This one is a special one. Firstly, it marks the birth of my second little bundle of joy, my son (who isn't so little anymore...) Secondly, it proves that madness and melancholia need not be unproductive. And thirdly (and hopefully,) it proves what someone once so wisely said - that the sweetest songs are those that speak of saddest thoughts.



A Mother's Complaint


He watched with darting eyes the leaf-
A tiny green thing, a mere suggestion
Of things yet to come...yet to come-
His curious eyes, prying secrets unborn

He flexed his nimble fingers long:
Twisted knotted, old yet strong
Weathered yet witchy, withered yet warm;
Undid the tiny tangled veins
Bid sap run, tendrils uncurl
Bidding the unwilling leaflet be born...

He chased little rabbits to their homes
Sent fledglings flying on unsure wings
Sent little lost lambs to be found
All older, wiser, and big some more
Their littleness a little less than before...

Their wings stronger
Bounds springier, coats glossier
How they run and whirl! How they dance and twirl!
Little dimpled boy, little doe-eyed girl!

Little bird and bunny and wooly lamb
All dancing to his merry tune
All dancing away from the unweaned world
Of toothless grins and gurgling smiles
And fuzzy skins and faultless wiles...

Oh Time, killer of my tiny joys
How shall I ever forgive what you've done
Gave me a miracle to have and hold
Yet ere I could a moment spend
In loving every hug and kiss
In counting every broken tooth
Or tending every tummy ache
And wiping runny noses dry...
And feel the warmth of tiny hands
That clutch against my heavy heart
That smell of milk and baby soap
And taste of salt from teary eyes...

You took before I even had
A little more than a moment brief
With my little monster wild
My little, unweaned, unruly child
And turned him into someone else
A stranger all so strong and wise
A stranger I don't recognize

And left me beggared at memory's door
With a silly mother's aching heart -
Nor stronger nor wiser than before.


(Posted on FB on December 1, 2014, written perhaps a couple of days earlier)

This one was written in September 2010:



Dead and Waiting to be Born

Don't wanna be here tonight

Don't wanna see those old faces anymore

Life's too short to waste on a fight

And sometimes it's good to just close the door

I have erased the songs we heard

Endlessly on endless nights

And laughed away the dreams absurd -

Shadow plays in candlelight

But sometimes it's only too wise

To blindfold those searching eyes

Red-rimmed and bleary through sleepless nights

Awake, awaiting, all despite...

Close, close those chapters, set alight

Those crazy doodles running right

Across my pages, my pages bright,

Scribbled, scrabbled, pages bright...

(Posted on FB on September 5, 2010)

About this blog...

I don't know if I love Eliot more, or Shelley. But one thing I'm completely sure of, is that I love poetry.

On and off, I wrote lines as they came to me. Many of them were really nice, the kind that makes you feel warm and content inside every time you read them. Many of them were trite, begging for correction, often edited, never satisfying, yet refusing to be struck out. Of all the many lines I wrote, only a few remain that I have preserved due to no fault of mine. Thank Facebook for that.

I decided finally that I could post all those poems in a blog. Which won't really make for much, but at least it is a start, and a workbook that I hope will inspire me to return to my dishonest fling with poetry and make it good.

So here's Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V from Facebook...my first piece posted there in 2010:




Waiting for Godot

Waiting for Godot 
On my doorstep tonight 
Someone tells he's tall and dark 
Someone else he's squat and bright 
Not that it matters how Godot looks 
I wait for him 'neath a moonless night 

I waited all the summertime 
And heard the dewdrops gently fall
I saw the roses bloom and die
I heard the sparrows darkly call
To sparrowlings that've long flown away
From sheltered wings that'd held them all

I waited watching purple flowers
Turn blue, and black, and crinkly dry
As cold winds shook those lazy dogs
That on my porch did basking lie
They ran away to god knows where
I waited on and god knows why...

I waited for Godot yesterday
When thoughts flowed free like fresh-press'd wine
Between my fingers, staining red
The sun-bleached empty walls of mine
I painted for Godot yesterday
A human face with heart divine.

And yet I waited all day
And still I wait in this twilight hour
When silence reigns o'er blasted lanes
And droughts have wasted the wine-filled bower
All circus animals are dead and gone
My muse has taken another lover.

So I'm waiting for Godot
On my doorstep tonight
Waiting, waiting evermore
For a tiny beam of guiding light...


(posted on January 13, 2010)