Tag Archives: Hope

The Between

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He brings her a bracelet and a bunch of roses
For the fifteen years they’ve been together
She reads the card and the bracelet’s engraving
And something gut deep in her looses its tether
Conclusions once jumped to became solid proof
As Dinah reads his words of love to a Heather

She smiles sweetly handing him a poisoned plate
It’s a slippery slide between love and hate

She’s always been ‘such a good little girl‘
But she was never up to snuff among the pseudo rich
All she wants is to have what all of them have
For kids are cruel to those not matching their niche
Just once she cries, her fingers touch the jewelry case
Filled with a longing so deep her eyes start to twitch

She lets go of the ring and walks away from the site
It’s a slippery slide between wrong and right

A mother gently rocks her new-born babe
The first to come home after many tries
A stray bullet sails through the pastel drapes
And the newborn babe, quickly dies
The husband knows he’s lost more than his child
By the hollow blank stare of his wife’s eyes

And all he’s ever loved leaves this proud man bereft
It’s a slippery slide between life and death

Machines click, whoosh and beep their sounds
His sister copes by force of sheer will they say
But without a transplant, her body deteriorates
And all wonder if she’ll make it another day
They found a match! There’s a thread of a chance
And for the first time in years he kneels to pray

That she makes it as the organ flies through the air
It’s a slippery slide between hope and despair

When he was young it was always “not me”
Even when he was caught red-handed
As he got older the fibs were more creative
Going with whatever the need demanded
All but one he could lie straight in their faces
His truth and lies mixed as he commanded

He said he loved her, but walked away with a sigh
It’s a slippery slide between white and blatant lies

He kisses her cheek, ready to take her home
But he can’t seem to get his thoughts in sync
She feels so good as she leans in oh so close
Knowing she’s had far too much drink
But the scent of her thrills him and she can’t say no
They’re both naked and done before he can think

She never talked, but his own bullet put his guilt to rest
It’s a slippery slide between his love and incest

Hadn’t seen each other since grad school
Where animosities brought love’s ugly rend
Now global businesses made them partners
But will their past uphold or upend?
Their eyes lock as she comes off the passageway
Somehow knowing they’ve regained more than a friend

Two shy smiles first start to grin, then burst into laughter
It’s a slippery slide between good-bye and happily ever after

The between is that space that we hold dear
The whispers of hope in our ear
That susurrus haunting our deepest fear
It can save you from a life of crime
One step further from a life that’s prime
Or straight into the end of your earth’s time

It’s the slippery slides that no one can eschew
But how you handle them? Well that’s up you

====================

Hyde Park – Poets Rally Week 69 (June 7-June 13, 2012)

Questioning

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12

Warm and naked
In my darkened room
My feminine softness casually at rest
Across the soft quilting of my bed
Curtains open to the night sky
I contemplate the relativity
Of distance

Inches to the map
Hours to the travel
Days to the calendar
It’s all infinity to the spirit

That would happily trade
The cooling breeze of the fan
Across my body
For the feel of a someone’s
Heated breath
Across my cheek

The slightest of frowns
Crease my brow in fear
As my head questions
All of the unknowns
While gently splayed fingers lay
Between my breasts in hope
As my spirit wonders
In all of the what ifs

I stare at Luna
Thinking how easy it would be
To turn this into something
Of the purely physical realm
But somehow I know
My questions and wonders
Will be answered in its own time
For what was touched is beyond
What the physical can reach

And in a rare act of mercy
Luna lets
My heavily lidded
Eyes fall
Dreaming
Instead of questioning
The potential
Spark

Living For the Art Of It..

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Last night I had the pleasure to enjoy Left On Red (two beautiful, talented young ladies I am happy to call friends), perform at The Bitter End. As I sat there, bopping my head, humming along, I marveled at how my life had changed artistically.

I grew up in a home where the arts were not appreciated. My father truly could not have cared less. While my mother did enjoy a pretty picture, at least  as much as the next person, that was the end-all.be-all of her interest. Karma in, full bitch mode, lands her a daughter that adores music, creative writing and drawing. I was attempting pointillism and abstracts, metaphors and onomatopoeia a good decade before I ever heard the terms. Her favorite form of punishment was to break my pencils and tear up anything hanging on my walls. Eventually, I learned to stop  trying.

