I miss my mom, I miss my dad
And all the friends that I once had
I miss the way life used to be
When joy and hope and peace were free.
These days are gone just blown away
With lost remains of yesterday
Oh how I pray and often yearn
For oldtime pleasures glad return.
I realise now this won’t be
Seems most of it was not that free
I’ve tried quite hard to be aware
And understand with love and care
Here in this world the future brings
Broad visions of lifes happenings.
There’s rings and blocks and crayon wax
And books and toys and balls and jacks
These all are part of children’s wares
Like cribs and quilts and rocking chairs.
How sweet it is to watch the young
Begin their lives with hope unsung
Their childish glee and joyful songs
Fill youthful days where love belongs.
I miss these years as I grow old
And wish I knew those stories told
When I was just about their size
With curly hair and blue green eyes.
I’d be so glad though it’s too late
Next stop for me, lifes golden gate.
Have you thought at all about the clouds
As they spread too wide across the sky
And wondered where have they been before
In that giant highway up so high?
Tell me may I join your entourage
Shining bright and white with glory’s glow
Following your celestial path
Will I see or can I get to know?
Far and wide just freely floating there
As they wend their way within my view
Overhead the image grows with hope
I shall spy the sun come peeking through !
The beauty of aging is the peace that it brings
And the visions of life bearing hope on its wings
Like the wind in the trees in a timeless embrace
Caressing the dreams shining bright on this pale face.
So we travel along while expecting not much
Just the hint of a smile and the joy of a touch
With a wave of the hand and a quiet “good night”
As the eyes close in sleep “tis the end of the flight !
A wretched mass we lonely be
We draw our lots of destiny
And fearful though our days may seem
We’ll not forsake the growing dream
That time has furrowed on our brow
And hope can only but allow
To breathe and swell within our soul
And make it seem but one more goal
For man to grasp the will to live
And every moment courage give.
The wind blows wild across the plain
Another soul to seek acclaim
Like shipwrecks shoaled on foreign shore
Their voices raised, God’s grace implore.
As trees their arms do upward sway
The whole world kneels , her prayer to say
Where ancient Moorish castles rise
Their towers reaching for the skies.
This prayer of man that heaven sent
Begs only for his heart’s content,
Bold edifice of legendry
Now stirs the soul to poetry
And wills the weak to stronger be
And make fast friends of you and me.
I’d gather up the courage to stand so very tall
And pray that God would be there to catch me if I fall,
And if I can’t remember exactly every word
I’m sure that He will see my unspoken thoughts are heard.
Oh, bright hope and trembling aspiration,
Threatened by reality’s confrontation,
Fertile dreams that skirt the realm of success
With thoughts that magnitude in deed possess,
Coerced by conscience ofttimes seized by doubt,
Bold in fervor and brave façade without.
Schemes that reek with brass determination
And beg aloud for joint cooperation,
Now restricted by society’s concept,
Whilst confined by past attitudes inept,
For this is woman, born to serve not lead
With scant concern that she fulfill her need.
Supple arms and quivering femininity
Promising passion with whispered divinity,
The striking blow of vanity to find
This fragile one conceals an agile mind.
Look up, look up, into the misting sky
And wistful, dreaming of the years gone by
For truth, and seeming as they never were
Provoking thoughts that heart and mind concur.
In life not even flowers linger long
And to the wind both stem and leaf belong
While bird and nest, too soon part company,
And thus with many leave only memory.
Unholy din to clamor in this sphere
Mark man and beast with recollection clear,
Like bookmarks in a span of life concern
Within orb, lasting memory discern.
Dusting shelves laden with rejected dreams,
A thankless task wasted as it now seems
That memory which has been tucked away
Till such a time perhaps as is this day.
Like one’s closed book of golden memory
Which only grasps the edge of destiny,
So thumb again the pages stained and worn,
Oft empty sheets both tired and torn.
A little knowledge with self-reflected view
Consuming hopes, for time that rings untrue,
Reason spurn Herculean endeavor
In assuming nothing lasts forever.
Leave wanting for the final recompense
And wishful hoping as the last defense,
At best that memory, if so inclined
Will flicker once or twice, across the mind.
I bound my hopes in role secure
And found myself in life obscure
No battle sought, no aimless race
This distant vacant waiting place
Where all my dreams were mauled and tossed,
Illusion gone and courage lost.
A hollowed shell and nameless ache
One heart that’s worn but will not break
And never was nor ever see
A yearning for what cannot be.
This weighted loss but whispered then
About the life that might have been
No sympathy, no anger meant
No subterfuge, no cross intent
A saddened time with too much space
Casts warmth aside like so much waste
Persisting still in careless fashion
This lonesome and elusive passion.
While madness played upon my mind
And futile sought its peace to find
As all the joy I might have sown
Lay wasting in some grave unknown
Be sure I’m wont to ever taste
This need of mine that has no face.
The dark of night envelopes me in clouds of pain I
cannot bear
Pain that’s like an old companion whose ugly fashion
I won’t wear
Or bow beneath its will to tame me or yoke me
in its wide scope
I’m not a hostage in its grasp who’s doomed
to suffer without hope
I’ll fight the way that God has shown
with prayers of faith that my lips sing
While angel arms save and guard me
and carry me upon their wing.
I listened to the sound of bumblebees at play
While the muted echo of caterpillars’ sway,
Subtle and seductive, lent a special whistle
To the singing reeds where hid a dancing thistle.
The clamor of the wind where hungry leap frogs strayed
Mid grass alive with noise when all their eggs were laid,
Made unvenal chorus, too vibrant and alive
Like a blaring trumpet I thought I’d not survive,
Then with one rousing movement and crescendo rise
Hungered for the silence to follow my demise.
