Tag Archives: Meeting the Bar

I’ve Been Here Before

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10

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I ride the dusk
Streaking across the infinite horizon
Clouds tinted in lines rubicund and indigo guide me
Into the deep, into the dark, the eventide of my heart
I don’t fret, I’ve been here before

I know this darkness, know it well
When it consumed more than the rays of daylight
When it consumed my hopes and dreams
When it consumed me
And then regurgitated
An empty shell back into the world

But this? This dark is different
I don’t fret, I’ve been here before

This time I am the consumer,
I enter into this willingly, knowingly
That this blackness has an end
That this blackness is indeed finite
That there is an other side

I don’t fret, I’ve been here before
The erstwhile hollowness
Restocking itself to whole
Into the dawn, into the sunrise, the reemergence of my soul
Horizon tinted in lines tawny and cerulean guide me
I disembark as dawn streaks across the infinite horizon

My trip done, my voyage beginning
I don’t fret…

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dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Meeting The Bar – The Beat Poets and their Poetry

In The Spirit

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8

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The passionate call of the joined heart beat
Felt long past when the heart was nubile
The feeling of spring’s first blooms so sweet
The old memory that still makes me smile
It’s the urge at a concert to just weep
The comfort at night when I fall asleep

The piece that’s with me wherever I roam
In the spirit of land, of heart, of home

The knowing when it’s my time to let go
After countless days and nights on this earth
A song on the end of the world I know
That began playing since the day of my birth
As my Deity holds my life in sway
I am drenched peace, as though it’s my last day

For I know I’ve lived the best way I can
In the spirit of love to fellow man

The not so free will that brings me to here
Those voices of guidance to go or to wait
Gifts of inner light to make the dark clear
Past lessons that leads me to paths straight
The persons I feel when no one is there
When needed their presence snakes through the air

Their hands go right through me like ghosts and walls
In the spirit of the ancestral call

A coat of many colors dark and fair
Sometimes it is sparse, sometimes it flows free
Those are my scarves and my rings that I wear
The glow of words that accessorize me
The trifle of rhyme that falls just right
The feeling that haunts “post this tonight”

Paint, pencils, pens and pixels I use
In the spirit of the magic I call Muse

The delightful joy I can’t put into words
The raw anger growing above the din
The most quiet of calm I’ve ever heard
The connection of love with my close kin
The slow chill of knowing hell’s on its way
The warm glow of just being, that needs no say

And it’s to my core when I feel it
In the spirit of living in the spirit
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dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Meeting the Bar: Your Voice–Let’s Hear It!

Body Guard

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18

A mere soldier in an arsenal of many
Some richer, thus seemingly more refined
Some not worthy of holding their title
But none better than I

You walk among the ranks
Visually surveying at first,
I feel your eyes sweep over me
Your gaze – Piercing – Questioning
Before they look away
Then return

And choose me

I know others have sneered
At the numbers gone through in your quest
The many soldiers who served
and then failed, for they were not worthy
But I am worthy
So I, I say nothing…
How can I?
I who now have the duty of protecting you

I throw myself in harm’s way daily
Head-to-toe, back-to-front
Your first layer of armor in a harsh world
Knowing I’ve done my job well
Every time someone compliments

Your soft, supple skin…

For that honor, I thank you.

Your ultimate body guard,
Lotion

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Feeling a little had, but grinning nonetheless aren’t you? 😉

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Meeting The Bar:Negative Capability

My Home

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9

My home is slowly getting old…

Eclectic in a way that will never grace a magazine cover
It is a home that is lived in, a structure that has seen some years
Pock marks, and tiny fissures vein parts of the wall
I used to see it as fault, now I see the imperfections as character

My home is warm / inviting…

Not one for bright colors or pastels except as the occasional accent,
I have ever changing adornments of noirs, scarlet, indigoes, eggplants etc.
It is deep rich colors and jewel tones that I like best
To offset the warmth of my mocha walls

My home is full of sound…

The hiss when its steaming
The pop when the floor is stepped on the wrong way
The hum of music and conversation that surround me
Mostly externally, but sometimes it’s just in my head

My home is spiritual / sensual…

The Yin-Yang, Om, Cross, Peace, Magen David, Crescent, and Ankh thrive here
Cuisines Mediterranean, American, Caribbean, Asian, Vegan are served here
Children, friends, lovers and a husband, still do or once have lived here
And once invited to cross my threshold, you know that you are loved here

My home is not where I hang my hat, feed my face, lay my head…

It is in my body that I have lived in these soon to be fifty years, slowly getting old
It is in my heart deep within that I am slowly trying to let out again, warm / inviting
It is in my soul where I find my comforts for me and  my joy for others, full of sound
It is in my breath that compels to be alive and live for myself, spiritual / sensual

My home is…  me

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The Yin-Yang, Om, Cross, Peace sign, Magen David, Crescent and Ankh are in a  tattoo that runs along my spine from base of  my neck down, in that order.

