Author: Annette Kalandros

The Embroideress

~ Annette Kalandros ~ Leave a comment
Image courtesy of picClick
 
 

 

Like some ancient voodoo priestess,

Fears sits and smiles from her rocking chair.

Tilting her gray head to her work at hand,

Fear embroiders in red thread

The narratives of my old scars.

She stitches in orange and green thread

The flowers of my poorly made cobwebbed choices.

She stitches in black thread

The vanquished vines of  all my loss and pain.

She stitches in yellow thread

Her flowers of caution at the edges,

All the while chanting an ancient spell,

Giving her stitched yellow flowers

Magic to steal any power in the air,

Paralyzing– daring the pulse.

 

Fear stitches away in red thread

On the last cloth of daring I’ve left,

And I, I am paralyzed by the stitching made.

 

 

 

Heaven?

~ Annette Kalandros ~ Leave a comment
Image courtesy of istock

Tuesday Writing Prompt Challenge June 15, 2021 | Go Dog Go Café (godoggocafe.com)

 

Have I seen Heaven in her eyes?  You ask.

Can anyone see heaven in the eyes of another

Is what I must ask.

 

I have seen love, the soft one,

Take a seat and

Settle comfortably

In the eyes of others.

 

I have seen hatred, the snake,

Uncoil and dance,

Spitting venom at everything and everyone,

From the eyes of others.

 

Too often, I have seen death, the thief,

Steal all the treasures from the eyes

Of those I loved,

Leaving them hollow and emptied out.

 

I have seen other things

In the eyes of others

Along these long years

But heaven—

I don’t really think so.

 

I may be too old to see such a wonder

Or too young yet to know it

When I see it.

 

So, to answer,

I would have to say, no.

No, I have not seen

Heaven in her eyes.

 

The Words Rebel

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 8 Comments 
I had an argument with all my words today. 

For they would not stay 

in their delightfully organized spots.

Seems, if you will, 

they wanted to jump around and play, 

ignoring the sense of my color coded dots.



I must admit I lost my patience, yelling, 

“We will never accomplish 

anything useful if you play 

In this most rambunctious way.”



To this, they in unison whined,  

“Why must we be serious all the damn time?”



And to that, I could not provide argument.

Thus, we decided to play

And took a vacation today.

The Rabbit

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 9 Comments
Image courtesy of Unsplash

https://amanpan.com/2021/06/10/eugis-weekly-prompt-nature-june-10-2021

When trying to respond to Eugenia’s prompt this week, this poem, which I posted a couple of years ago kept coming into my head, and no matter how I tried, it would not go away. In this reposting, it is my hope that it serves some purpose. Perhaps, someone will gather something from it.

 

A rabbit stilled,

Motionless, as if frozen

In the summer grass

 

Only her nose twitched, flared

The scent of wrongness–

A touch upon the air,

 

And she knew

Only flight carried safety

Flight, the right choice to make—

If she could only still move.

 

But she could stand only statue still

And standing so, the trap sprung

Steel teeth clamping down,

Slicing through skin,

Chewing through chunks of muscle

As she struggled,

Daring not to scream

As screams would bring the predators.

This she knew too well.

 

The trap now biting into bone,

Her struggles stopped.

Her panting calmed.

Her head rested upon the grass.

One eye looked to a cloudless sky.

She prayed for strength to chew

Through bone.

 

The Itch

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 4 Comments
Image courtesy of Egypttoday.com

https://godoggocafe.com/2021/06/08/tuesday-writing-prompt-challenge-tuesday-june-8-2021/

Today’s prompt: Write a poem that uses the words “weary”, “nails”, and “mind control”

I weary.

Weary of the white noise

Spitting out layers

Striated stone

Of itching mind control,

Of mica and gypsum

Rough, itchy flakes

Others carved out for me

To keep me in what they

Saw as my place.

My nails worn down, bloody raw

To relieve the itch from time to time

The itch that speaks the words

I know are not true

But still have the power

Of stone to crush the ribs

Of my soul with the weight

Of their damnable tonnage

That I am not enough of anything

Not smart enough

Not pretty enough

Not thin enough

Not good enough

For anything or anyone

Yes, I know—

None of it is true—

The stone skin

I’ve worn down

Over all these years,

The itch rarely there.

But sometimes—

Sometimes—

The itch returns—

Vicious, relentless

Until my nails,

Bloody and raw,

Leave me weary.

Yet still,

Still, I now create

My own place.

Meadows of Distance

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 12 Comments
Image courtesy of texashighways.com

https://amanpan.com/2021/06/03/eugis-weekly-prompt-meadows-june-3-2021/

The meadows between here and there,

an impediment now,

like the roads, sky, cities.

I’ve no time, no time

to appreciate the colorful heads of wildflowers

or any verdant greens of tall roadside grasses,

or swaying graceful golds of fields.

All these measuring meadows of distance—

           Sky, road, cities, fields–

meadows of separation,

meadows of longing,

meadows of want—

           should know a burnless flame        

 

Washed

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 9 Comments
At the Beach – Image by KL Caley

https://new2writing.wordpress.com/2021/06/03/writephoto-beach/#like-5743

( An older poem written in 2015 while in Provincetown, MA.  Revised for this week’s writephoto challenge.)

At sunrise over water,

        Remembering as if in a dream  

The child and you and me

As we stood by a sea

Half a world away.

Both of you now baptized differently by my tears.

 

And for and from you,

I am left with things neither given

Nor felt in years,

 Linked by all the fears

To form over a decade of a life

Lived like a stranger

In my own shrinking skin.

 

I have stood

Since the dawn

At this ocean’s edge

Waiting, waiting.

And now at noon

The rain begins.

Fierce pelting blows

Washing me clean

Of all I know

Or dare to dream.

 

For living continues

Within my own skin