Mother’s Day Book Spine Poem

This years Mother’s Day Book Spine Poem – for the motherless child and the childless mother.(for some reason I can’t get the photo to print. I’ll try it as a stand alone entry.)

Heartbroken Open
Layers of Silence
Latitudes of Melt

 

Tricia 2013 

Son and Sky

Son and Sky

 

Laughter back in her life

Interesting projects

Meaning and purpose abound

And yet

Three sleepless nights this week

It would appear her body

Is aware

The black stallion of Mother’s Day

Is galloping toward her 

Hooves pounding the tempo

Requiem for a Dead Child

Fourteen years since

Her so sad son

Laid down the intolerable burden

His life had become

Her childless mother lesions

Ache

With familial longing

As she sits in the dark

Waiting for dawn

Slowly it comes

Swathes of colour

Join together

‘Till the sky is a breathtaking blaze

Her atheistic heart

Longs for a moment

To see her artist son’s hand

Painting this gift of morning skies

But what was

Can never be again

The yin of grief settles

Beside the yang of love

It is enough for today

 

Tricia 5/2013

 

 

Lapsing

Lapsing

 

Lapsing has been a theme in my life

Lapsed catholic in the religion box

Eventually accepted as life choice

Several lapses

Before I stopped polluting lungs and life with nicotine

Then came lapses beyond my control

These days memory lapses plague me

Thoughts there one minute

Gone the next

And the words

I know these wonderful luscious vibrant words

Yet they dance just out of reach

Mocked and tantalized by circumstance

No longer searching for the meaning of life

Just the answer to one question

Are my memory lapses menopausal meanderings

Or the first rung

On the diving board into dementia?

 

Tricia 5/07

 

Then and Now

Then and Now

Twas the night before Christmas

And all through the house

Memories danced

Slow waltz by Strauss

 

Parents quietly giggling

Frantic wrapping of gifts

Kissing and cuddling

Christmas Eve tryst

 

At a tinsel covered tree

Sat a 3 year old boy

Gazing not touching

Blue eyes sparkling with joy

 

His mother and father

Watched in delight

Worth every moment

Of their sleepless night

 

Awed by the gifts

Crowded under the tree

When the wrapping came off

Awe turned to glee

 

As the years rolled by

It became tradition to read

Twas The Night Before Christmas

Adult child – loving screed

 

Twas the night before Christmas

And all through the house

Memories were flooding

Absent child absent spouse

 

Tricia 12/2012

I Care

I Care

“I pray your hope returns

and your depression lifts”

she wrote.

Yes I’d written the word depression

but

it wasn’t my depression.

The poem was titled

Night Vision

even wrote the word dream

and yet…

I wonder if others

read my words thinking

‘Poor soul

depressed

without hope’.

Why  do I care?

I care so much

my fingers barely kept pace

as my response clamoured

onto the screen.

My words of sorrow

are often woven

with nature’s beauty.

As I write the roads of grief

I discover culs-de-sac

carpeted  with fallen petals,

vibrant dawns,

precious memories.

These things are an intricate

integral part of my journey.

Somedays my words are sorrowful,

but

must there be a moratorium on mentioning

life’s sad truths?

Then there’s

Love

Joy

Gratitude

Many poems resonate

with these precious gifts.

Why do I care?

I care because too often

Sorrow is misdiagnosed as depression,

I care because depression is an illness

and sorrow is a sometimes thing

a  natural state of being.

I care because both sorrow and depression

need to be discussed but not confused

I care because

hopelessness and depression killed my son.

We all have a story

mine’s pretty much out there

I’m more than any one poem,

I’m a compilation

variations on a theme.

You read my words

through your personal filter,

I respond through mine.

I write because I must

I write because I care.

Tricia 01/2013

Night Vision

 

Night Vision 

 

Dark shadows

Flash of steel

Illuminating 

Your man-child face

 

One eye sparkling

The other streaming tears

Cleaved by depression’s Damoclean sword

One hand reaching 

The other pushing away

 

Terror grips my guts

As I realise

It’s not my chasm to cross 

Long gone 

Days of encompassing womb love

 

And yet….

 

In my dreams

Fighting still to save you

Even though

You are 13 years dead

 

Tricia 01/2013

Blaze

Blaze

It’s summer and I burn

Not with todays high temperature

No 

I burn with longing

In two days

Christmas will be here again

My 14th without my son

My 4th without my husband

But hey

Who’s counting

I’ve got this covered

Wrote a poem

Christmas in Tricia Town

Trickling tears with an ‘up yours’ ending

Everything’s fine

Nothing to see here folks

I even added a naughty link 

Send ‘em on their way laughing

 

I’m fine spending Christmas day alone 

It’s my choice

Works for me

Because…….

 

Witnessing what is

Eviscerates me 

Impales me on the picket fence

Of what can no longer be

Yesterday my controlled burn

Broke through containment lines

For a few weeks

I’d been chasing spot fires

Sleepless nights

Refusing to leave the house

Painted smile

False conversations

When I realised the sickly stench

Was my unwashed body

I stopped fighting 

Walked into the flames 

Yes it’s summer and

I burn

 

Tricia 12/12

Purple Ink

Purple Ink

 

There are days

When a keyboard won’t cut it

I need the tactile comfort

Of pen and paper

As I write the stitches

To close life’s wounds

 

And then there are my purple ink days

Letters that can never be answered

Precious intimacies never to be shared

Private pain

Previous joy

These are the times

 

When only purple ink will do

 

Tricia 12/12

Christmas in Tricia Town

 

Christmas in Tricia Town

 

I began to think 

This year it would be easier

My grief is a gentler thing

I’ve lived the lessons of loss

Maybe I’m ready to rejoin the joy 

I experienced the almost forgotten pull

Of the ‘before’ Christmases 

Wandering around a big shopping centre

Singing loudly along with Christmas songs

That many loathed

But I delighted in

Selecting gifts for those I love

Even though the two most important people in my life

No longer have need of gifts

Nor the food I lovingly prepared for them

There’ll be no one sneaking the pork crackling

As soon as my back is turned

The tears began to trickle

As I realised

There’ll be no pork with crunchy crackling in my home

No dried apricot and sage stuffed turkey

No roast potatoes soft on the inside

Crisp and crunchy on the outside

My shopping centre wandering days are done

Many days I don’t make it up the driveway to the letter box

Some days my body struggles to toss a simple salad

It’s time to accept

My christmas cooking days are done

As I slowly come to terms

With my increasing limitations

I’m learning death doesn’t own grief

It appears loss has more lessons for me

When it gets too tough 

I wander via the keyboard of my iPad

And browse the snippets on YouTube

Today it’s the outrageous Eric Idle 

Who brings a little joy to my world

With his wonderful song 

Fuck Christmas

If you want to hear the song

That made this sad woman smile

Just wander over to You Tube

But if the title offends you

Maybe Christmas in Tricia Town 

Isn’t for you.

 

Tricia 12/12

 

 

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=BqfZUX5svCg

 

A Book Spine Poem

Sailing Alone Around the Room
Longing for My Child
eating fire

I composed this poem last Mother’s Day. I’m posting it today for the parents of the massacred children.

(I posted this from my iPad and for some reason that I don’t understand the comments are not showing here, so thank you to those who commented on A Book Spine Poem)