This morning I woke up to a thick sky. I thought it was overcast but instead the sky was covered with smoke. I know this sky, I’ve seen it before.
Where the windows were opened, ashes have settled on the window sills and nearby furniture.
A bit worried (sad and scared), as people in nearby areas are starting to evacuate. The University campus has closed. My kids are still in the on-line school and teachers made announcements for the kids in the affected areas to leave. We are safe and I hope the fire will be contained before it spreads further, although they stoped the air aid because the wind is too strong.
As we go through this, I cannot help thinking about the people who are in the immediate vicinity. Please keep them in your prayers.
The theme for this month for Free Verse Revolution is “Reflections”. Reflections could mean anything, from reflections in the mirror, water….to anything that you think it could be related with reflections.
For me, it was …the following poem.
You can read it at Free Verse Revolution if you click here. If you are a poet, I encourage you to submit some of your poetry to this blog, as I think it is a wonderful way of sharing our work.
A house with white walls And spell-binding shades, A place of eternal youth, Where love slips through the windows’ cracks And warms the quiet air of night.
The door is open, Tracks of mud from the garden, Lead the way to a green tree, The place of original sin.
We ate its apples to the core And now it’s budding white blossoms, The color of our dreams.
The blue night sky is meditating in silence, You catch a falling star and keep it in your pocket, Its bright and yellow light caresses your face and mine.
I lay my head on your chest And trace with my fingers the vowels of love.
My paint coated fingers are trembling. White, green, and blue, Touches of tints and tones, Reflect the shape of my thoughts on the canvas.
It was early this summer when I lost you, I ran my fingers against the coffin’s glass That locked you in…
My painted coated fingers are trembling. White, green, and blue, Touches of tints and tones, Reflect the colors of my eternity with you.
My new poetry book “Love poems: insights into the complicated mystery of love” is available on Amazon. You can get it here. Please write a review if you get around it. I would really appreciate it.
I love nature. I do not hug trees. However, this morning when I went to my mailbox, which I have not checked in the past 3 days, I got a sudden urge to go hug a tree ….Why are there almost 30 pieces of election materials in my mailbox? Really , do we need to be invaded with these? And, if we do, do they really need to be HUGE?!!!
This one that I measured from Trump & Dixon is just an example. They are all about the same size, regardless the party orientation, or the Propositions they advertise for.
I live in California. Is it just here? Is it just my area? Does your mailbox looks the same?
Visual Verse is an anthology of art, poetry, short fiction and non-fiction. You can find more information about it here Visual Verse : An Anthology of Art and Words . Each month authors are asked to write something, within an hour, inspired by an image. The image for this month was the one above. Below is the poem I wrote, which you can find on page 13 of this month’s anthology.
He shed the stiff, dead skins That he once rightfully wore, And let the universe move through him, Turning the pulses of energy Into life.
Perhaps suffering, For this takes courage, He became a tumult of ideas and emotions Both sincere and worthy, To be watered and nourished.
If you’ll come close to his face, You’ll blink twice and then realize That he is struggling, As the waves swell and recede within his body, Receptive to the ebbs and flows of life.
He is embracing, cherishing, protecting creation, Knowing that when the time will come, Death will not take him entirely, And he will continue to exist, As the universe will turn him Into pulses of energy that will create life.
My new poetry book “Love poems: insights into the complicated mystery of love” is available on Amazon. You can get it here. Please write a review if you get around it. I would really appreciate it.
Mirrors that slim down, That show no wrinkles, Expensive clothes, The perfect bodies, The perfect abs, The perfect color of your skin…..
“The perfect” floats everywhere And is a salient feature of our social story.
Since the earliest days, Scores of media pundits Have created illusions And broke our minds into thinking That their illusions are true.
We all clap together, At whatever they call beauty, Across time and space…. Meanwhile, liters of hot tears, Fall from the eyes of those who do not fit.
Whatever we call beauty?
Have we forgotten To shine the magic lanterns into who we really are? Have we forgotten, To think in hearts and not in images?
****
The bogyman is difference, Sustaining that sinister, yet profound insight Into the cleavages of our societies. Not everyone can feel everyone’s pain, But has numbness been accepted and embraced?
Whatever we call beauty?
Have we forgotten pain? Have we forgoten Our very first heartbreaks, And how that made our world feel cold and frightening?
Whatever we call beauty? Whatever you call beauty?
My new poetry book “Love poems: insights into the complicated mystery of love” is available on Amazon. You can get it here. Please write a review if you get around it. I would really appreciate it.
A mayfly rests on a flower, Waving its tiny wings, In the air that smells of summer. Does she know that she only has 24 hours To create her past and her future?
My eyes are wide open, Watching this life, In the early morning hours.
Fresh tears created by the battles in my heart, Are running down my cheeks.
Between ideals and illusions, I decorated our love “time unsuitable” And walked the opposite way.
Eros became speechless, And stared me in the face. In the spirit of goodwill, I explained to him that modern civilization Allows lovers to say: “we’re right for each other, but just not right now.”
