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 Mar 2019 onlylovepoetry
Sjr1000
I wonder what I'm doing
I wonder who I'm being
I wonder where I'm going

I've asked these questions so many times
The answer is never forthcoming

Wake up every morning
****, shower and shave
Put on the mask and join the parade
Numbness if you can find it
Has its rewards.

It's a difficult complex dance
Particularly when your mind and body
Don't understand choreography
Though dancing as fast as you can

The moves you ought be able to master, but never do

We're all doing
the daily stumbling Can-can.
The Can-can originated in the 1840's, a high energy chorus line, kicking its way on stage.
 Feb 2019 onlylovepoetry
Cné
Climbing on the bus
Not looking forward to this trip
But it meant so much to her  
And how could I predict

That it would be her last hurrah
Before she passed away
Just one year ago marks
The anniversary of that day

It was an annual trip, with her twin
They took to different cities
With a group of old church folks
They called themselves
“The Traveling Gypsies”

As it turned out to be
My last fond memory
Of my mother and her twin
Before they were stripped
Of all their memories

Alzheimer’s was their reward
They gave it quite a fight
Bed ridden in their final days
Until they saw the light

Who's to say how it will end
Or where that place will be
A gutter in the streets of life
Or home where it should be

So as I sit and contemplate
These moments I recount
I think about the road ahead
And how I’ll make it count
My mom and her twin sister both had Alzheimer's. My mom was significantly more progressed than my aunt's. My aunt acted as my mom's caretaker long after we had them both moved to a memory care facility. They both did well there for about 6 months. Then my mom became aggressively depressed and crying all the time. At that time, they both had a bad sinus infection at the same time. My mother recovered but was still crying and complaining she couldn't breathe. However doctors could not find any ailments in her. My aunt ended up getting pneumonia. While in the hospital they discovered and diagnosed her with stage 4 terminal lung cancer. She died 4 months later with the last month being bed ridden, hardly eating until she was nearly only bones and on a breathing machine. My mom and her twin were always connected in the weird twin way ... knowing things between them, beyond normal comprehension. We all believe my mom knew (not in a cognitive way but in her own twin way) before diagnosed that her twin was going to die. None of us expected her to live much longer than her twin. They both had long life forces even crippled with cancer and Alzheimer's. My aunt Lorea (other mother) died Oct. 27, 2016. Up until that point my mother could still walk, talk, eat and recognize me and my siblings. However after she lost her twin she could no longer walk requiring much more individual care. We moved her to a residential home care facility. They worked really hard to try and revive her willingness to live. It wasn't a conscious choice to give up because with Alzheimer's your brain doesn't work right. She lasted less than 3 months after the death of her twin. It was heartbreaking, to say the least, to witness. I rejoice her being reunited with her twin and my father and free of the confinement of Alzheimer's but I'm still working through the finality of it on the earthly side. Growing up as a child of twins is a blessing of having two moms (one being the cool mom ... the mom you could tell anything to .. knowing she would know how to explain it to your real mom in a way you couldn't bring yourself to do) and a sister cousin, my aunt's daughter. I had an older sister (10 years) too. So in my case I had three moms I love dearly. I am grateful to still have my sister.
From the void of infinity,
I retrieved words desperately sought
Craving the full impact of my letters
No matter the harm to my soul it wrought

An obsession forces me from my slumber bed rise
Depicting on paper visions of monsters and warrior queens
That emerges from deep long dreams
And where the magic lies.

Sleep reveals those who breathe
And yet emotionally dead
Shuffling through the world
Unknowing and uncaring
Frightening normal with dread

As the ribbons of heliotrope crept closer before falling
Pausing
I heard the ghost of my pen calling

They found me quite cold
Window sash blowing
Ink on my fingers
Hunched over my desk

A story unfinished
Fellow Poets
I leave you to imagine the rest

@Copyright Tammy M. Darby Jan. 5, 2019
The old blanket is so hard to discard

dramas have unfolded in its folds
upheavals of winter's orogeny
trills of two birds in ecstatic thrill
to the rest in the ripened knowledge

we have made a home
we have earned it.


In the still of night
under the old blanket
the tales are relived
without a touch
a word..

The old blanket is so hard to discard.
I'm not sure you've heard of
But there's a girl out there named Purpose
For whom I have been searching
I hear that she's well worth it

When I find her I won't tarry
I'll ask her to marry
And without a second thought
A child for me she'll carry

We'll name the child ambition
Something I have been missing
I'll rock her to sleep at night
In the day make her my mission

From this day forward
Knowing full well to be worth it
Striving in my finding
For that girl named Purpose
A morning orchard walk,
myself, two dogs and
two following barn cats.
Repeated often, a shared
companionable reverie
of mutual tranquility.
An odd family of sorts,
devotion comes is many forms.
Spring is the awaited child,
seeds to plant, plans to explore,
conjuring promise and renewal,
That awakens our soul.

Summer inspires with long
sunny days basking in the
embrace of green crops growing,
relief from heat under leafy trees,
leisurely nights of clean skies,
bright stars on high to infinity.

Fall comes as a warning beacon,
days of long shadows,
cool nights with chill breeze,
bedecked trees
in reds and yellow.
The report of hunters guns
from the depths of the forest.

Winter's a prelude to gloom,
short days, low sun when it
appears, wind-chills that burn.
Snow to shovel, ice to befuddle.
Conjuring envy and impatience
for the return of Spring.

So the seasons flow
one into another,
while every year lived
the cycles grow shorter,
with no guarantees of
how many more may follow.
I'm as lonely as a station at night.

The december mist and the moon
peaking high over the iron fence
dulled the low volt into weird halo.

But like bats I reap the rewards of night.

The buzz of the crickets rose in crescendo
from the undergrowths around the track
sounding as unreal as the silent platform
abruptly cropping up on nowhere land
doubtful if ever a train would notice it.

Days are dull actings dancing to strings
yielding nothing to let you know you.
I'm in full vision before the lightless mirror
opening up alone but with the many faces
the dreary day ruthlessly hid from me.


The mist was engulfing the iron railings
and when a distant engine whistled
there was no track or platform
but only the lone flyer hung on the moon
like a bat glued to the scent of night.
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