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The only criteria I used in making my
choices was that I wanted it to be a diverse selection. At first, I thought I'd choose
styles, but then I just wanted to choose a diverse group of poets, to demonstrate that
sadness is a common denominator of humanity through all walks of life. Although I had
personal reasons for choosing each poem, I've decided to let the authors speak for
themselves. ***
Christopher speaks regarding his poem, " From Midnight Blue to
Dreaming ":
"From Midnight Blue to Dreaming was actually a concept that had been spinning around
my head for some time. The image of a frame, filled with nothing but a faded picture,
waiting for a bright one (like the existing one used to be) appealed as an analogy to
someone who'd been hurt in the past. The experience of old love coupled with the promise
of new love sets it swinging back and forth between the promise joy and the peril of pain.
From there, the imagery seemed to flow naturally. I had in my head a vision of an old
house, with ghosts of the past, and filled it from there. Not as complicated as it may
seem, but it serves."
From Midnight
Blue to Dreaming
by Christopher Ward |
a peace of picture sways gracefully -
hanged carelessly atop the nail, sliding
along the remnants of a broken wall.
when these simple words turn into breath
with whispered 'sssk's' of the gentle caress...
pendulumatically swinging... swinging,
it slows, slows, then stops for a silence.
and now she wants to frame my mind in arms
it rests here among the spectres of ambulation,
casted on canted edges, not... quite... straight.
the canvas, frayed, is time-worn fadings
yet I still become beauty on her tongue
cracked, pitted, the paint a navy smear
of potentiality - the promise of a then.
she aches to taste the sighting of reality
depictions of another time, paths of glories
blurred... invisibling more each moment
which passes, passes, passes unnoticed.
time is bane when words lie still, unpeaced
the moon rises with the ghosts of movement,
perhaps a sigh entombed within the breeze,
so the portrait stirs, and warmth returns to
the motioned swaying, swaying, swaying...
she wakes to sleep my dreamless night. |
***
Spitfire speaks regarding her poem, "The Silences Of Me":
"I am the type of person hides the hurt until it gets to the point where I can't hide
it anymore. I walk a lot alone, and think things over and weep and worry and laugh all the
same. To myself, the earth, through the air and in the night - literally. "The
silences of me"? Well, my thoughts let go to the earth, in the park, on the walkway
home. And now here, too. Passions is a lot like the park where I leave all my thoughts, my
silences - that aren't so silent anymore, are they?"
The Silences of
Me
by Spitfire |
Etched in walkways from the park to home,
are the silences of me.
The story of times passing,
the tales of the truth to be had.
Etched in walkways from the park to home,
are the footprints of every tear
that escort me at night.
Fingerprints for the words I had touched
and my breath on the wind in tune. The prints
of knees in concrete, were I sang out my anger
and wept in this city of stars.
Etched in walkways from the park to home,
is the litter of my stains,
my scars and their reeking wounds, remains
in trails under the leaves of fall.
Snow and rain can't wash them away,
they have been drunk by the roots
of the antique trees in nights of needing,
and linger in ways to the door.
They are... the silences of me. |
***
Balladeer, regarding his poem, "I've Tried...":
"Sometimes we can spend our whole lives chasing dreams we will never attain; this is
especially true when we had found the one perfect love for us and, somehow, let it go. So
we keep looking, attempting the impossible, because there is no other choice, even though
we know that we will never find it again."
I've Tried ...
by Michael Mack (Balladeer) |
I tried to hold a rainbow in my hands once just for fun.
I tried to hold a comet by its tail - it can't be done.
I tried to stop the sun's evaporation of the dew.
I tried to love another but I couldn't. She's not you.
I tried to banish storm clouds with the movement of my hand.
I tried to learn the answers to what I don't understand.
I tried to find the Golden Fleece - the Holy Grail, too...
I tried to love another but I couldn't. She's not you.
It seems my life is filled with quests that I cannot attain
Like stopping leaves from falling or abolishment of pain…
Trying to find Nirvana where dreams really can come true...
Trying to find a woman I can love as I loved you.
So I'll keep chasing rainbows with my arms held open wide.
Perhaps I'll find a comet that will take me for a ride.
Perhaps I'll banish storm clouds - paint the sky in shades of blue
But there won't be another I will love as I loved you. |
***
A few words from Martie regarding her poem "Solitaire" and
writing in general:
"The poem Solitaire was written from a short story I wrote which is also posted in
Passions in prose. I think every story can be a poem and every poem can be a story. So a
lot of my poetry has come form the stories that I have written. This story was fiction,
although I know the pain of divorce and what the children of a marriage breaking up go
through from personal experience. I write because that it is the way I express all this
wonderful beautiful feeling about this lovely life and the tears and laughter that it
brings:
Solitaire
by Martie Odell-Ingebretsen |
The window was open
and crickets hummed
in the warm summer night
when he told her,
let the words out fast,
taking deep breaths at each pause,
like he had practiced
how to say good bye.
Now
the light from a full October moon
shines and patterns the
wall to lace
and the branches of the elm tree dance
like graceful fingers across her bed.
She hears a faint click, click
and a steady hum,
she knows the sound of solitaire,
she is aware of the lonely heartbeat
it represents,
sometimes the sound of the
world crashing is so soft, she thinks.
A faint light shows through the crack,
her hunched back a silent statement,
the computer lights the mood
of a hand on the mouse,
and she almost says her daughter’s name
but the word won’t come,
her voice is as helpless
and as tired as a limp rag
hanging on the line
on a windless day.
She feels the weight
of a question
and it hits her
and tears at the heart
of the mother in her.
So the name is spoken
with the voice of a cracked heart
and then she is looking through
and breathing the perfume of
her child's dark hair
and the mouse is dangling
in the stuffed pain of an empty room. |
***
Azure now speaks regarding her poem, "Melancholia":
"I wrote Melancholia last year, for one of my poetry classes. During my first couple
of years in college I had a problem with depression. When I decided to write about it,
this poem just came flooding out of me. It is so many things to me; a chronicle of my
life, a purging of guilt over the pain I caused others, but mostly it's a culmination of
the all the feelings I was having about myself at the time."
Melancholia
by Azure |
vacant, curled-up, shrouded sobbing wearily
locked in your room shades pulled drinking
in bed all night long
devoured by your strange dreams your
door flung wildly open screaming fading out sleeping
days on end terrified of the moon her careless ways
and could not change you suffocated
me crying draining waiting for the end waiting
for you to -
please god something other than this
common dim house dishes piled in sink checkered tablecloth smell of
sadness on everything on your
shoes in my hair I
sleep rocking huddled on the couch alone & still see you
misery coming through the ceiling so delicate it
makes me love you this precious mess know you're
still somewhere on this sinking ship
clung to the memory of
it wasn't always this -
your endless silence love one day changing
causeless lost your mind forced into
an abstract version of yourself
retired slowly into your eyes
abandoned by ghost you're not over
you sung your agony in open choirs weeping hysterical
struggling between who you are, who you have been. |
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