Suffering

The prompt today was to write about suffering. When I am uncomfortable with the idea of sharing, I figure I must be doing something right. This isn’t as light as the past few days have been.

I’m not alone.

I’m not lonely.

Am I?

I try for a hug,
you allow only so much
contact
before you slide away.

I give a compliment
and in return you
mock my words,
aiming them at your
self-deprecating
grin, and slow
zombie shuffle,
showing me how dumb
it would be to love
you.

You don’t allow me in
-timacy.

But when I ask myself why
you are so self ef
-facing, backward
looking, I remember
your parents’ cold marriage.
They stayed together
“for the kids,” thus
teaching you that marriage
was nothing more than a c(hilly)
companionship.

No wonder I be
-fuddle, be
-wilder, just be
-ing my passionate
self.

Don’t Forget

Today’s prompt was to begin with the phrase “Don’t Forget…” and go from there. I remember so many who’ve gone on, this seemed a good way to memorialize them.

Betty and Patricia

***

Don’t Forget

Those ones you treasured
while they were here,
the ones that passed before;
their memories hold
and keep them near,
for they won’t pass here more.

The things they taught you,
both good and ill,
can guide you in your life.
Remember well
each pain, each thrill,
their lifelong joys and strife.

If you keep them close
and in your heart,
they’re never far away.
Their lessons shared,
their life, their art,
will bless you every day.

***

***

***The picture is of my great-grandmother and her daughter, my grandmother. They have both passed on and both have taught me so many lessons I’ll never forget, both for good and ill. Part of knowing what to do is knowing what not to do, and much as I love them, there is always that. As much as I can, I carry them with me every day.

Workplace Adversity, November PaD, day 28

Almost to the end of a solid month of poeming, I am tired and ready for it to be over. However, I also know from past experience that I will feel lost for a few days with no poems and I know I will miss it. ^_^

The prompt today was to write about workplace adversity, which I have done below.

Happiness in the Workplace
(Or: It’s not Always Where you Work)

At first, the hardest part
is learning everyone’s names.
And then, finding out how to
navigate your way around,
be you in an office or a forest;
becoming at home in your surroundings
is key.

Of course, things are always
much more difficult
when there are challenging people
that you must work with
or report to.

Kids in school think that having
a harsh, strict, or unkind teacher
is just not fair,
but in reality,
those types of people really do
help prepare one for
working with or even
simply dealing with
certain other people.
One must learn
to deal with that kind of challenge
eventually.

And in all honesty, challenging people
aren’t that difficult,
once one learns what motivates them.

My challenging boss only wants
things to be right, and so do I,
so we see eye-to-eye most days.
I had another boss in the past
who really only wanted to
mess with me and upset my world.

Of course, that is why he is in my past.

 

Opposite – November PaD day 25

“Write from the opposite perspective” of one of your earlier poems this month. I chose to write the opposite perspective of my “How To” poem from day 17.

This is taken from actual experience, both as a child and as an adult, watching people managing their relationships. Some of these relationships were close to family members, so I got an eyeful on occasion. O_o

Venom

You’re fooling around, I know it!
You must be!!
So I’m gonna go through
everything you own,
just to find PROOF
of what I think is actually happening.

And if I do find that “proof,”
(A restaurant receipt? A hotel room?
A gift to someone I don’t know?)
then I’m gonna call
and harangue you
all day at work. I will
never let you go. Ever.
I will always be
shrill and angry.
You will always have to
hang up on me,
fueling my rage even further.

I might insist that you
buy me presents
or take me places
or quit your job
because there are too many
beautiful people that you might like
who I see as threatening.

I will never look inside myself
to find that something might
be wrong,
I will always blame you
and despise you
and drag you down
into this morass of
loathing
with me.

This is how I will
prove my love to you.
This is how I can keep you
forever, even though
I hate you.

Paradise – November PaD, day 22

Happy Thanksgiving, at least to those of you who celebrate it!

Our prompt today is to write a poem about paradise. I’ve written two, one is a haiku and one is a bit longer!

***

Paradise

Good book, comfy chair,
Stormy day, fire burning,
my love beside me.

***

To Go Back in Time

What I wish is to go
back to the time when
you were still alive.

Back to carefree
summer days
and long starlit nights
and deep, yet somehow
still carefree
talks with you.

I would ask you about
your childhood,
back around the turn of the century
and you would tell me
about the homestead in Missouri
and about the train ride to Oregon
when you were just a girl.

You would show me pictures
tintypes and old-fashioned photos
of family members, and you would
list their names until I began to
recognize them for myself.

Here was your brother Alvin,
who died in the Great War.
He was only 21 when he died, back in 1919.

