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Song of My Sisters

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 7 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.

Angels Call

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 3 Comments
Image courtesy of PixelsTalk.Net
Weekend Writing Prompt #197 – Call | Sammi Cox (wordpress.com)

 

angels call, singing for a while,

watching us,

aping things they’d heard, saw,

obsessing over things                                            

we tossed away–

time, primarily–

angels lost feathers, attempting to understand

our tossing away time like used tissues, soiled food tins–

when we held little.

 

 

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.

As The World Burns – Out Now!

~ Annette Kalandros ~ Leave a comment

Now available! So honored and so excited about the work in this anthology.

TheFeatheredSleep

Indie Blu(e) Publishing are very proud to announce the publication of As The World Burns. Our third socially-aware anthology. As The World Burns is available via all good book stores in Kindle and softback NOW. It is an incredible collection of writers, many of whom are from WordPress and are in our writing groups, writing some of our favorite work. We hope you will support them and our efforts to spread awareness of socially vital subjects. If you have felt frustrated with politics, Covid-19, Black Lives Matter, Homophobia or any of the things happening ‘as the world burns’ this is the collection for you.

We dedicate this anthology to those who have bravely fought the  encroaching darkness in 2020 with their writing and their art,  and who insist that racism, sexism, homophobia, and war are  not inevitable, or acceptable, facets of the human condition.  As The World Burns is a story of…

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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.

The Last Supper

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 5 Comments
Image courtesy of Wikipedia: Leonardo Da Vinci, The Last Supper

Lives ruined in place–

ego upon a pedestal

basks in sunshine

yet never feels

unless destroying green things

in the softness of evening

when moon and sun fill

the evening skies

of shorter days–

time no longer

a forgotten toy

thrown by the wayside

but an ornament of luxury

I wish I could hold close

within my hands without

it leaks between my fingers

marking any signs of reverence

as if with blood irony–

all the while the rest cough

green phlegm of ill regard.

 

On the walls fling the words of meaning,

clichés all—of love and family,

of time so very treasured,

the welcome of strangers

without the pillar of salt,

the love of neighbors in a city quest,

and asking, pleading how have we hid

the monsters we do hide within our homes,

within our churches,

within our souls and hearts–

the monsters, the demons we cannot exorcise

since we cannot stand to see our own

face within our reflections upon time,

creation, connections to the past—

when we cannot acknowledge

the face of God hidden away

from the reflection of our own faces,

in the faces of others, the face of God

hidden away, void of the divine,

as are we consumed with consuming

vitriol for anything, for everything

remotely resembling the other.

 

 

 

Mad World Creativity Prompt Challenge: A White Mad World – Annette Kalandros

~ Annette Kalandros ~ Leave a comment

I am honored to be featured on braveandreckless.com as part of the Creativity Challenge: Mad World.

Brave & Reckless

The number of our destruction smacked us in the face,

But too many didn’t want to see.

They liked the words they heard,

Shrinking their ever-enlarging world:

–Where you walk is holy

(as long as you got thousand-dollar shoes)

–We don’t care! Just wanna keep up with a Kardashian or two.

–I ain’t wearin’ no mask. Ain’t nobody gonna tell me what to do!

–Who the hell cares if a black man can’t breathe? Cuz he shouldn’t

give a cop a reason to put a knee on his neck!

The seven tentacles touched us to the core

Long, long before:

–It’s all you can eat!

–Trade in that old husband or wife for a new, sexier model!

–Who wants to work that hard! Buy college scores!

–We’re so much better than those Mexicans, Blacks, Queers, Muslims,

those shithole countries.

–Drop a bomb! Just drop the fuckin’ bomb on the bastards!

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