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Meeting The Bar : Oh, the place we live!

Orphan

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35

He was my first Deity, my Lord
All I knew encircled Him
He was the sun and I followed in path
Capitulated to His moods,
Prayed for His mercy
Lived in fear of His wrath

After all he was My Father

But he bowed to a deity
Of his own
That either kept him cold and aloof
or filled with the spirit
of liquid hellish fire
of various proof

We tried to be as quiet as a church
In the middle of the night
But we never found a peace to be still
When I can be whipped awake
At any moment
For some ages old forgotten ill

And where was she you ask
When his fist and my face
Were making connections
How could she save me when she herself
Was in dire need
Of her own protection

Where do I go
This was my shelter
It was all I’ve ever known
I’m taught never to be where I’m not wanted
But what do I do when I’m a child
And where I’m not wanted is home

Well the first time I ran
I was soon returned
For I was very under aged
But I aired laundry in the process
And now both of them
Were enraged

Straight A’s brought not a praise
Chores lack brought not a reproach
His indifference became such
That I would push his buttons
With a cheeky little laugh
The only way to feel his touch

Knowing it was all
A fucked way to feel
Just added to vicious revolution
a penance to pay
For which there was never
an absolution

So when I broke out
And ran away part four
I just started living wild
No one ever said a word
what could they say
I am my father’s child

I’m told I should still love him
Pray for him
And wish him well
I say I do in the mere fact
that I simply
never wished him to hell

Some called me cold
Some called me tough
can handle any shit
But I grew up where
whining didn’t change a thing
so what was the point to it

My mother died first
and she I do miss
She did the best that she could
The next I saw him was to bury him
keeping a promise
he knew I would

He’s been gone
nearly a year
without any impact
I was an orphan
deep in my soul
long before I was in fact

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Mining the Memory–dVerse ~ Poets Pub Meeting The Bar :

Infinite Pens-sibility

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17

My pen’s a stitch of creativity
Against a world of mediocrity
A refuge within the palm of my hand
Whether cursive lines of one leaf’s rustle
Or prose on the weight of madam’s bustle

My pens lodge a dream of nocturnal bliss
Onomatopoeia of a snake’s hiss
All that’s required is my mere command
To push it further than my very best
Even when it looks like a Rorschach test

Equipoise is lost on the muse you see
Control’s illusion gone in a vapor
Pens hold infinite possibility
Upon contact with blank sheets of paper

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dverse ~ Poets Pub | Meeting the Bar: Creativity

Temptation…

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5


…Is playing the flirt
To your coy
Secret smiles masked
Behind casual shrugs
Double Innuendo
With bold inclinations.

One hears the indifference
In the chat
One sees the fire
Of the eyes
Recognizable only by one
Who has long since given in
To the abandon of passion.

Can I but wonder
Do the heat of your eyes
Extend to your touch?

Tell me,

Better yet
Don’t tell me.

Let me feel for myself …

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dVerse Meeting the Bar

In The Company of Heroes

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5

When you cried I’d wipe away all of your tears
When you’d scream I’d fight away all of your fears
And I held your hand through all of these years
But you still have all of me all of me
Evanescence – My Immortal / Fallen

In the company of heroes is how I often feel
Your lives forced into a world tipsy and surreal
A struggle from the moment your first breath premiers
Clotho’s newest thread in life’s ongoing tapestry
I ignore the naysayers of your tough chances to be
I’m among the first to get to know your excellence my dears
As I engage in the daily wait of a hope and a prayer:
For quick release from the terrors that constrict your air
Trying to balance a life already in arrears
When you cried I’d wipe away all of your tears

What the world needs now is to see you fight against death
See you working towards the next small but tantalizing breath
That every morning you live to see is a cause for cheers
All the world’s a stage and you are its most promising star
And my job is behind the wings to get you that far
For the world is a tunnel vision until your sight clears
You’re just too young to know all that you go through
That I’m there holding your tiny hand smiling at you
Or if in your vexing sleep, a nightmare appears;
When you’d scream I’d fight away all of your fears

