I know it is no big deal to many of you who use your real names on your blogs. But I have used two pen names since starting this blog shortly after the death of my wife. I was still teaching, and my daughter was still in high school. Although the LGBTQ community has made great strides in being accepted by society, there is still prejudice. Being in education, I still had to be careful. Additionally, much of my writing comes from my experiences. Hence, some of my work centers on my daughter. Therefore, I wanted to protect her privacy as well. However now that I am retired and after lengthy consideration, I have decided to dispense with the pen names I have been using. I changed the domain name a few months ago when the old domain encountered issues with being shared on Facebook. I never did figure that problem out but changing the domain which included my real surname fixed the problem. I believe it was the April Writing Prompt Challenge—I am more than Breath and Bone– from Christine Ray, Brave and Reckless.com, that provided the impetus which spurred me to use my real name. The poem that came out of responding to that prompt was a recognition of what my mother and foremothers have done for and given me. I have tried to raise my daughter to be proud of herself, her family, and her two moms. If I hide behind a pen name, am I teaching her pride? Am I doing what my mother and foremothers have done for me? If I hide behind a pen name, am I “holding up the mountains” for her as was done for me? But I needed it to be okay with her. So, I asked her how she felt about it. What if her friends stumble across some of my work? What if they saw something that was about her? She responded with complete honesty and clarity, “Well, Mom. It’s your writing. If they do, they do.” So, with that, my name is Annette Kalandros, and I will be using my real name from this point forward.
The Nomad
I have lived a nomad
Inside my own life.
I have wandered
From old homes
To new, attempting
Always to find a fit,
A place my tent could forever rest.
A time or two, maybe three,
I took rest in the heart of another,
Feeling blessed for a time of such
Delightful comfort,
Yet I’ve never found a place
to end my nomadic travels,
A ceaseless, endless
Restlessness.
Written as part of Sammiscribbles.wordpress.com writing prompt where one is given a word, in this case NOMAD, and must write a poem or short fiction piece in exactly 68 words.
Catacomb of Colors
I can hide in catacombs of colors and never look to the sky.
My blood shed, bled out in tiny droplets of all the years of parting,
dripping, draining in the darkness
And carried away, scattered to the winds,
Leavings upon the ground, seedless seeds,
Sprouting up in colorless flowers of summer without colors,
Without the dreams of sunlight on their faces,
Without fragrance sweet, divinity in scents we can never forget lost.
We learn to live with regrets taken, earned, packed away
With the mortgage of things within our hearts, within our lifetimes of meaning,
Within our trying just one more damn time,
Drifting up in clouds of long-ago cigarette smoke.
Crush this dried out husk of me,
Scatter those particles of dust to the wind
And see if colors sprout once that dust settles upon the ground,
See if there’s meaning left within their regrets,
See if there’s fragrance, some elegance of divinity within a scent
To be remembered when there is nothing,
Nothing left but this wisp of memory
Within your breath.
Let go my hand, love. Leave me wrapped in the shroud
Of all my days and regrets shared along the way
To here, this time of parting. Leave me to hide away
In this catacomb of colors.
Horrid Spring
Wind and rain
Of this horrid spring
Whips us to perfection
Of brokenness being
Beaten souls
That we are
In this time of need
And want of touch.
Our loneness sheltered
Bodies, our silence shattered souls,
Contoured colors of minds
Restrained our madness
In this once upon a time.
If only to wake in the warmth
Of human skin upon skin
Once again in some perfumed swirl
Contained in believing a speck of faith
Preserved as a fly in amber.
That fly who found rest
In warm liquid ooze
But was never to escape.
Yes, grateful to escape to
This fitful rest though, yes,
It is, indeed, blessed.
My mind scatters,
Struggles to find a train of thought
To ride in peace from one station
To the next, make a trip to the elegance
Of a dining car, white glove service
And all else– in contrast—
To this vast emptiness—
With which to wrestle like Jacob,
But my soul has long been crippled.
All the trains left the station,
Ran circles around my heart,
Chugging on into the tunnels
To find there isn’t much
In expectation on the other side
Of those darkened tunnels.
No light, no light,
Just a cold grey
Of a horrid spring.
A Prayer
I walk my dog by the children at play.
I must stop to admire a small girl upon the swings,
Kicking her feet straight out and leaning her body back,
A challenge to the dimensions of air,
A brave heart to dare push her feet against the height of the sky.
Yes, this girl, smiling in the joy of her challenge and dares,
Will carry her brave heart into her youth,
And, I hope for her, she will carry it to her grave,
Dying with the bravest of hearts.
Unlike me, who carries a heart tucked away
Inside this lidded vase kept upon a shelf.
Arrival of Spring
Spring arrived
Barely seen.
Our eyes turned inward.
Suspicious of air,
We could not take spring
Deeply into our lungs,
Feel the warmth of it on our skin,
Taste the freshness of it on our tongues
For fear.
We counted our first born
And tried prayer.