Eros swayed back but I think he genuinely forgave me, And turning around, He whispered over his shoulder “Ah, the unreality of time!”
I didn’t understand what he meant then But I do now.
My eyes are wide open, Watching the mayfly, In the early morning hours. How much time does she have, To create her past and her future?
Born of a goddess, Eros knew, That the wheel spins the same for mayflies and for humans. Love now….. Live now…… Ah, the reality of time…..!
My new poetry book “Love poems: insights into the complicated mystery of love” is available on Amazon. You can get it here. Please write a review if you get around it. I would really appreciate it.
Visual Verse is an anthology of art, poetry, short fiction and non-fiction. You can find more information about it here Visual Verse . Each month published or unpublished authors are asked to write something, within an hour, inspired by an image. The image for this month was the one above. And here is a poem I wrote about it( it hasn’t been published at their website and I don’t know if it will be chosen to be part of their anthology, but to me, is the experience that counts) :
We come from the place Where the air and the water make home, Where thundering hearts smile at each other And paint Valentines red.
On our perfect orb, We roam through space And lie in the meadows of the Sun and the Moon.
It looks a lot like freedom But here beasts roam free, Their waggling tongues are licking our place of its warmth and its beauty, While their tails blow boundless seas of wild dust, Entombing our sky. Our lungs are filled with smog, We lost sight of our reflection, And dust is catching in our dry, voiceless throats.
Weakened we come to you, weakened but hopeful. Please master, tame them with your hands And quench their thirst. Please master, make our world the way it used to be, And let forests grow, The oceans thrive, And season after season, We would feel again, The nature’s beauty and its perfect harmony.
My new poetry book “Love poems: insights into the complicated mystery of love” is available on Amazon. You can get it here. Please write a review if you get around it. I would really appreciate it.
Crying, The tears of your eyes fall in the ashes, Scattered on the streets. Your thoughts don’t stand tall, But crumble with the buildings, Down on the ground beneath your feet.
You join the other countless voices screaming, And feel inside you fear carving the walls of your skin.
A man looks from a window and then he looks at you, He put his jacket on to keep him warm in his trip to eternity. You want to fly every time you take a step And grab the arms that rise from dust and broken glasses, But you cannot, you cannot help them.
It smells like it’s never going to stop raining with pain, It smells of heartbreak and no tomorrows, It smells of burning candles at the funeral of hope.
Not a word said, You’re crying for the lost, You’re crying because you don’t know what eternity looks like.
All the wrongs of the past time bombard your eyes, What has life become? Is it too late to change it?
You bang your skinned knuckles At the door of the future And vow to go on a scavenger hunt All over the world, To find prayers, good deeds, And promises that stories like this will never repeat.
Note: Today is 9/11 and I remember it. I remember the faces, the terror, and everything that came with it. I will never forget. But that it is not the only thing that I will never forget. Although I only seen them in movies, like Schindler’s list, or read them in books like “Hiding in the Spotlight”, I will never forget the stories of the Jewish people whose spirts were lost during the Holocaust. The same, I will never forget the faces and stories of Syrian kids, and the ones of their parents, that were war refugees in Jordan. I took some interviews, and these were firsthand, heartbreaking stories. I kneel in front of their pain and wish that we will never repeat the mistakes of the past. I am sure that each of us have our experiences. I am sure that each of us have memories that have shattered our hearts. But I think we should do our best to bring light into this world, the way we can. I think each of us contribute, in small or big ways, to spread love and not hatred, to spread acceptance and kindness.
My new poetry book “Love poems: insights into the complicated mystery of love” is available on Amazon. You can get it here. Please write a review if you get around it. I would really appreciate it.
Here is another poem, a bit heavier than the other I posted the other day, than has also been published in the Literary Yard. I hope you will enjoy it. You can read it in the Literary Yard here.
Bemused from the perusal, Of walks through the world’s faiths, You’re seating at the table of your life, With present and the future you, Still searching for enlightenment, Still wishing that it is much more you knew.
Define the undefined, and feel it! Your animated consciousness does that everyday, Then why to find the answer, To soul and its existence, Is still uncharted way?
Behold the contradiction, the chatter of two sides, As far apart as ever, both struggle to be guides. One says that it’s your body the vessel for your soul, The other that these two are indivisible and whole.
The inner music of your thoughts secretly shouts: ”I am immortal”! Convincing, but certainly revised by your sense of the natural world.
Your heart pulsing beneath your chest breathes life, You think, maybe your story didn’t last long enough to know the answer. But then you lock eyes with yourself in the mirror, You see, Your soul, the silent actor, Sealed tightly with the corks of your unfettered nature, Assimilating, crystallizing, metabolizing, The pain and the pleasure, The gain and the loss, The hideous and the lovely, The demonic and the divine! You feel yourself emerging countless times, With purpose and determination, Shoving away in scorn, A vast blind history of explanations, Of our origins and of the destiny of being born!
The chatter quiets and you listen, The waters of your mind are clear and quiet, And in their depths you see the wisdom of the untold aeons of time, The energy and love, Unquestioning, complete, Beautiful and hopeful, Becoming you.
. I thought it was so funny