In fact, I learned it so well, that I was with my late-husband for about five years before he had any inkling I could draw. Still, I lived a relatively closed life at the time and really had no other creative people in my life.  Of course, being a mother, wife, worker etc., life itself got in the way. Okay, that’s not true, I let life get in the way. It was much easier to say I don’t have time for that nonsense, than to pick up a pencil and see if I could still do any of it. Other than painting a mural on a closet door (that’s how my late-husband final discovered my dirty little secret), I did practically nothing for nearly twenty years. Then one day in frustration with my life, I picked up a pencil and started writing. That writing turned into the first poem I had written since high school Somewhere. It was a start, but then — nothing.

It took a couple more years and the internet to finally kick-start my writing into high gear. I entered an online poetry challenge on a website that required you to write a poem based on a given phrase. I did not win, but for the first time in my life, my words were praised by people who were not related to me and whose talents I enjoyed and respected. The dam burst. Within, two years I had written nearly one hundred poems. Now I have no idea how many I’ve penned, I stopped counting after four hundred. Not all of them are gems obviously, but they are all mine.

Unlike some artistic types, I realize now I cannot live in an artistic vacuum. Like misery, my art loves company. Which is why it amuses to no end, that while my childhood was a dearth of creativity, my adulthood now overflows with it. In the past few years, I have found myself surrounded by artists. People with amazing talents and several with the guts to go for it as their life pursuit. Singers, sculptors, painters, spoken word etc. It is a complete 180 turn of events and I am loving it! Granted, I have not picked-up painting/drawing again, the way I picked up writing, but every now and then, I feel little tinges of that urge starting to take hold, so who knows…?

Someday you may own an original Raivenne artwork. You can show it off along with the hardbound edition of my poems. Go ahead and name drop that you knew me when I was just a simple web blogger among the masses.

I won’t mind.

>========<

Visit the rest of today’s Slices of Life over at Two Writing Teachers.

SOL - Slice of Life March Challenge 2012

SOL - Slice of Life March Challenge 2012

When Winter Cradles Spring

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According to the calendar, this is spring’s first day
I can just make out the tinges of green on its way
But one more winter’s snowfall has one last say
Making this day, just like my heart, somewhat gray
Those first hints of green are a melancholy thing
My love I miss you most, when winter cradles spring

The spring day we met, the ground still had snow
And like the seedlings underneath a love began to grow
And the years like sunlight increased it’s glow
But on a snowy spring day, you were taken so
Trapped in a time warp, my eyes start to sting
My love I miss you most, when winter cradles spring

It has been a few years now, since you’ve died
And I concede, the tears grow less, that I’ve cried
I would love to say my pain has turned its tide
But on days like today all would know I’ve lied
For me it’s a lamentation, the morning birds sing
My love I miss you most, when winter cradles spring

When I look at the walls, in the spaces somewhat bare
In my mind’s eyes, are the pictures of you, still hanging there
The seasons come, the seasons go, in their time allotted share
But this, not quite winter, not quite spring, holds bittersweet air
I tug at the finger that sometimes wears your wedding ring
My love I miss you most, when winter cradles spring

Sometimes I’m hit with pangs that my heart can barely stand
But they’re starting to fade, like the tide wearing away sand

Those first hints of green are a melancholy thing
Trapped in a time warp my eyes start to sting
For me it’s a lamentation, the morning birds sing
I tug at the finger that sometimes wears your wedding ring
Wondering if, no when, my heart will ease its painful cling
Oh my love I miss you most, when winter cradles spring

>========<

SOL - Slice of Life March Challenge 2012

SOL - Slice of Life March Challenge 2012

* I wrote this poem eight years ago when my husband was very much among the living.
* Six years ago on this day, he became my late-husband.
* Two years ago this week I started this blog, referencing the above write, but somehow never posted it.
* Today I note, yet again, how time flies regardless of fun and I post and I remember and I smile and I give thanks again to all of you who have chosen to follow along with me on this path, no matter when you picked up the trail.

Raivenne

Nice Knowing

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Semi-long day at work, I’m getting home two hours later than usual, yesterday evening. For the last third of the train ride I suffered through the shenanigans of a group of five late-teens/early twenties females who were being, well, the near stereotypical archetype of hood rats. The attempt to simply out loud them via my iPod was futile unless I was willing to risk hearing loss on my part, I wasn’t. Between way too much intimate detail of sex acts than what is proper for a subway during rush hour and the volume, I was really hoping the next stop would be the one in which they disembark.I really hoped that for several stops. As Murphy as his blasted Law would have it, I’ll let you guess at which stop they finally exited… Yes, the same stop as mine.

