Unbroken

Not long ago I had a love
A love beyond compare
Then in a blink it all was gone
His light and life brought to and end
And now no matter where I go
I cannot bring him home again
And home's not home without him there

And sadness does not say enough
For sorrow is the garb I wear
yet even as I stagger on
And heavy is my heart
I can't regret the love I've known
For sorrow is a grief well born
My sorrow's not despair

Losing Ground

She doesn't know how she ended up here
in this damaged life that is now hers
She thought she was resilient
Never saw this coming
Her mind failing her
Tricking her into paranoia too strong
To break free of

She was always exploring
Looking for gentle answers in an
unkind world
Never dreaming she would end up here
So broken
Unable to go even one day
Without the medication that keeps
The mania at bay

Her world is tilted
No longer in balance
Each day is its own little nightmare
she can't wake from
So afraid she will disappear
She wants her life back
But she's losing ground
She's losing ground

Hungry

I've acquired a taste for solitude
My tired mind is hungry for a feast
Of empty hours
Time filled with internal field trips
That feed my weary soul

To do nothing
Answer no questions but my own
Breathe
Care not the time or day
To be still
And listen to the turning of the earth

I've acquired a taste for solitude
And I am ravenous

World of Solitude

Carelessly creating memories
Too bitter to share
Each moment I live is a struggle
My silent war
I cannot invite others in
To view the mess I have made
Of my life
Hopeless

This is how walls are built
With little embarrassments
That become secrets
I cannot share
Where can I turn when I've lost sight
Of myself
Who will hear me
Screaming

 I sit in my world of solitude
A place of my own invention
My private hell
When I reach out 

There is only emptiness
No one is there
I never let them in

Life

So many things I'm learning to see
The time spent in quiet contemplation
This marvelous world spinning all around me
Is fodder for my rumination

I must admit, daily I find
Things too numerous and amazing
From people to places to quiet embraces
The sights and the sounds keep me gazing

From puppies to rainbows to gothic cathedrals
The magic around keeps unfolding
Each new discovery brings smiles to my heart
Each one I am happily beholding

I'm taking my time to take it all in
Won't chance a new wonder be wasted
Each day brings such joys, where shall I begin
Won't let life rush by me untasted

Welcome

The gentle showers play their tune
On the wind chimes
Hanging from the deck
Cozy in my haven,
Hammock chair and umbrella
I let the music take me
Lulling me to sleep

This is a day for poetry 

And dreams
And I say
Welcome
For what is poetry
But a dream captured
And what is life for
If not to dream

Summer Cicada Day

Sipping wine, hanging in the air
Relaxing in a hammock chair
Gentle breeze blows clouds around
I am four feet off the ground

Birds and bees both sing their tune
As I laze all afternoon
Cicadas join the lazy song
I could stay all summer long

Crazy Love

What's that flippity fluttery feeling
That I feel each time you speak
I'm happy when I'm watching you
No, I'm not some crazy freak

Peeking round the corner staring
What did you eat for lunch today
Follow you as you go shopping
Hiding while I watch you pay

Crouching down so you don't see me
As you pass when you're out walking
This is just my way of caring
Although some people call it stalking

I can't believe you're pressing charges
Was I really scaring you
Mostly you didn't even see me
What's a girl in love to do

Words

They're trapped up there
Deep inside my head
Clawing to get out
Wanting to be read

Jumbled words invade
Every tiny space
Racing round and round
Blank look on my face

Thoughts coalesce
Sentences are formed
Down and out they race
Poetry is born

Winter Days

The air it was so cold today
It pulled the breath right out of me
So bitter cold it burned my cheeks
And tears sprang to my eyes
So just the act of breathing
Was a challenge and surprise

I like the feel of winter days
The crisp and brittle air
Breath hanging free in smoky plumes
Frosty message in the air
The numbness starting in my toes
Ice crystals fill the air

I know when winters over
I will welcome in the spring
Throw off my coat with glad relief
Forgetting winters wondrous ways
While wrapped in springtime's gentle hug
I'll celebrate the warmer days

Forgiveness

When I can no longer linger
Will you welcome me back home
When I can no longer wander
Can I come to you alone
Will you welcome me back home

All this endless lonely wandering

Running from mistakes I've made

For too long has had me wondering

Has the debt I owed been paid

Can my life now be remade

All the years are crashing 'round me

Feel the emptiness of shame

If at home will love surround me

Searching for surcease of pain

Can I come back home again

Do the deeds of my own making

Keep from me a chance of peace

Will your love for me be waiting

Can this endless journey cease

Will your love be my release

Silent comes the night

Slippery softly ends the daylight
Darkness takes the light away
Shadows lengthen, darkling deepens
All as quiet as a breath
Shapeless shadows steal the day

Lonely rooms without a memory
Wander aimless in and out
Try to capture dying daylight
Sweet and shy is daytimes flight
Slippery silent comes the night

And my soul still wanders hallways
Thick in shadows deepest gloom
Searching for a love long taken
Hall by hallway, room by room
Finding only loves sad tomb

Endless wanderings 

My own tomb

For a Friend

If I could make you happy
If I could make you smile
If I could ease your troubles
If even for a while

If I could lift your burden
When you are feeling blue
In this you can be certain
It is what I would do

For you are quite the person
A tried and true blue friend
And I will stand beside you
Until the bitter end

