Category Archives: Poems

Second Place Dreams

Posted on by learning to live like water

You visited me last night
In my sleep.
It’s been a long while
Since you found your way
Into my slumber.

You woke me up,
and tormented me
With the memories,
and the future
And the lies
and the truths.
I was still in second place.

I miss my sleep.
But there you are.
I can’t stop you from coming here.
Lord knows, I’ve tried.

Your deep gravelly voice
talking low and quiet in my ear.
Your hands
Wandering hands,
heating up my skin.
Your eyes,
Piercing through the darkness.

I asked you to go away.
I wanted to sleep
A blissful sleep,
Devoid of you.
But it wasn’t what you wanted.

No.
You wanted that part of me
That no one else will give you.
Just to take, just to have.
Returning nothing to me.
Like a security blanket
You wanted to know nothing’s changed.

Nothing will change.
Ever.
Doesn’t mean I want you in my dreams.
They are false dreams
Of things that won’t happen.

It’s a mindfuck really.
It’s all it is.

Morning breaks,
I see it for what it is.
I don’t cry, I am not happy either.
I just move on,
Away.

Like the Pink Floyd song
“There is no pain, you are receding.”
You’ve been receding for quite some time now.
I can still see you though.
I can still feel you though.
It’s out of my control to stop it
It’s the way it is.

Second place doesn’t suit me well.
Not even in my dreams.

Behind the Screen (SoCS)

Posted on by learning to live like water

the-screen

A screen,
Like a veil
To rest behind.
A partition that allowed
Thoughts to fly,
Or swim
And be transferred
To paper,
To words,
To a canvas,
To art.

A screen
A veil between
The artist and the world
To be pulled back at completion
Of the work.

A screen in his mind
That kept other people out
And kept him safe.
Or was it simply keeping him solitary?

If no one is allowed
Behind the screen
Then no one really knows who he is.
He can be someone different
For every face he meets.

But he also will never find
the place where he belongs.
The arms he longs for
Will never hold him tight
Because they won’t know him
Fully.

He met someone, once
Who saw him,
Who saw through the screen
Easily, on first glance.

It terrified him.
He wove the screen tighter
And tighter,
And made up stories
that kept him safe
So he thought.

She could see through it still.
Always.
Knowing his terror
She left him alone.

Hoping one day
He’d come out
From behind the screen
And embrace himself

Like the artist
Showing his completed work,
Risking vulnerability,
She hoped he too
Would risk letting himself be seen
Fully
Speaking the truth
To everyone
About who he is
What he wants,
What he believes.

Instead of hiding behind the screen
And morphing into someone different
For everyone he meets.

Screens have their place.
They keep the bugs out.
They conceal what we are not ready
To share with the world.

Just, don’t live there,
Behind the screen.

socs-2016-badge

The prompt for this weeks SoCS (Stream of Consciousness Saturday) was “screen”.   This is hosted by Linda G. Hill.  For more information on this prompt please go to her website, https://lindaghill.com/2016/10/14/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-1516/

Curveballs

Posted on by learning to live like water

Life sure throws you some curveballs
You know?
Car accidents
and trumpery.
Hurricane misses
And new friends.
Successes that are unexpected
Successes that weren’t even attempted
In any way.
Yet they happened. Happen.
Failures too,
Over things that were not even on the table
As far as you knew.
Or know.

I mean,
I looked at this one thing
And thought,
I guess I failed.
But I didn’t even know it was up
for success or failure.
Maybe it’s just in my own mind.
If it was, is,
Just in my own mind,
I didn’t have all that much attached to it.
Which ever it was, is.
My reaction was, is,
Ok.
Next.

Cheap wine…
If I smoked I’d remark on cheap cigarettes,
But I don’t.
But the wine…
It’s about 40% less.
Taxes….

Money…
Flies out the window with a new house.
But yesterday I got some back
Unexpectedly.
Cool.
Enough to fly my son here
When he wants to come.
More cool.

Some curveballs….
Are good.
Bring you closer to where you really wanted to be.
Even if you didn’t know it.
Some are bad,
And hit you in the stomach.
But I’m betting,
In the end,
They still bring you closer to where you really wanted to be.

 

By Deborah E. Dayen

 

Awaiting Alchemy

Posted on by learning to live like water

chakra-alchemy

Everywhere I look I see his face.
Behind my 3rd Eye.
In my heart.
My solar plexus yearns for his touch to be mine.
My sacral longs to spill our love on each other.
My root longs to hold his hand
Forever grounded.
My throat chakra can only speak his name.
My crown chakra sends unconditional love
Down my spine, into his.

I am lost
I am found.
I am waylaid,
I move forward.
I spin,
I stand still.
I reach for him
Across the miles
And feel his touch in my dreams.

But reality evades me,
It cannot be.
Where do I go now?
I melt into a puddle
Awaiting alchemy.

The poetry I publish in my blog is for the most part, freshly written.  I wrote this poem months ago, and never published it.  Guess it was just too personal then.  Just found it, and thought I’d publish it now.