Grouse. Grumble. Grimace. Groan.

As I’m walking down the stairs from the elevated trains, a few steps ahead of them, I feel this odd tingling that stops me in mid step, but is gone just as fast, so that I barely break stride and continue. I can tell they felt it also because whichever one was cackling at the moment went silent and I heard another let out a “Whoa!”. Before I can even begin to fathom what that could have been, a mighty roar of thunder rolls overhead. If it was four seconds between the tingle, the stop in mid-step and the clap of thunder it was a lot of time. The bark of thunder was so loud, fierce and sudden that a couple of young women screamed in surprise. Every now and then my mind surprises even me with how fast it can extrapolate information, process it and come to a conclusion. The girls screamed; I on the other hand was, without an emoticon, laughing out loud.

Note to self: Bursting out in laughter in front of a group of ghetto girls that just screamed because of thunder — bad move.

Girl A: What the fuck are you laughing at?

Me (I turn quickly already knowing the answer): Are you addressing me?

Girl A: Yes, what the fuck you’re laughing at?

Me: May I ask you young ladies a question? Why did you scream just now?  (You know the saccharine was dripping quadruple time, right?)

Girl B: ‘Cause the lightning scar- suprised us. (I give this one points for catching herself before letting it slip that it scared her.)

Me: Was it the lightning? Any of you really see the lightning or was it the sudden thunder?

Girl A: Okay it was the thunder. Big fucking deal, ain’t sayin’ nuttin’ on whatchu think be funny.  (I know the expression on my face slipped for one second at the butchery of our native language; I know it did.Luckily, they either didn’t notice or more likely had no clue that was the reason.)

Me: Okay, you are all younger than I so I am going to presume you remember more of basic science than I. What comes first, thunder or lightning?

Girl C: Duh, lightning! Light travels faster than sound, so most of the time you see lightening before you hear the thunder unless it’s like right on top of you. Then it looks and sounds like one. (Plus points for the NYC edumacation system – yay! Minus for the tone of voice that was obviously proud of knowing something most primary schoolers learn by first-grade and thus missing the entire point of my snark).

Girl A: And the lightning hadda be like right ova our heads to be all loud like dat. We gots all dis metal ’round us we coulda like died and shit. That ain’t funny.

Girl D (obviously not wanting to be left out of the conversation: That’s why it made me yell.

Me: So those of you that “yelled” did so because you thought you could have died? Right?

Girl A: Yeah and?

Me: If you hear thunder and you have enough time to scream about it, however close it was, and I agree this had to be right on top of us because we all felt a piece of it, that means we survived it. (I literally see the epiphany dawn in Girl C as I speak.)

Me: You screamed because you were thinking “Shit! I could have died!”. I laughed because I was thinking “Shit! I survived!” See the difference? (Girl C and the up to now silent Girl E nod.)

Girl E: See (Girl A’s actual name)? Lookit you all ’bout to start some shit and the lady ain’t even thinkin’ ’bout ‘choo! She just happy she ain’t dead. Now let’s go ‘fore it start coming down.

Me (turning to go): Goodnight ladies, stay dry!

Two of them, I think Girls C and E respond. I hear one say (Girl E?, presumably to Girl A) “Don’ hate, ’cause you know you wrong”.

Weather wise, while other places were pelted with hail, we didn’t get a drop of rain in our area last night. The entire storm for us existed of that one hell of a bolt of lightning that we felt but didn’t see and the ensuing thunder. I personally think the entire exchange was a message from the universe to the two of us (Girl A and I). Girl A and I felt the exact same tinges of current and heard the same loud thunder, yet we had two very different reactions to it.

Of the two mindsets, I have to say – it’s nice knowing where my head space is at these days and I like it !

Each Day Anew…

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I wake and start each day anew
I shake myself to clear my head
I take on faith I’ll muddle through
I make myself get out of bed

The day is as it was before
The play of life’s dramas unfold
The clay of my face gets new scores
The way it will for days untold

Time flaunts with me in its cruel way
Time wants me to think I’m all right
Time daunts my tears in light of day
Time haunts me then in dark of night

Can’t lie my pain will soon be through
Can’t fly away until it’s gone
Can’t buy back moments to redo
Can’t die so no choice but go on

It’s true that heartache ends, but when?
It’s few the days I feel it cease
It’s due I know, but until then
It’s through my pen I find release

I know I have the strength to cope
I go as heart and soul say to
I sow my seeds of faith and hope
I grow and start each day anew

====<>====

[written several very short, yet long years ago – about six weeks after becoming a widow.]

