#Loss

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

 

 

 

The Price

~ Annette Kalandros ~ Leave a comment
Image is my own

Weekend Writing Prompt #194 – Beguile | Sammi Cox (wordpress.com)

Wish I could rest beguiled–

Believing willingly in soft whispered lies

If only for this little while of rest

As if slipping easily between

The waxen petals of lilies

And curling round the sweetened smell

Of wonderous blossoming softness—

Yet the price, the price of choosing

The rest of such beguilement

 

Thirsting

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 4 Comments
image courtesy of Dreamtime

Emptied vault opens,

casts leavings of shriveled seeds

beyond redemption.

 

Between the edges

nothing could penetrate here,

wind, rain, tears—nothing.

 

Sound had no life here,

dying in small deaths of emptiness,

eternal silence.

 

A life damaged beyond

repair, encased by cold stone,

a life of shriveled seeds,

lived in a stone vault—

lightless, soundless

thirsting.

https://sammiscribbles.wordpress.com/2020/10/24/weekend-writing-prompt-180-vault/#comments

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.

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.

 

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.

Jagged

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 7 Comments

Written in response to:

https://onewomansquest.org/2020/05/11/vjs-weekly-challenge-95-bits-and-pieces/

Pieces broke away,
pebbles and stones
chipped from a boulder.
The edge of a pane of glass
broken off, no longer smoothly square,
but rough ridged like a broken thumb nail,
begging to be filed away.

Pieces broken away,
missing in wordlessness,
cannot be found.
Jig saw together the rest,
glue, duct tape,
what is left,
never to imitate new, unbroken.

Broken, hollowed parts,
make for an ever incomplete,
an always abyss
to fall headlong into,
always a scratchy roughness to scrape
a knee, an elbow, a hand.
Always a sharp edge to slice open
an abdomen, an arm, a femoral artery, a throat.

No. No. No.
Everything, everything
at once, best kept at arm’s length.
Never can such wounds be allowed
in the here,
in the now.

Sweeter Morning

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 10 Comments
image courtesy of The View from Great Island

Warm now on the edge of summer.

Still, I shiver gathering coffee to my lips.

I war with the craving for a cigarette.

When I take the morning deep into my chest,

The air lacks nicotine.

Years since I kicked that habit,

Yet some mornings it does seem

Nothing could be finer

Than caffeine and nicotine—

But it would not be you and me

Starting our day outside on the covered patio,

Watching for butterflies,

Drinking our coffee and smoking our cigarettes,

Dreams drifting in clouds of nicotine and steam.