Had we forgotten the blood of the lamb
Above the lintel?
We sought protection in distance,
longing for human touch.
Hate and fear drained us.
We grew weary hearing–
Wash your hands
Don’t touch your face
Wash your hands
Prayed Mother Mary full of grace
Six to ten feet apart we must stand
We feared to touch
Our mothers
Our fathers
Our sisters
Our brothers
Our sons
Our daughters
And longed–
All the more–
For touch.
Yes, this will make us aware—
Appreciate what now
We could not do.
Yes, we would improve,
We would appreciate all.
Technology would see us through.
Somewhere in our collective soul
We had doubts, questions–
We had to know–
Hadn’t there been signs?
HIV, Ebola, Bird flu, Swine flu,
Zika, West Nile too,
All killers, all unseen—
Hurricanes, droughts,
Famines, earthquakes—
Natural disasters ripping
The world to shreds.
Had we done this to ourselves?
We hadn’t been the good stewards
We were charged to be.
Drowning seas with plastic, killing bees,
Melting ice caps, making greenhouse gases–
Killing the mother God gave us.
We hadn’t loved each other as we were loved,
As we were instructed to do.
Then our arrogance, a weed within our souls grew.
We killed, pillaged, maimed, raped, started wars–
For the one skin that made us master,
For the name of God, the only one to worship,
For riches, since the strong should prey upon the weak,
For gender, after all women were things to use,
For sexuality, holy books said there’s but one way to love,
For everything was ours to take.
We’d killed each other
For these grotesquely grandiose ideas,
While calling ourselves Godly,
Saying our actions were sanctioned
By our God, our religion.
Only we knew the natural order of things.
In pride, we claimed
Where we walked—
Holy Ground.
Then guilt filled our lungs,
We finally questioned—
Was this it–
The fourth seal broken?
Had the pale rider been loosed
Upon the land?
While wanting to believe
It was all simply science.
Drying Time
Turn toward the hours passed.
Size them and arrange.
Let soak in dyes of prism colors
As the minutes pass away and then
Lift them, dripping dye,
To hang in the warming sun
Over tight strung wire.
Watch the colors drip, splashing on the floor.
Wet splotches collecting in puddles
Of liquid silk to be mopped away
As the hours drip colored dye
In the drying of time.
Ash and Blood
Ash soft upon the brow.
Atonement drifts
On frankincense smoke.
No one ever seeks
To wear the stigmata
Upon hands and feet.
There be no martyrs here.
Confessions worn down
By touching whispers
Of brokenness.
A shattered seeking
Of what heals in ash and blood,
Whispering of saints and sinners.
Wingless prayers spoken for things lost
In a darkness of light.
The wish of a murdered truth
Contained in dusty grey skies
Of wanting and desire
Sought over again–
To now seek and send a trembling
Hand to reach with no strength to grasp–
For a soul too wearied
From the grinding away
Of trying.
Wild and Tame
Originally written in July of 2015. Revised 2020.
My friend, the squirrel, sits at my feet.
I wonder perhaps should I be sitting at his.
He is tame
Unlike me.
I have peanuts for him.
He knows.
He is willing to wait
And teach me
All the lessons he knows
Of a heart
That is wild
Yet tame.
I marvel at all
That is contained
Within his tiny heart.
The joys of peanuts and sunflower seeds,
Being unafraid in the face of strangers,
And making friends so easily,
Of finding a home among things lush and green,
Knowing no fear to leap
Into things unknown.
Will he instruct me
In the ways to live once again
And move on?
Tell me to remove these rings
Linked to a grief buried beneath grey granite?
Can he share with me the lesson
Of what to do with all things circular,
New and old grief– link upon link of chain?
Teach me the ways of letting go?
The ways of living without fears
To staunch the bleeding of wounds
Both new and so very old?
Is this the meaning
Of being wild and tamed?
Tears of Fire
Originally posted in August of 2017. However, after driving from Dallas to Houston to take care of some business with having a home built and experiencing nearly deserted roads because of the lock downs and quarantines, I thought I’d touch it up a bit and post it again.
The seven descend.
Each with wings spread
Enough to fill a house.
Shalom not upon their tongues.
Throughout the compass points
They search to find
All the gnawed bones,
The muscles and sinew,
The heart and entrails
Torn with teeth of hate.
And once the seven
Found all the tiny bits,
With flaming swords
Used as needles,
They did try to stitch
All humanity’s bloody bits
Into one thing well knit.
Neither their swords,
Nor spirit of their breath
Did have the power to seal
The meat and sinew to bone.
And then they knew
Those who showed no mercy
Would be given none.
Their heads hung
Inshallah upon their lips
As they ascend.
Their flaming eyes
Weeping tears of fire
As they saw the pale rider
Striding across the land.
The seven knew humanity’s
Avarice and hate
Had broken the fourth seal.
Maa shaa’Allah a whisper of smoke
Within their throats.
Their flaming eyes
Still weeping tears of fire.
Hearing The Mermaids Sing 