Love

Dear Robert Frost

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 8 Comments
Image is my own. Taken at the Hockney/ Van Gogh exhibit

VJ’s Weekly Challenge: roads – One Woman’s Quest II (onewomansquest.org)

Before this moment,

All roads coalesced into one,

The present, the now.

Then,

Seeing this wall of roads,

I cannot help but ask

Where each road would have, could have

Led.

Different places, people–

Certainly, yes.

The mind swirls,

Possibilities,

A Tilt-A-Whirl—

A daughter lost?

The fetal tissue of a son not lost?

A different daughter born?

A heart not broken by cancer?

All the rewinds and fast forwards

Of a life of lived down different roads

Of different choices made along each way–

All the differences of each win and loss

And every other thing implied by this wall

And dear Robert Frost—

 

The choices I’ve made

Gave me this now,

This daughter,

For whom I would give my life,

Rather than trade.

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.

Mystical Fields

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 14 Comments
Image courtesy of Superiorwallpapers.com
https://amanpan.com/2020/10/05/eugis-weekly-prompt-mystical-october-5-2020/

Meet me in the field

Where heather sways with the wind

Through time we will live.

 

Life, never a friend,

Kept us from knowing true joy,

Meet me in the field,

 

Where loss is gaining

And grief blossoms into joy

Meet me where gold grows.

No Disaster

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 4 Comments
Image courtesy of Shutterstock.com
https://godoggocafe.com/2020/09/08/tuesday-writing-prompt-challenge-tuesday-september-8-2020/
 

As if I’d eaten some ancient grain

Meant for those of a long dead warrior hearted strain

I strengthen myself with tears. 

 

Over the bare years

Only you knew innocence

Truth, ruin in seas–

 

Imagined decades

No time for flowers and aches

Realize in drifting

 

Down years– no disaster

Were you in the end,

We were just a moment.

Of Need and Desire

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 7 Comments
Image courtesy of Sue Vincent
https://scvincent.com/2020/08/06/thursday-photo-prompt-fantasy-writephoto/

So very willingly,

I placed my head into danger’s toothy mouth

When I climbed the Pilgrim’s stairs–

Until dizzy from the height,  

And the steepness of the effort–

All done to look upon

A pure crystalline blue sky

Caressing a sapphire sea—

A fantasy of need.

Charms

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 5 Comments
Image from BBC Culture- The Strange Power of the Evil Eye

Serrated edges of your secrets

Sliced open my chest long ago.

Yet, I carried those secrets

Across the borders of decades.

I guarded those secrets like gemstones.

I wore them as talismans,

Good luck charms, rubbing each

Like burnished bronze of ages old.

Why have I kept them so?

I do not know.

 

The Watcher

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 10 Comments
Image courtesy of Sue Vincent Thursday Photo Prompt Challenge
For visually challenged writers, the image shows a flower-strewn cliff-top above the sea, where a rocky outcrop, seemingly shaped into many forms and faces, looks out over the waves.
This week’s prompt ~ Guardian
https://scvincent.com/2020/05/28/thursday-photo-prompt-guardian-writephoto/

The guardian watches the sea,

Waiting patiently

For the return of old ones

Who long ago slipped away

Out to sea, speaking

Words of promise,

Words of return–

Not unlike your words to me.

Like you, the old ones

Will not return,

Lost in an ocean

Of time long forgotten.

They found new homes

Where to light their fires,

Burning away old, shriveled desires,

Burning away the salt of the sea,

And the dirt of old known shores.

 

The guardian waits,

Like a widow upon her widow’s walk,

Staring out to sea.

But as I have finished waiting,

 I must walk away.

Color Dreams

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 3 Comments

https://godoggocafe.com/2020/05/26/tuesday-writing-prompt-challenge-tuesday-may-26-2020/

Today’s prompt: End a piece of prose or poetry with the phrase “I miss you”

 

Don’t know what to do

when I dream of you.

Waking, I want to drench

my brain in pure bleach,

soaking it through,

until all the colors of you

out of my soul leach

and no longer do I miss you.

Lies We Tell Ourselves

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 2 Comments

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image from Pinterest

The lies we tell ourselves
Such sparkling things.

Belief needed in the moment–
See diamonds, rubies, sapphires,
Gold, treasures to cherish.
Let the mirror reflect
The lies to eyes
And souls
In needing desire.
Do not hold them in harsh sun.
Too thin,
Too frail,
Too fragile
To withstand such blazing light.

Gently bury them deep
Beneath the soil
Of a needing heart
And the damp decay
Of foolish wants.
Let the lies take root
Growing into the very soul.

Believing
The lies
We tell ourselves,
We smile
To keep
The truth at bay,
As the lies grow
The rot of hopelessness
Into our very souls.