Poems
"When you feel your wounds bleed
When you hear your voice sob
You can count on me…"
Friend,
You know you can count on me,
Not count to three or ten,
But count on me.
If at times you find me staring at you
And you see a trace of love in my eyes,
Don’t get defensive,
Don’t think you have to leave,
In spite of that trace
Or perhaps, because of it
You can count on me.
If at other times you find me distant,
Even cold and harsh without reason,
Don’t get anxious,
You can still know
You can count on me.
But let us make a deal.
I would like to know that I could count on you,
It is exhilarating to know you,
I feel alive knowing you exist.
And when I say count,
I mean even if it is to two,
Even if it is to five.
Not so that you may quickly come to my rescue,
But to know for a fact that you know
You can count on me.
Anonymous
Sometimes you smile,
And it does not matter
How beautiful
How ugly
How young
How old
How much
Or how less
You are.
You smile, as if it was a divine manifestation
And your smile disavows all previous smiles
They expire instantly.
Your face, like a mask
Your eyes, hard and fragile
Like beautiful shaped mirrors
Your biting mouth
Your sweet-scented cheeks
Your eyelids
Your fear.
You smile and you are born
You take on the world
You look without looking
Defenseless
Exposed
Transparent
And maybe, if your smile
Comes from very deep within
You can cry
Simply cry
Without tearing yourself apart
Without becoming desperate
Without calling out for death
Without feeling empty.
Cry, only cry.
Then, if your smile is still around, it becomes a rainbow.
Anonymous
Funeral
Wattle and almond blossoms picked
from home
For the tiny coffin of my grandchild
Baffleddaffodil
Dying of Cancer
I cannot stand the agony of your dying.
I cannot even imagine what it must be like
To be trapped in a body racked with pain and desperate illness,
With no knowing how long the final escape will take.
It is not the death but the process of dying,
The agony that must be lived through with no one willing to shorten it,
And the watchers wringing their hands with helplessness.
Lisping Waves
Lost in Despair
Lately I have been letting my life
Fall into pieces abot me.
All the old familiar ways have become meaningless.
I have been lost in despair's dark depths.
I have been lost in a forest of ills.
Wandering alone and calling for help,
I have looked to death as an escape
From the intolerable agony within.
Now it is time for me to turn from death
And chart another path.
Girding myself with courage and with hope,
I must find new tasks
And make a new beginning from an old
And finished ending.
Lisping
Healing
I sat in my desolation
Withdrawn from all around,
Feeling my life was a ruin, a failure.
I was empty inside
With the utter collapse of my being.
I did not care any more
For living or dying.
I was alone
In my distress and desolation.
But as I sat sadly on the ground,
The sun reached out his hand to me
And touched my face
And so my healing began.
Lisping