Mnemonic...

Over my mug of steaming coffee,
...i see cookies and a fruit...sliced,
to freshen my breath after my coffee break....

one glance...

one unexpected glance, took me back... to
when i decided to do something for myself,
to be happy.....and to be somebody....but,
finally....i fought the desire, to be defiant...
those awakenings, and newfound feelings,
still haunt my evenings...the hurting, somewhat
changed me, and my beliefs.......i realized that,

at some point in one's life, a chance moment
unfolds on a landing...clear to the eyes...on a mission,
to change attitudes...to erase wrong impressions,
triggered by unpleasant experiences....i have also
discovered....at the right time, somebody comes,
......like an angel with hidden wings...to soften
our hardened minds....to melt our frozen hearts,
ease our tensed opinions...offer us a healing balm.
sometimes, a place, or a face, becomes a kind of paper
that can't be crumpled, or destroyed...so hard to forget.
anyone...anything, that strikes the heart hard,
easily comes back, with the slightest reminder,
catches you..........unprepared....

this fruit on the table, in silence, it just sits there,
...unaware of its being mnemonic...doesn't matter,
if it's fresh, rotten, or candied...a plum, apple or pear
....................would prompt me, to remember,
over my mug of steaming coffee...


Sally


Copyright July 27, 2016
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan

No vacuum jet engined cleaning appliance can sound like mountain wind drivin through leaf bare trees. Like a a wood peckers nonchalant brain damage or a boiling something in this woods.
The boiling is jabbing my brain like impatient school nun with rulers.
I'm almost there. I almost got it.

Few memories remain
from when I was Five.
One that does, is still alive.

Her name was Penny,
a copper colored,
old Cocker Spaniel Dog.
Mostly blind, moved only slowly
deep into her last few years.

We lived across the street about
a block from my Grade School.
How she did it I will never know,
but every day when the dismissal bell rang
at 3:00, just outside my class room door,
There all alone, Penny would be,
Her old Sweet face waiting for me.

Like clock work as if she knew
the exact time of day,
she crossed the busy avenue  
walked up the street and went
straight to my class room.
After greeting me with a lick or two,
she dutifully walked me home from school.

If a person thinks that a dog
has no real love to give,
I would politely, advisedly say
"Sadly, in this one fact, you are
greatly mistaken."

Oh, there is light in such places:
The galleries of Soho, the catwalks of Milan,
The boardwalks of Blackpool,
But it exists to flatter, to obfuscate, to tell alluring lies,
A trompe l’oeil of a family picnic
Etched on the wall of an abandoned orphanage,
The siren song crooned by a spider
To the enraptured and wholly credulous fly.

Ah, but the illumination here!
The sun reflecting off the roofs
On those Bob Evans and Shoney’s you would shun,
The starlight backed by a host of owls, a symphony of crickets,
All serving to peel away the layers of artifice and cunning,
To be shucked away like so many cornhusks,
Allowing the secrets of the universe to be whispered to you,
Faintly yet unmistakably, and once moved by these epiphanies
What is to stop you from running along the narrow, unlined streets
And green open spaces in mad, unfashionable celebration,
Exempt from the clucking of the chic and the congnoscenti?

of wolves through their own pores,
Those who've heard the whispering
of hell behind closed doors.
Those who've tried their mettle
with a blacksmith's blows,
Those who've climbed a thorny trellis
just to find a single rose...

You may have to climb a mountain
10,000 feet tall
And even then the haters hate
and make you feel small
You may have to dig six feet
to find comfort at all...

But there's a solid surface
beneath the muck & mire,
There's a conflagration...
Yes! There is a fire!
Though all seems hopeless
Though it all seems dire
If you ache, it's yours to take
should you so desire...

Though it all seems worthless
a crust of filthy dross
He'll take your hand
You'll understand

The way of the Cross


SoulSurvivor
(C) 12/29/2016

The schemes and political day dreams of the polymorphic school deans
They don't know how the youth wind blows, how the bored thought flows. But there's something better. Those. Those who've gone and escaped that mind race
Those who managed that fast taste of freedom through blasted treason
Of not reading those books and setting fire to the reading nooks.
How's that for a reason?