Beginnings

Bouquets of the Ramshackle

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 9 Comments
wk 227 ramshackle
https://sammiscribbles.wordpress.com/2021/09/18/weekend-writing-prompt-227-ramshackle/

https://amanpan.com/category/eugis-prompts/

With ramshackle shards
Of heart, soul, self
Falling away like the browned petals
Of a long-wilted bouquet,
We create a riotous noise
In ramshackle attempts
To find some connection.

Lumbering, awkward attempts
At reaching out to touch once again,
To replace, to freshen 
The brown wilted and missing parts
With new bouquets of spring
Whose stems sit in eternally
Fresh, clean waters.

We dream of a life lived
No longer ramshackle,
With no long-wilted bouquets
Of a past to haunt with falling petals,
But a life returning whole,
To move without noise
Through the world once again.

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.

 

 

 

Whispered Tales

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 8 Comments
Image courtesy of Pinterest.com

A phoenix rises in flames

From out the left side of my chest

With feathers of flame yet,

Set free to fly where it wills.

 

One day, it will return,

Nuzzling deep inside my chest again,

All the ashes gone,

All flame having died away,

Its fiery colored feathers

Whispering, singing to my blood

Of beauty seen,

Of tantalizing things touched,

Of all the air breathed, smelled, felt,

Of the sounds soft and harsh heard

All along the way around the earth.

 

Through the whispered tales

Of those fiery feathers

My blood will tell me

Where I am to go.

 

Decision on a Birdfeeder

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 4 Comments
image courtesy of publicdomainpictures.net

 

I hesitate in remembrance

as if the fates would choose

a day of gray and leave me there,

as if a blossoming could be had upon

a second visitation to any day.

 

The creamer clouds disperse and swirl

in my extra strong coffee

like memories of things I wanted–

never had, never attained

all those years ago.

 

Stirring the coffee still,

I stare out the kitchen window.

Decide against a bird feeder

filled with black oil sunflower seeds.

I do not want cardinals here.

People say cardinals are spirits

of those you’ve lost come to visit you—

No.  I want no cardinals here.

No spirits of the lost to visit or say hello.

No twittering or chittering away.

No vibrancy of color outside this window.

No.  Not here.  Not in this place.

 

I’d rather this be a spiritless place,

A virgin place, void of spirits, void of touch—

 

At least for a time

 

 

 

Sleeplessness

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 2 Comments
Image courtesy of Wikiart.com

Sleeplessness always told the story

Between the here and the now

The between and

What she thought a game

The tracks that led to nowhere

The last section of a living

Something not well lived

A swirl of memory

Piercing through knots

could not be undone

She had lived with no plan

With only a heart that failed

More than once

A heart she could not ever trust

A heart that spoke in religious tongues

She’d yet to understand

Its rhyme or reason for speaking

In lies and whispers,                                            

For leading her astray,

For leading her to abandon her dreams and plans,

She would never know.

This was her last act, in her last years,

To strip herself of harlequin clothes.

 

Who I am

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 10 Comments
Image courtesy of Wallpaperbetter.com

VJ’s Weekly Challenge #123: warrior – One Woman’s Quest II

I tire

Slaying demons,

Not my thing.

 

I’ve chased

Misplaced

Braced

For the reckoning

Of evil deeds.

I’ve offered up my neck

To bring utter happiness

And still—

Nothing would do

Till cutting myself in half

To dig, dig, dig deeper,

Bury the self beneath the soil–

The dirt of need, want, desire

Lay it all to rest in the infertile

Grime, the level of your rule,

To be consumed by rot

Of prayers you pretend to answer,

But you are neither God nor Goddess,

Despite all your pretentiousness.

 

In this, this turning away,

I offer up prayers

To God and Goddess that truly be,

And I do lay down the sword

I used in battle with myself:

Thus, I become the warrior

I was meant to be.

Your Darkness

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 3 Comments
Image courtesy of Pinterest

Ripples of a soul

Touching mine

To find, to feel such joy–

 

There is nothing

Of eloquence in luck.

Only brutality

To be had

In coincidence.

Nothing of sustenance

In fate or destiny.

 

So, show me not the good side.

No best foot forward

Do I want to see.

We are damned and damaged all

From the emptiness

Of first impressions.

 

I care not to taste the beauty

Within your soul.

But I thirst for the darkness

Of all the monsters

You have hidden away.

Display for me

The ugliness of all your demons

Dazzle me with blackest diamonds shining

Within the soul of your devil’s self.

 

Then let me decide

Not by beauty dazed,

But by darkest of demon devils unfazed

To know and love you

Anyway.

Petals of the Dead

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 16 Comments
Image courtesy of Pinterest
https://freeverserevolution.wordpress.com/2020/09/14/september-writing-prompt-3-2/

I tossed them away

Some time ago–

Petals of the dead.

Some flowers taken

From above the six-foot holes

I have stood over,

Frozen in the emptiness

Of an empty hole

About to be filled.

Some flowers taken

From birthday and anniversary

Bouquets of celebration,

Marking years of bitter happiness.

Most flowers taken

From a wedding bouquet

Of vows taken, kept,

A reminder of vows abandoned.

 

Petals of the dead kept

Out of wretched sentimentalism

I burned upon the pyre

With myself.

Then climbed a new self

Of burnished bronze

From the flames.

 

Meditations on Forgiveness

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 5 Comments
Image courtesy of Pinterest

summer hot, humid

kills desire of sweetness

flowers forgiveness

 

falls decaying death

forgiveness dead leaves lifeless

blacken a gift heart

 

winter freezing ice

a cold weapon forgiveness

to cut the giver

 

spring new life begins

forgiveness lifeless, no seed

to plant, grow—never

 

The bird of flame rises

From the ashes in my chest—

Ash of forgiveness

Never given.

 

Sights of Sunlight and Night

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 11 Comments
My Own Image
https://onewomansquest.org/2020/08/17/vjs-weekly-challenge-109-what-a-sight/
https://godoggocafe.com/2020/08/18/tuesday-writing-prompt-challenge-august-18-2020/

Eugi’s Weekly Prompt “Night meets Day” August 17, 2020

What a sight the years have been!

Skipped a few heartbeats

walking through the valley,

found nothing new.

I sailed an ocean

didn’t dance as I’d wanted too.

In the desert,

I played a little poker,

winning the game, some money,

but still didn’t know what to do.

Then I thought I’d found a dream,

waking from the nightmare,

I screamed to see

the sight beside me.

Now, I journey onward

to catch the sunlight

as night meets day,

greeting what new sights

I encounter along the way.