By Deborah E. Dayen

Picture from Google Images

How It Felt

Posted on by learning to live like water

blinded

Evening sets in
She lets go of the day,
The sun’s brightness blinded her
Today.
She welcomes in the night.

The shadows conceal her thoughts.
No one will see her melancholy brow,
Nor the tear she brushes from her cheek.

The things that happened slide through her mind.
Holding on to the golden thread
With which she tenderly secures them to her memory,
Anchoring herself in a swelled sea of emotion.

She remembers how it looked,
That gaze across the table.
The hushed voices in the quiet
Stars twinkling through the trees.

She remembers how it felt,
The heat in the dark,
The touch that connects.
The words left unspoken,
The laughter.
Oh yes, the laughter.

She smiles, then,
In the dark.
She remembers,
How it felt to love.
She’ll love again.
She hopes.
Love always, all ways.

Safe Passage

Posted on by learning to live like water

light-in-the-cracks

Trembling, seeking safe passage
Through unfamiliar pathways
Unlit by human fire
With timid steps I search
For the man who holds
The answers
Behind his golden eyes.

I don’t know where to find him.
I tiptoe down cobwebbed alleyways.
Instinctual, but
Shivering with fear,
I feel my way
Through the latticework of brokenness
Where the light from his eyes glows in the cracks.

The glowing light distorts my vision,
Makes me believe,
Though I should run.
Enigmatic, and magnetic,
I cannot escape the gaze I cannot see.
Endlessly I searched,
He remains out of sight.

Weary now, and weak
I beg relief.
Send me to the sea,
To the warm embrace of Neptune’s depths.
End my search for what cannot be found,
Dim the light that blinds my eyes.
Let me float far beneath the crashing waves
In the still waters of the deep.

By Deborah E. Dayen

Picture from Google Images

Bug Bite

Posted on by learning to live like water

She sat alone
Drinking red wine
Watching TV
Checking her Facebook

It was a calm day,
She was mellow.
And then….it happened.
She got bit.

By a mosquito?
Or a No-see-um.
But it itched and itched
And there was no assuaging the itch.

Bit by a bug
that kept reminding her
How helpless she was
In the face of a bug that bites.

Eleven (11)

Posted on by learning to live like water

eleven

The air was sweet
With the smell of salt water,
Mixed with the smell of breakfast and coffee.

It was warm, but not hot.
A slight breeze blew,
Cooling friends as they greeted
And talked quietly.

The man under the canopy
Played an acoustic guitar
While he sang
And played the harmonica.
He has a wonderful voice.

His wife sat with us
For awhile.
He’s an actor in his full time job,
She teaches acting.
She’s funny, and sweet.
They are a great couple.

He has a few CD’s,
And my other friend
Sings on one of them.
I’ll have to buy one next time I see him.
Probably Thursday.

I’ve fallen in,
With exactly the crowd I dreamed of.
Artists, creators
People who follow their own path,
And know what that path is.
They inspire me.

I met the man who runs the
Community garden.
It’s 4 houses down from me.
He’s a nice man,
A good man.

I told him,
Part of the reason I wanted to live here
Was that we saw
“Feed the World” gardens
along the sidewalk.

I wanted to live in a place
That does something like that.

So many people know my house.
The bright yellow one
With green trim
And orange shutters
On the corner,
Down the street
From the community garden.

Every time I pull in my driveway,
I love it more.

It’s a happy life here.
No dark shadows.
No memories of men
that I need to forget.
Every day is a new day
A new beginning.

An 11.
Like my house.
Avalon.

Bus. Busy. Business. Omibus. Busted. Bush. Bushwacking

Posted on by learning to live like water

socs-2016-badge

This post was written for the Stream of Consciousness Saturday writing prompt, SoCS, hosted by Linda G. Hill.  If you go to this site, https://lindaghill.com/2016/09/23/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-sept-2416/  you will get all the info should you wish to contribute.

The prompt this week was “bus”, to use as a word itself, or contained in a word. This is my attempt.

Bus. Busy. Business. Omibus. Busted. Bush. Bushwacking.

It’s been busy, of late.
Driving across country
Not in a bus.
In a car
With my son,
With my friend.

Moving.
The story of why
is an omnibus.
The reasons are varied,
And somewhat unrelated.

It’s a great thing,
To be able to just pack up and move
When and where you want.

It’s a great thing,
The business of options.
Leaving behind memories
Memories that bust my heart
Wide open.

They are not so intense here.

At times I want to recreate them.
For a moment.
For the business of longing to be abated.

That bus carries more pain in it’s cargo.
The past can’t be resurrected.
It creates the present,
And the present is different.

Some memories
I brought with me,
I never want them lost.
I never want to have to go
Bushwacking to remember
How those things felt,
Or what caused them.

Happiness runs like a bus.
Careening through the streets
Of my life.
Showing me new paths
New directions.
A new way to live.
It’s a great thing,
To be free.

By Deborah E. Dayen