my shoulders.

Dark night of the heart,
          and me alone,
walking an unlit road
          with no end in sight.

(a) The shadow of nothingness is Meister Eickhard’s Umbra Nihili. A reference to the medieval philosopher.

(b) The dark night of the heart is a reference to St. John of the Cross’s dark night of the soul, part of the Via Purgativa, the mysterious road walked by the Mystics.

Ice Flow

Ice Flow

Free fall, then scree on the road
to Wolastoq. with the fresh air
speaking to the rock face
in a long-forgotten tongue,
broken words metamorphosing
into fragmented scree at rock-foot.

Just for a moment we glimpse
the ancient water in the stone,
catch the flow of winter words.

The January sun, low in our eyes,
heavenly glory glancing off rock
to give earthly joy, golden beams
highlight damp, glistening slate.

Afternoon frost, water and rock,
polished into ice-maiden tears
that dance their sparkling way
and are held for a moment
in a vision that will last forever.

Comment:
Such beauty in silent things, ice, rock, sky. But learn to listen and perhaps you will hear them talking, one to the other. One day, you too may share their words of wisdom.

Islands

Islands

Bewildered
by the rush hour
surge of traffic
we peer at street signs,
slide slowly round
roundabouts
sprung up overnight,
mushrooms
grown to confuse us.

Swept along by the main
street’s vibrant flow,
we fail to recognize
new shops standing
where we remember
old cracked paint
and the woman who sold
curiosities.

A face in the crowd
holds us for a moment.
Grey hair, unshaven,
clothes ragged,
a scarecrow on the street,
was that the man
who once ruled our world?

That old woman,
hunched, wrinkled,
her face a Hallowe’en mask,
her limp, her canes
and dragging feet:
is that the dancing queen
who ruled beside him?

Lights change.
Cars move on.
Another island
beckons
as we pull away
from the past
and drive
into the future.

What makes you feel nostalgic?

Daily writing prompt
What makes you feel nostalgic?
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What makes you feel nostalgic?

I am not sure that nostalgic is the right word. I think of Robbie Burns with his “man’s inhumanity to man” and I realize that “the war to end all wars” never ended anything. It only started a series of new cycles. I am certainly not nostalgic for these endless cycles of violence and inhumanities. I am though nostalgic for man’s humanity to man, that spark of kindness and good will that seems, on the last day of the old year, with the new year about to come in, to have vanished. Could it be forever? I certainly hope not. May the new year (2024) bring peace, happiness, love, and understanding, to all the human beings on this tiny planet we, of necessity, share.

My friend Moo’s painting (above, thank you Moo), has for its title Fiat Lux – Let There Be Light. I am nostalgic for that light. May it soon return to our world.

Remembrance Day
11 November 2023

I wasn’t there
I never saw the gas clouds
            rolling over our positions
            never felt the barbed wire’s bite
            nor the bayonet’s jab

I never hung out my washing
            on the Siegfreid Line
            (“Have you any dirty washing, mother dear?”)
            never broke out of barracks
            never did spud bashing
            nor feasted on bread and water
            nor heard the rifle’s rapid rattle

I wasn’t there
            to see them carried away in carts
            coughing spluttering vomiting
            or bandages over their eyes
            walking slowly to triage a hand on
            the shoulder of the man ahead
            the sighted leading the blind

I wasn’t there
            but both my grandfathers were
            both decorated
            one mentioned in dispatches
            signed by Winston Churchill
            that one uninjured
            the other one gassed
            coughing up his lungs
            bit by bit for forty years

I am here now
    to remember
    and to honor them
           though so much
    has been lost

What relationships have a positive impact on you?

Daily writing prompt
What relationships have a positive impact on you?
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What relationships have a positive impact on you?
I think one of my poems answers this question best. I write “one of my poems” but it is really my ‘free’ translation of one of Francisco de Quevedo’s sonnets – Retirado en la paz de estos desiertos. I have changed the poem slightly, but I am sure Don Francisco (1580-1645) will excuse Don Roger’s impoverished effort (2023).

On Loneliness
29 December 2023

Resting in the peace of these small rooms,
with few, but welcome books together,
I live in conversation with my friends,
and listen with my eyes to loving words.

Not always understood, but always there,
they influence and question my affairs,
and with contrasting points of view,
they wake me up, and make me more aware.

The wisdom of these absent friends,
some distant from me just because they’re dead,
lives on and on, thanks to the printed word.

Life flits away, the past can’t be retained.
each hour, once past, is lost and gone,
but with such friends, I’m never left alone.

The painting, by my friend Moo, is called Fiat Lux – Let There Be Light. It is reminiscent of Dylan Thomas’s poem, Light breaks where no light shines. Intertextuality – Quevedo drew inspiration from the Stoics. I drew inspiration from Quevedo. Moo drew inspiration from Dylan Thomas. The nature of creativity and its continuing links throughout the ages shines clearly through these wonderful associations.

First Snow Blow

First Snow Blow
4 December 2023

A dry old stick of a man
I hang a warm coat
on my scarecrow frame
and don thick mitts
to keep out the cold.

Gripping grimly
the snowblower’s handles,
and hanging on tight,
I plod my wobbly way,
working the gears as I go.

The snowblower, this year,
is a recalcitrant shopping cart
with me, the shopper,
frantically pushing, pulling,
forcing the machine along
a narrow aisle of snow.

Out of breath, I stop,
breathe deep, and try to
regain control, first
of my heart and lungs,
and then of this machine
that so frustrates me.

It seems inanimate, but
some spirit must dwell within
and force me to follow
its devilish whim, instead
of going the way I want to go.

Comment:
Just the one snowfall so far, but there’s more on the way. Winter in New Brunswick, Canada, is never complete, without multiple falls of lovely snow. Lovely to look at, but not so much fun when you’re getting old and the snowblower snorts into life meaning that it’s time, once more, to go outside and clear the snow.

Clare by Candlelight

Clare
by candle-light

Flames flickering, her shadow presence
confirmed by the chiaro-oscuro
of extraction from the formlessness
formed by the lack of electric light.

Still no power. Each passing hour
creates new tensions in her face.
It is growing late, but still I will
try to capture the beauty of the one
who long ago sealed my fate.

What words can portray my beloved,
here beside me for sixty-two years,
and married for the last fifty-seven?

Words fail me. As this half-light,
drifting her among flickering shades,
fails to catch her, half-caught, half-seen,
a hyphenated-image in candle-light.

Comment:
Today is our 57th wedding anniversary. We have been together for 62 years. Blessings to all – and may you all be as happy as we have been. Long may it continue.