November PAD Chapbook Challenge 2019: Day 28: Grateful

Image by Matthias Cooper from Pixabay

grateful for what's here

a town far from everything

life in an old house

impossible dreams fade out

bittersweet acceptance in

~Cie~

Notes:

Today's November PAD Chapbook Challenge prompt asked for a Gratitude poem.

People, you know me. I am not the sort to write heartwarming, Chicken Soup for the Soul, grateful for God and family and Better Homes and Gardens type poetry. I am an agnostic curmudgeon, and the only miracle here is that I'm still alive. They ain't found a way to kill me yet, and neither have I. I believe there is something that survives the death of the corporeal body, and I believe there are advanced spiritual forces which could be termed higher powers. I don't like the Church God, and although I'm willing to judge his followers on a case by case basis, I tend to be mightily skeptical of them.

I was raised Catholic and am the black sheep of a family that tried way too hard to keep up appearances. Today is the ninth anniversary of my father's passing. Although we had a sometimes contentious relationship and he passed his own insecurities down to me, he was a devoted father and I love him. I am glad he isn't suffering anymore. The last five years of his life were increasingly difficult. In the end, he really wasn't himself anymore.

I want to call my mother today. My mother is a loyal person who is too wrapped up in keeping up appearances to see the damage that mindset does. She has no idea who I actually am or what I'm really doing because anytime I have tried to tell her, she shuts me down and criticizes me, so I just let her think what she wants.

My brother and I were once the greatest of friends but now have a civil but distant relationship. 

I love my son with all my heart and soul. There are some hurts from the past from when my mental illness was as yet undiagnosed and my behavior was chaotic.

Leonard Cohen wrote the line "It's Father's Day and everybody's wounded."

I think the same could be said for most holidays.

If you're having a Better Homes and Gardens Thanksgiving, that's great, and I hope you enjoy it. I would just ask that you realize that this is not the case for everyone, and those of us who are unable to have Shiny Happy Holidays are not bad people or just feeling sorry for ourselves for attention. The hurt is real.

Just to lighten the load a bit, here's one of my favorites:

Sandcastle Creations

Image by Marjon Besteman-Horn from Pixabay

I remember playing in the sandbox as a child

Hands digging into warm orange-golden grains

My sandcastles were, in reality

Nothing but cloddish bucket shapes

But, languishing in my imagination

I saw them as wondrous perpendicular spires

Climbing up and up to dizzy heights

Where a virtuous knight played out his heroic role

In the theatre of my mind

I couldn’t have imagined then

How pedestrian my life would become

No longer able to earn a stable income

I sit before the computer’s typewriter keyboard

Praying that the laconic moments

Will be few and far between

As I attempt to form a story

Of a dashing but broken hero

Through the curtains I see shadows of branches

~Cie~

Notes:

I chose the picture because from the back, at any rate, this is very much what I looked like as a child. There is no way I could have known what would become of me or my life. If that little girl had known what kind of worthless and hideously ugly creature she would become, she wouldn't have wanted to live.

I didn't stay cute for long. Even around six years old, it was becoming apparent that I had a terrible overbite. Two years of braces and that dreadful Martian headgear left me with a crossbite, which doesn't play a part in my appearance, but it is uncomfortable. It also left me with dead nerves in a couple of my front teeth and it couldn't close the gaps between my teeth. I ended up having to get an abscess removed, root canals, and caps on my six top front teeth to hide the remaining gaps and the fact that my left front tooth and left incisor are black from the nerve damage.

Dental veneers can hide how ugly my top front teeth are, but nothing can hide how ugly my face is as a whole, unfortunately. I am not at all a good-looking person, and in a world that is biassed towards a certain type of beauty, it has hurt me very much to be as ugly as I am.

Carpe Diem #1778: Moonlight Rail

Image by Myriam Zilles from Pixabay

flying in moonlight

trains travel the winter night

father sings his tale

~Cie~

Notes:

Today we were asked to revise a Haiku by Masaoka Shiki (14 October 1867 - 19 September 1902). I believe my verse is more an interpretation inspired by Shiki's original poem than a revision. In a time gone by nearly 50 years ago now, my father (31 May 1936 - 28 November 2010) would play his guitar and sing old railway and folk songs. The ninth anniversary of my father's passing is tomorrow and I wrote this poem to honor him.

the wild geese take flight

low along the railroad tracks

in the moonlit night

© Masaoka Shiki

November PAD Chapbook Challenge 2019: Day 27: Acrostic for Angie

Image by Dimitris Vetsikas from Pixabay

All alone adrift

Nothing nice nevermore

Going, going, gone

Intwining imaginative intricacies

Envisioning elusive eternity

Boiling bad blood brew

Love long lost

Unquiet undying urges

Escaping exotic eyes

~Cie~

Notes:

Today's November PAD Chapbook Challenge asked participants to take one or more of the poems they'd created for the challenge previously and remix them. I took my day 2 abecedarian poem Alpha to Omega and my day 7 free verse poem Angie Blue and turned them into an acrostic using the first letters of Angie Blue.

I'm probably not going to share this poem at the November PAD Chapbook Challenge post because it only makes sense to me. Angie Blue is a poem inspired by various songs that I learned to love as a young teenager in the late 1970s.

Carpe Diem #1787: Autumn Equinox

Image Source

autumn equinox

blowing dry leaves in the wind

cold wind snaps up warmth

~Cie~

For Jane Reichhold

(1937 - 2016)

Carpe Diem #1786: The Days March On

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

reaching for the sun

lotus flowers blooms from the mud

old pond changes

light comes into the shadows

new life emerging each day

deep silence

even deeper as the nightingale starts to sing

beautiful life

sometimes I feel most alive

at night embraced by darkness

snow falls gently

covers up the autumn fields

faraway sounds

it's too cold to go outside

I remain in with my words

reflections

scattered by autumn leaves

the old pond

I reflect on the year past

one year leads to another

a last leaf

swirls on the wind towards the east -

first snow falls gently

I look outside and wonder

if there are happy people

farewell verse

as I depart from the train station

forget me not

no-one will remember me

I am something best forgot

~Chèvrefeuille & Cie~

Notes:

The Hokku of these Renga were written by Chèvrefeuille. The Ageku can be blamed on me.

November PAD Chapbook Challenge 2019: Day 26: A Limerick for John

J. Geils went through diamonds and minks

He had the blues, the reds, and the pinks

He revealed the truest truth

I knew it back in my youth

The only thing for sure is love stinks

~Cie~

Notes:

Today's November PAD Chapbook Challenge was to write a love poem. Well, if you know me at all, you know what I think about that. So I wrote this limerick in honor of the one who said it best about love, the late, great J. Geils. (20 February 1946 - 11 April 2017)