The form used is called a Lento. Strictly speaking a Lento is two quatrains of eight syllables (a Double Lento has four quatrains, or as I have done, a Triple Lento with six quatrains). A Lento requires that you rhyme the very first word of each line in the stanza and have an ending rhyme of abcd. As you can see I took a little creative licensing here by repeating the first word and rhyming the second words instead and having an end rhyme of abab.

dVerse Poets Pub | Poetics: The Beautiful Sadness

Mama x 3

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The woman I refer to as my mother did not give birth to me. The person who gave birth to me, though I spent a very short part of my life with her did not mother me; thus, when I say and think “mother” it is for the woman who tried to adapt me, as I adapted her (that’s not a typo).

My maternal grandmother died when my mother was six years old. As such she was raised by her father and five brothers. Four older and one younger. Six over protective men and one female in the semi-rural south. I imagine it was not fun. Still, my mother grew up to be petite, willowy with naturally long, easy to manage haired, prim and proper and a neat freak. Regrettably (for her), we were soon to figure out I was head and tails my paternal grandmother’s child. The little girl she chose to adapt was a tall, big-boned, thick, nappy-haired, rough and tumble tomboy. From the word go it was struggle.

I tried to be the good daughter, as most daughters, do.  Did we love each other – of course.  We had our good days, but by the time I was in my mid teens my house was at war. The essence of the problem between my father and I was one thing.  If you’ve read some of my poetry, some of the story is there. I’m not rehashing it here. The essence of problem between my mother and I was that she never understood why I wasn’t grateful to have a mother and simply be obedient and everything a mother would want because after all she hadn’t had one and if she had, that was the kind of daughter she would have been.  I never understood, even before I was old enough to put it into words, why she could never understand that “I” was not her. Regrettably, it took my mother becoming fatally ill before things would change between us. Systemic sclerosis is a slow, but inevitably fatal bitch at its best and my mother was struck with the worst kind that took her away in a few short years. It was only in those last the last few years of her life that we became friends. Before she became so ill that she spent most of her remaining days in ICU, it was the closest to having a true loving mother-daughter relationship we had come.

In the interim, I met the man who would become my late-husband and in turn met his extended family. Family that was chosen by heart, if not technically by blood, but cousins nonetheless. I met one set of cousins in particular led by the family matriarch. Trust me, there is no other word that suits her. Still, upon getting to know her and seeing her relationship with her children, and they with her, and the extended family from there, I finally knew what that could feel like. I won’t lie, a part of me was a little envious at first, but you can’t feel envy when pulled into that much love. I told her secrets I had not told my own mother and was there with my cousins of heart when she finally went Home. I was blessed to have her in my life if for nothing but finally having that gift of Mother.

When I was young, I used to ask about the woman who gave birth to me. The subject was quickly changed, or I was suddenly punished for something. I learned without being told, I was never allowed to ask questions about her as a child, but I knew she existed. I had memories of her. When I was old enough to know to ask without caring about potential penalty, the one person who would have told me (my –skipped a couple of generations twin– paternal grandmother), was no longer around.  By my early teens I had decided, if I knew she existed, she in turn, had to know I did. If she were dead, I would have been told such. That I never saw her again was either because she could not get to me or did not want to. The latter option made no sense to me as even before I had children, I could not imagine a scenario other that death in which I would not be a presence at least in their young lives, so it had to be the first option.  By then and I was simply too busy living my own life to give much thought on what happened to hers.  And now, if she was/is alive and wanted to find me, I am so removed from my roots, it is a moot point.

But every now and then around Mother’s Day, this year being one of them, I think of all three mothers:The one I never knew, the one I got to know almost too late and the one by knowing gave me a little understanding on the other two.

Happy Mother’s Day Ladies.