Here was your father,
eyes blazing, full beard, and
unbelievably
the father of twenty-two children.
(After his first wife died,
he married your mother, and she had
twelve more children.)

And pictures of you and your mother
and your daughter, my grandmother.

It was strange how your eyes,
her eyes,
my mother’s eyes,
all looked like
the same eyes.

Oh, how I miss you.
It would be paradise
to see you again.

And now that I think about it,
it probably will be paradise
where I see you again.

 

Tradeoff – November PaD day 15

Tradeoff was the prompt today. I had to think a little while, but what jumped immediately to mind was what I ended up writing about, a common enough dilemma for a mom. When I was a young married, though, it never seemed the father had to make the same difficult decisions. I think (I hope) things are better now.

Silhouettes on a Stage, by EKDuncan

The Important Things Aren’t Things

Things I loved when I was young:
Singing
Dancing
Theater
Reading
Writing
And I was in plays, musicals,
whatever they had at the local
theater. I learned all aspects
from the acting and singing and performing
to the set construction, costuming and directing.

And then I had children.

The choice was to continue
the way I had been,
though that would have meant
a lot of time away from the little ones,
or to leave behind my first loves
to be with my children.

The choice was actually still painful,
even though I knew it was the right one.

Things I loved when I was a little older:
My kids
Singing (children’s songs)
Dancing (around the house with them)
Theater (puppets usually)
Reading (bedtime stories)
Writing (just for me)
And the loss of one kind of focus
was more than made up by focusing instead
on what was really important.

Things I love now that I’m done raising kids:
My kids
Singing (in a band)
Dancing (at weddings)
Theater (at the office)
Reading (as much as I like)
Writing (more than ever)

Totally worth it.

 

Text Message Poem

Now this was a fun idea. The November Poem-a-Day prompt today was to write a text message poem.

Here is my attempt:

***

Mom’s Eye View

At your brother’s Army Graduation.

Wow, band is really loud.

Too bad you aren’t here, cute girl at 11:00.

Hold on, there they are!!!!!!!

They are so…

Crying my eyes out.

Very proud. This is awesome.

Going to meet them now. Byeeee!

Okay, big crowd=slow going.

Looking…I see him! He looks very grown up.

He looks just like you.

Matches II

Another poem popped its head up when I was logging out…

 

Playing with Fire

My angry brother-in-law
once found a pile of
spent matches
at my parents’ home
when my sons and I
were house-sitting.

He raged until he discovered
the culprit,
my 16 year old son,
who, like all teens,
had a penchant for
playing with fire.

“This house,”
my brother-in-law raged
“could go up like a torch.”

My son and I exchanged
glances.

“What are you,” he bellowed,
“A kleptomaniac?”

Without laughing,
(one must give him credit
for keeping a straight face)
my son replied,
“I’m sorry, I must be.
I won’t steal any more matches
in the future.”

“Better not.”

“What would we do without you,”
I said, as I smoothly shuffled
my son out of the house
to thank him for not
lighting any more fires
under his uncle.

 

 

This is What Compassion Looks Like

Today’s prompt was a fill-in-the-blank prompt: “This is what _________ looks like.”

This is What Compassion Looks Like

It’s not staring at someone and
wondering what’s wrong with them,
be they crippled, or blind,
wounded where you can see the wound
or perhaps where you can’t.

It’s looking at them
the same way you would
look at anyone.

It’s not acting like they’re
not there
or whispering about them
when you think
they don’t notice
or even laughing at the
trouble they have with even
the simplest things,
like dressing appropriately,
because maybe they don’t realize
their fine clothes reek of mothballs,
they’re just grateful they have
clothes.

It’s treating them the same
as you would treat
anyone, and perhaps,
even with a tiny grain of
tolerance because
they aren’t as capable
of living in this complex world
as you are.

It’s not mocking them,
whether they hear you
or not.

It’s letting your mind accept
that people are different and
mockery doesn’t make them less,
but it does make you
small.

Someone Else

Someone Else

Don’t you wish you could be
someone else?
Someone you might have been
if you’d made different choices?

Perhaps I would have never married
and become the marine biologist
I once thought I would be.
I would spend my days on boats
and in labs
and in classrooms
and with the animals
and beside the sea.

Perhaps I would have waited to marry
and would just now be a mother,
rather than someone with
children grown.
I would be discovering all the little
things that make children so dear.

Or perhaps, if my choice had been different,
I would have different children
altogether.
I would be a mother of girls, maybe,
or more, or fewer
or none at all.

Perhaps my dreams of travel,
of living
and working
in foreign places
would have come more true.

Or perhaps,
just maybe,
I would really change
nothing at all,
realizing
changing it all would
make me lose the love I have
and the children I have
and the life I have
even if
I occasionally long
for
another life,
another me.