The Scream

The Scream by Vincent Van Gogh

How dare you wake me
Just to hear me scream!
Always the same and
Never as you seem.

The bell tolls true.
You do not hear.
Your voice alone is granted
Audience with your ear.

The day darkens.
Frail shadows fall.
The strength of one arises
On wings of guts and gall.

I'll wake no more
With soundless screams.
The pain remains imprisoned
In old shattered dreams.

I will prevail
Though few will see
The crooked path I'll take
To be completely free.

Girl Playing Solitaire by Frank Benson

Solitaire

Who wins this game of Solitaire?

There's no one here but me.

Kings hide behind their thrones

While Jokers all run free.

I cannot find the Queen of Hearts.

I fear she's lost her head.

She waits for love to come again,

Yet knows her love is dead.

Knaves and Jacks conspire to rule.

Such foolish games they play.

Bending rules they cannot break,

Patience will win alone today.

A note about this poem:  Patience is the British name for solitaire with cards.

Although I did not write this poem, I feel it deep in my inmost being as if Mary Oliver heard my heart and wrote the words I could not utter. 

The Journey by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save. 

The Kiss

Time stands still

The moment before our lips meet

And I am enthralled.

I inhale as if to take you in,

Holding my breath

As if to suspend time.

Our eyes meet.

Our lips touch.

Our tongues dance.

I feel it somewhere deep

And yet somewhere far away

As if we've always been and will forever be.

Desire, Love, Passion...We can be stirred by one or the other.  I want to be moved by the three together.  

Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are

I started writing this poem over a year ago.  Right in the middle, my thoughts stopped flowing and the poem was left without an ending.  It wasn't its time.  Witnessing an old church building being dismantled and sold for scrap inspired my thoughts to begin again. The poem now has its ending.

"Alle, alle, auch sind frei" is a German phrase meaning "Everyone, everyone is also free."  Some think it is the origin of our phrase, "Olly, olly oxen free."  (This just goes to show how badly distorted the truth becomes the farther we stray from the source.)  Whether it is the source or not, I thought it apropos.

No idol stands forever.

All fall eventually.

Their false lament exposing

Our vain idolatry.

On pedestals high they hover,

Feigning absolution. 

Over the edge, no wings to fly

From moral destitution.

Dominoes of disillusion

One by one they fall.

Only stopping as they reach

The crack in my heart's wall.

We've preached and pretended.

We've postured and we've preyed,

Loving the God who made us

Yet not the man He made.

Even the old and ugly

Look good through glass long stained.

Windows gone reveal the truth

Only a ghost remains. 

Do you ever wonder

Where are the good residing?

Hallowed halls are empty.

If they're here, they're hiding.

Come out, come out, wherever you are.

Alle, alle auch sind frei.

You're no one's son and no one's daughter.

You are the Church to be.

I know why history 

repeats itself.

It is old and 

can't remember crap.

-Rags

Just One of Those Things

It was just one of those things...

One of those things that feels so good it hurts

One of those things that leaves you crying in the night

One of those things that fills you up yet leaves you empty

One of those things you desperately try to hold onto while praying to God for release

One of those things you wish had never begun yet cannot imagine its' ending

One of those things that once lost is forever but never gone.

Regret nothing.  Regret nothing.  Regret nothing.

I see it posted and tattooed everywhere and each time I do I marvel, "What kind of person regrets nothing?"  I  understand living life to the fullest, moving on from failures and not living in the past but I cannot comprehend having no regrets.  In fact, I propose that it's impossible.  Only a person who has never lived could honestly have no regrets.  

Whether we regret things we've done or things we haven't, if we live and love we will regret.  And it's okay.  Regret can burrow through our pride allowing us to say, "I'm sorry."  Regret leads us to change and pushes us to action.  It teaches us to learn from our mistakes.  

Allow regret in to do it's work.  Then move on.

Regret nothing?  No thanks.  I want to live.