Life, Chance, Death, Pain, Faith

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LIFE
living
existence

one day at a time
for the rest of your time
trying to be at one’s best

‘because the alternative sucks’

<><><><><>

CHANCE
fortune
in fate’s hand

opportunity
it’s not in your control
what turns the wheel, guides the die

‘life, the moment your eyes open’

<><><><><>

DEATH
finite
infinite

it is what it is
for as long as we’re here
It’s not as long as we’re gone

‘it is the great equalizer’

<><><><><>

PAIN
anguish
agony

in body or soul
and oftentimes in both
you bear the unbearable

‘it’s what lets you know you’re alive’

<><><><><>

FAITH
belief
conviction

the ultimate trust
is the substance of hope
evidence of things not seen

‘all that I have left in me now’

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Today’s Form: Clarity Pyramid

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | OpenLinkNight : Week 83

The Heart of the Matter

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My heart and mental health depend on my ability to reduce hurt and anger as quickly and efficiently as possible. I literally forgive or if I can’t forgive (and there are some things that can’t be forgiven) let it go. I try to at least dispense with the destructive anger/hurt that can keep me from functioning.  I don‘t want to waste my energies on the negatives any longer than necessary once I deem it serves no purpose. It is an effective method that has worked quite well for me.

Except when it comes to forgiving myself.

Why is forgiving ourselves of our own wrongs so hard?

Oh, the scenarios that play out in our heads from the sublime (well, it is what it is, but we‘re cool), to the not-quite-ridiculous (I HATE YOU AND I NEVER, EVER, EVER WANT TO SPEAK TO YOU AGAIN *insert string of nasty, insulting and in your head well-earned, hurtful verbiage against yourself here* !!!!), when we know we’ve done somebody wrong.

You make it to your forties odds are you’ll find yourself doing something close to, if not the same thing as,  something you’ve actually  counseled others to forgive or at least let go in the past. Then again, you weren’t  the one doing the wrong when you counseled, were you? That moral high ground is pretty damn nice until it’s our own dirt that muddies it. There are things we can forgive ourselves easily for. There things we can forgive ourselves for, when the injured party cannot forgive us.  But what about the things we cannot seem to forgive ourselves for, even if the injured parties forgive us? It’s a whole different ball of wax when you’re the one giving yourself the riot act, huh?

It’s a sick thing we do to ourselves at times. This emotional equivalent of  self-flagellation, if you will.  “Woe, look at me, I’m such  a bad person. No one could punish me for what I’ve done as hard as I’m punishing myself!” Yes, we hurt because we hurt someone else (intentionally or not). But with or without the injured party’s forgiveness, at some point it has to stop. The logical part of us is going to say we are  indulging in personal pity party and we need to figure it out if we‘re going to function.  But to paraphrase Tina Turner “What’s logic got to do with it?”

I’ve been tryin’ to get down
To the heart of the matter
But my will gets weak
And my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think it’s about…forgiveness
Forgiveness
–Don Henley The Heart of the Matter

Whether we formally say to ourselves “I forgive me” or at some point “let it go”, eventually , we all have to look in the mirror and for better or worse, learn to live with ourselves and what ever it is we’ve done.

That in and of itself is form of forgiveness…

The Heart of the Matte

And Back On The Horse…?

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Okay.

I’m a forty-seven year old widow of five years. I took time to mourn, then I took time to ingloriously fuck. I’ve now cut myself off from all of my “friends with benefits” because. Well, because I don’t see the benefit in it anymore. Until last month, in a moment that will be chalked up to the ah, ah-ah-ah, ah-alcohol (gee thanks Jaime Foxx-NOT!), I’ve been celibate by choice.

I’m looking in the mirror, frustrated, but at least no longer regretting my actions. No, regret is not quite the right word. I do not regret anything that I have done sexually. I’m tired of feeling that something so completely missing once the moaning is done. I know something’s missing, but I can no longer reconcile filling the physical need without somehow figuring out how to fill the emotional one. So I rather just leave it, and them, totally alone. I realize, I’m likely setting myself up for another ah, ah-ah-ah, ah-alcohol moment some time from now, if nothing good happens, but to get a new FWB? No, something in me simply cannot do that any more.

I’m tired of not being satisfied, emotionally. I’m tired of lying that all I wanted was a fuck buddy. The whole thing with NH was ridiculous. Have to break-up with BX was simply too easy for me and too hard for him. He’s a nice guy and all, but I did not and know I will not love him. I couldn’t let it keep going – it only would have gotten worse if I let it drag out. Having now lived on both sides of Unrequited Love Street, I can tell you it really, really sucks either way.

I do not want to be alone anymore. NH (primo conceited ass that he was) did prove the point. I enjoyed him, but yeah – no, the one-on-one of being with that someone special, just wasn’t there and the lack of such hits home. I want to be loved. There! You hear that Universe? I’ve said it.

So… What now?