Even in the quietest moments sometimes your bodies shake
The wretched fevers your young bodies try to break
Or in the wee twilight hours how your pleas reach my ears
I’m grateful for your screams, their justice I seek
The thousand of cries are promises of a life not weak
I like to think that some small value of my Zen adheres
Though it’s a wisdom felt with absolute prudence
Thus uttered only in moments of complete silence
Though gone from me, you’ll remember in life’s jeers
I held your hand through all of these years

I hide among the simple, among the small select
Just doing a job, my soul chooses to elect
Having a temperance for each and every special baby
But the generosity of my spirit is always short-lived
When unto the new guardians of you I must give
One way or another you’re taken away from types like me
My neonatal babies that fight just to survive each day
Your headlong courage always holding such sway
As you live you won’t remember any of this I now see
But you still have all of me

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Just a few days ago I was listening to Evanescence’s My Immortal from their Fallen CD and the refrain reminded me of an older friend of mine who worked in a neonatal care unit.  She would occasionally speak of some of the babies that crossed her path.  Holding their tiny, trembling hands. The ones that screamed until exhaustion took them only to wake and scream again. They didn’t all reach it, but the goal was always to help them survive to the point they can survive on their own. Every now and again she would be lucky enough to see  them grow throughout their childhood years and on rare occasion to adulthood. Even though very few would ever know of her existence in their lives in those very early days.

My favored glosa form, designed to used the words of another, was the perfect vehicle for today’s prompt. This write is for her and all the countless others like her simply doing their job.

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Meeting the Bar: Literary Allusion

Inner City Dawn

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8
Early dawn on Prince Street NYC

Kufel – early dawn on Prince Street NYC (Flickr)

The street is deserted, no one’s around
An occasional car, but no other sound
All you see are the shadows of the night
Broken only by the eerie glow of street light
If you’re still long enough, you can hear a mouse
Bold enough to scurry through the house
And then a glow arrives reaching over it all
Watching it slowly chase the shadows on the walls
Taking away the chill of the dark night
Filling my world with its warm light
Neighborhood junkies going for a fix
Winos, bag ladies, a crazy mix
Parked cars leave from their spaces
People start to pass, I know some of the faces
Each morning I watch this changing show
Until its time for me to go

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dVerse Poets Pub – MeetingTheBar: Beautiful Solitude

Dark Lord

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12
Dark lord unsheathing sword from scabbard.

There was a lord; a man of kindness, of light
After years of service had put down his blade
Known far and wide for his fairness and insight

Though tales of his past battles are lore still oft’ spun
He now lives life with wife and sons, a man genteel
His locks are fair, nearly white though he is still young

Of course there are the ones in life who will harbor ill
The major flaw in things seemingly perfect
A hate grows unchecked for this lord’s blood to spill

Clothed in acts of friendship a darkness they bring
Vile thought became vile deeds slowly put in motion
The first step – smooth as silk, the loss of a ring

Little thought is given, such things occur in a life
Until said ring implicates him in the murders
Of his most precious, his own sons and wife

Still in control, he senses the hand of evil’s spark
As those who try to champion him fall one by one
Some say his clothing was the first to turn dark

Determined on his own, to prove his innocence
He becomes a fugitive slowly alienating all
No longer wanting others death in his defense

Though he never draws on those who doesn’t draw first
The kills mount in the search to clear his name
His quest slowly becoming a mission of blood thirst

As a crimson heat of hate spawns from rancor’s seed
They say the light in his eyes were next to grow dark
For black are his thoughts, oh black they are indeed

The path to truth has taken him past a point that can be undone
And the causes of such, now have great fear of their dark creation
As those of schadenfreude dwindle down to the first – now last one

His life, once a heaven most people only dream about,
Was one he had never given much of a second thought
But his dark soul exists in hell now, of this he has no doubt

Somewhere in the distance a church sounds a midnight chime
A hope of forgiveness flares briefly but is quickly stamped out
Former allies now foes come face to face for the last time

The reasons for the start of this are lost as final justice come due
Down to the dark strands that were once his locks so fair
The once lord of light’s heart has turned to one of the darkest hue

It’s the price for his sins, to be paid of their own accord
The final flame of pure hate, extinguishes the last light of his soul
”One way or another this ends” he snarls drawing first his sword

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dVerse Poets Pub | Meeting the Bar – Writing Characters