healing

Song of My Sisters

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 5 Comments
Image courtesy of Storytrender.com

A daily battle with memories,

Offering emptiness,

Even the sparkle of gem like happiness,

Leaving small smiles for the moment—

Before tears begin.

Standing separated

From the ashes and earth

We once kissed and touched so tenderly,

All we embrace now—air,

Some ephemeral being of memory

As voice and smile and laughter fade.

Some of us,

Too many, told too often,

By those once precious, counted family,

Our grief, less than, less meaningful,

Really nothing more than dust,

Containing no rawness of a bloody heart.

Thus, I voice, singing the lament

Of my sisters in widowhood,

As we wait for our souls to soar–

To take flight once again.

When each in her turn is ready,

Able to begin,

Renewed,

Emerging, uncurling, however slowly,

From our blanketing storm clouds of grief,

Wings wet, drying in the sun.

Guarded Trail

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 10 Comments
Image courtesy of Sue Vincent
Thursday photo prompt: Guarded #writephoto | Sue Vincent’s Daily Echo (scvincent.com)

Give me a minute.

Let me have another cup of coffee,

Will you?

Before I slosh on after,

Down the trail–

Again– maybe.

You say, a guard now stands there,

Of the newer variety,

Who advises of the locust thorns,

The kind that pierces the shoe

And can go straight into your foot?

Could have used that advice–

Once or twice

Maybe thrice

In life.

But now I’ve rubbed my thumbs

Over the sharp tipped thorns of regret

Until callouses formed.

Then I moved on to other

Fingertips until bloody, raw,

Proving to myself the sharpness of thorns.

So now, you say this stony guardian warns

Of all the thorns

Along the paths and trails?

Might this guardian advise of a thornless trail?

I really wouldn’t care, but the soles of my feet

Are without callous, and I’d like to keep them so.

Send me down a muddy, sloshy trail where

I might just fall and break my neck.

That would be simply fine,

If the soles of my feet

Remain as soft and unmarred

as a baby’s behind.

The Sixth New Year

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 6 Comments

The year ends with heavy rains

As if to wash us all clean

Of the leavings and grime.

 

Now, standing with each year

For each foot of earth

Between us forever—

I gather to me

Broken pieces of colored glass

And think of—

 

Just after midnight,

An early morning

Long before dawn—

The third day of a new year six years ago,

You left in blinding, flooding rains.

 

If only on this third day

Of this new year—

I could open the earth

And roll a stone away,

Bringing you back from under

This six feet of earth.

 

But I have neither the strength

Nor the talent

For miracles great or small

When most days

There is not enough

Left over to become

A mosaic of brokenness.

 

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.

What My Dogs Teach Me

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 3 Comments
Image is my own

Vanishing in the light of dawn,
Reflection slowly fading away–
Terrified at being lost,
Horrified at never being found

Discovering there was nothing
Left to be gained–
To be had,
Nothing left to want–
Left to desire.

Only time stood in the way
Of the time when a child
knows how to play.
A time so long ago,
Really, if a child ever knew
The luxury of play
Such is the childhood
Of a child who parents the parent–
The deficit of play

So in the return of a reflection,
To fading back into skin,
Gaining a discovery
Of the need, the desire
To play, to become at times,
The child who had never been
Allowed to be.

The Witch of Frost

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 9 Comments
Image courtesy of Pinterest (Pathfinder)

I burned The Witch of Frost,

Melted away her power,

 

So–

 

I am no longer

Bewitched by frost

In chilling climes.

 

Neither am I

 

Spellbound by lighted

Fires of fake fantastical

Promises of ghosts—

 

Nor can I hear

 

Whispering words meant

To warm you against the frost

Of lies used to charm,

Bewitching you

Into believing

Frost’s chilling, icy burn

Is desire’s fire warming.

 

 

https://amanpan.com/2020/10/26/eugis-weekly-prompt-bewitched-october-26-2020/
https://onewomansquest.org/2020/10/26/vjs-weekly-challenge-119-frost/

A Witch Among the Willows

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 13 Comments
Image courtesy of fast-growing-trees.com

Sit among the willows,

drifting in ghostly silence,

each wrapped comforted

by misery’s blanket.

Except I am no longer,

listening to words

 

carefully scripted,

tumbling into deceit’s

delicious dishes

 

easily prepared

by your thin lips mouthing words

filled with ghost meaning.

 

Regurgitated regrets

bitter in the soul and heart–

I can tell you that.

 

A thing you would not

ever know, catalyst of misery,

your starring role.

 

Except–

 

tell-tale signs of age

now crackle through songs of your

sweet, deceitful voice,

 

makes harder to catch

victims snared in misery

of life trials made.

 

Stop floating among

the willows, thinking yourself

Calypso casting

 

spells of delicious

deceit, when you’ve aged into

Macbeth’s witch drifting

in the ghostly fog of ego.

https://godoggocafe.com/2020/10/20/tuesday-writing-prompt-challenge-tuesday-october-20-2020/
https://onewomansquest.org/2020/10/19/vjs-weekly-challenge-117-except/
https://amanpan.com/2020/10/19/eugis-weekly-prompt-ghostly-october-19-2020-%f0%9f%91%bb/

Autumn Dawn

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 6 Comments
Image is my own
https://freeverserevolution.wordpress.com/2020/10/19/oct-4-ripples/

Ignoring the ripples doesn’t work,

Beautiful though they may be

In the early light of an autumn dawn.

 

The ripples return.

Their warmth long gone,

Drained of blood.

 

Injected with colors of autumn’s dawn,

They look full, alive with mysterious meaning.

 

But cold these ripples remain

In their return to me.

 

Time shifts,

Tilting beneath my feet.

 

I shutter and stare, a moment only—

I cannot weave these cold things

Into a useful thing, resembling you.

Schooled

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 7 Comments
Image courtesy of Daily Hive
https://amanpan.com/2020/10/12/eugis-weekly-prompt-foresight-october-12-2020/
https://godoggocafe.com/2020/10/13/tuesday-writing-prompt-challenge-october-13-2020/

 

In the fading light,

My hindsight schools, lectures, drills

My foresight

In how to take steps,

In how to look away,

In how to live hopeless,

In how to heal with saltwater dreams

Overflowing with hope.

Yet still with foresight

In how to guard,

My scars, my wounds,

My picked at scabs

In this

fading light of days

Unfilled,

Lived,

Cheered,

Flowering with dreams,

Left

Of life remaining.