For I find I'm standing taller
Since I first met you
That you count me as a friend
Is the reason that I do

The Art of Love

I wish that I could make you see
The colors, textures of your love
The richness and the vibrancy
The complex canvas of your love

I wish that I could paint with words
The way artists do with color
I'd draw a portrait of your love
More vibrant than any other

I wish I could somehow express
The way the artists do
I'd paint with words both bold and strong
The way that I love you

Conversations

The other day I spoke with my mother
She said she had just been a dozin
There wasn't a thing to do around home
And the world outside was all frozen

She mentioned she may have been watching
Kinda lazy and not paying attention
A movie she'd seen several times before
She said it was called Fried Green Onions

Now I've loved this woman for all of my life
So it doesn't affect my opinion
To hear she was watching an old favorite film
But not knowing its Tomatoes, not Onions

My Brothers Keeper

I grow weary of the attitudes
Of the multitudes with their
platitudes
Disengaging from the caring
Not responsible for the sharing

The callousness makes me angry
Don't you care that there are hungry
Who are you to say it's not real
Are you hungry for your next meal

To be your brother's keeper's not a
bad thing
This is not about the left or the right wing
This is all about our own humanity
How can it be that you really don't see

Society is failing and has gone wild
When turning its back on even one child
We should all find it quite unnerving
That we think we can decide who is deserving

We've become our own worst nightmare
When we pick and choose when to care
You see "illegal", a child is what I see
Take a good look in the mirror
What do you see

Do you see that you are losing
Your humanity

Homeless

Go home
There's nothing more to be
done here
You should get some rest
Go home they say
As I stand on the edge of my life
looking in
I can't go home
Home is where you are
There is no more home for me
You're here
But you're gone

Sigh for Sigh

In the quiet of the bedroom
In the stillness of the night
I lie awake and listen to
The steady rhythm of your breathing
And my own breath matches yours
Deep and even
Sigh for sigh
Deep and even
Sigh for sigh

Curled around you gently weaving
Limb and limb in loose caress
Silky languid thoughts releasing
All the daytimes useless stress
Time slows down and leaves me dreaming
Sweetly dreaming
Soul at rest
Sweetly dreaming
Soul at rest

Careless

Carelessly caress me
I long for your touch
You carelessly possess me
I love you too much

Endlessly embrace me
I can't tell you no
You endlessly erase me
Where did I go

CJB

I stand holding a book
Clutched to my chest
Forlorn

Memories of you
Written by loved ones
Fill the pages
I can't remember the last time
I looked at it

I don't remember where
I had it stored
Or why it showed up now
Out of the blue
Blue like your eyes

Pain refreshed
Love remembered
Loss recalled

Bittersweet memories of you
I wouldn't trade
For the world

Sorrows Hold

When will this longing aching need
Cease to steal my peace of mind
When will I wake from slumbers hold
Mind free from sorrows weary grasp
Soul free to soar unbound at last

How can such losses be endured
Can will alone complete this task
If I but set aside the pain
And say goodbye with heavy heart
Then will my freedom I attain
Then shall my soul be free again

Sleep

When I'm tired but restless
In need of some relief
I yearn to find that tantalizing
Reenergizing
State of bliss
The state that we call sleep

It's true that we all crave it
The longing is so deep
That often times I daydream
Of stretching out
And drifting off
To lovely, lovely sleep

Yet when my day is over
And to bed I finally creep
In bed my eyes snap open wide
I toss and turn
Back, stomach, side
I can't succumb to sleep

But, ah, those times we do achieve
That wondrous elusive state
We snuggle down with heavy sigh
Roll over and
Attain the prize
Ah sleep, most blissful state

Turmoil

To Bed! To Bed! My body said

Your eyes they are half closed

Turn off our brain and get some sleep
Now is the time for counting sheep
Not messing with some prose

But what if as we start to doze
My brain now asks my body
I suddenly hear metered rhymes
Or better yet those ceaseless chimes
And we must tell somebody

Enough! Enough! My body cries
We need to get some rest
This can't go on both day and night
I'll look a mess by mornings light
And can't be at my best

Okay! Okay! my brain cajoles
I see I must comply
I'll do my best to shut it down
You go and lay that body down
We'll both give sleep a try

A New Direction

A new direction is leading me

 Away from you

I didn't know that's what is was

Going to do

I wanted to be different 

break my old routine
Thought I'd make a change 

From where I had been

Wanted to take a different route

See a different view
I didn't know the route would lead 

Away from you

I struggle with the changes my new
Views require
If I said I wasn't sorry I would        

Be a liar

But I'm also feeling selfish and I need

To try
Didn't know this new direction would
include goodbye

Intuition

He sang to me over the phone
Before our first date
I knew what I was doing
When I said
I would go out with him
That very night
I knew

This is crazy
They told me
How could you possibly know
After only a few hours
In his company
Impossible to know
I knew

He still sings to me
And plays his guitar
And, perhaps it was crazy
That I knew
I would love him
All my life
But 

I did know

Three Random Kisses

With three random kisses
You completely stole my heart
You leaned right in with your sweet grin
You had me from the start

Each moment that I spend with you
Is more precious than the last
You refresh me without effort
You free me from my past

I hope someday to let you know
Just what you mean to me
How hearing you say grandma
Makes me happy to be me