Wistful windows that long for strangers in the night,
Restless dreams lust to capture fantasy in flight,
Illusion contriving all rank of rebellion
And prowling, seeks other pastures hither and yon.
Restful spaces in which the heart can love again
Belong not just to imagery, vivid or plain,
When leaving love behind, one closes many doors
Breaching other vistas fair caprice explores.
To keep a steady grasp on sensibility
Frequently becomes a friendless calamity,
There are spans when fears rise, increase and terrify
And striving as we might, all judgement nullify,
Direction appears elusively to transit,
Then to find ourselves lost and in our grief expand it.
The gentle soul with sacrifice that seems insane,
The loving heart that begs consistency in vain,
Take heed, those apertures yawn widely in and out
We may overcome them, if we can conquer doubt.
Thus do not cry, venture bids one to try once more
And seeking, find that life and love, as was before.
Forsake thoughts that abide with mock serenity,
Visions of affairs that end in obscenity,
And travel in the realm of never-ending hope,
Of all the lessons taught, the best, learn how to cope.
I look upon a leafy bed
And wonder why the leaves are dead,
I look upon a stormy sky
And wonder why the birds won’t fly,
I see a tired human face
And wonder if he takes up space,
I question whether time grows old
And why the length of love must mold,
Why flowers turn to face the sun
Then disappear when growing’s done.
The simple ways still seem the best
They supercede the foolish rest,
Perhaps with years we’ve come to know
That fortune follows as we sow.
Though oft I’d sought another place
And sometimes thought I’d lost the race,
Faint melody soon pricked my ears
And cast aside my hidden fears.
Now lately, as my life turns round
And echoes with its closing sound,
One grateful thought does fill my mind,
With age, my passion waxes kind.
I’ve spent this life as best I knew
And lived my hopes as dreamers do,
I’ve known the world the wishful see
And bless my fate that now I’m free.
Gladly, this new day rises with a lemon-colored sun,
Spreading its fan with fingers of light, their journey begun
The early dawn painting water colors across the sky,
Running rampant in a kaleidoscope mornings apply.
Buds tumbling o’er each other in a circus of display
Assailing the senses with sights and sounds in bold array.
A blessing to have left behind the dark sadness of night,
Too full, with all its gloom pervading length and depth and height.
And life’s cycle begins again, its merry youth slender,
So clear and clean, healing breath, new hopes and dreams engender.
The fog slips in like a shroud eclipsing the panorama
of the mountain’s sides
Where life is as a winging that must soar above the pall
or suffer all it hides.
Some context of this vast unchartered wilderness which
is the confines of my heart
And breeches o’er those valleys, there within the depths
of ignorance that was my start,
Has brought to me upon its beaten breast a shallow
consciousness of what I am
That whistles on the winds of plains wherein reside both
king of beasts and gentle lamb.
There time itself will bare the seed that lives with joy
or dies alone in discontent
As it fulfills an aim that is the longing of the soul or
of the mind, intent.
To move with space and wander in its bright expanse
beneath the sky where mood began
There, confirming this great world is an elegant cushion
for the footfalls of man
And as such must cradle his intense wish to dream and
hope and love and laugh and cry,
For man without one dream is a garden that never blooms
and does not wonder why.
When a flower drops its petals
and its seeds are blown away
And its dry stalks tremble, break
to drop and lie amidst decay,
When a tall tree bends its wide limbs
and its leaves are swept away
Seeking safe and sheltered haven
hence await another day,
When a dream still waits unbidden
as the years have caused delay
And the hopes that fill a young mind
through the years have gone astray
When a heart that’s old and mellow
beats its last and sad farewell
Searching for the final hospice
where the soul at peace may dwell,
When the aims of every lifetime
falter, tarry and dispel
Knowing soon the battle’s over
and its goals have too short fell,
There among these winter feelings
where the hurt will rise and swell,
Face that fleeting day of anger,
sally forth and chance rebel.
Castles in Spain fly on wings of a dream
Idle thoughts nought more than dulled reckless gleam,
Faint glimmer of hope one desire long inbred,
Time moulds each man’s dream into one fragile thread,
To leave but shadows of what he’d hoped to be
Like echoes of the words he wished he’d said.
Is this all that I am or will ever be
In patient pattern flowing until one drifts dead,
Ne’ermore to know the flight of the dream forlorn,
That dream shining bright waits wasted and worn.
The fabric of life ’bout us vaguely closes
And weaving its web chains in cadence imposes,
While years swiftly flee as passionless dawn,
That heart which in hope covets distant land,
Takes time to kindly glimpse the days long gone
When chance was his to leave or to command.
These years of mem’ry like those past cloud worn
Instill not the fear but the value scorn,
The face of reality makes dream fantasy
While far castles in Spain mark man’s sad heresy.
In the strangely still and murky hours before sulky dawn
When nightbird calls and wizard sounds with caution fill the air,
He dreamt a shape in silhouette against the rising morn
Some mystic phantom woodland creature stealing from its lair
To stalk its frail and uncontested prey in dull silence
The larger making victim of the small, nature’s pattern
Crash, crackle, sounds merge thus veiled its predatory violence,
The night regained quietude, day began anew its turn.
For so it is in life, a sea nymph calls a plaintive air
To stir him from his worthy course and will him to her lair
Where life and dreams blend in a fantasy of love well meant,
And he unthinking reveled there for times too long content
When suddenly the silence breaks with unrestraining din,
The clutter of the brash world revokes their peace, rushing in
Not seeing all the twist and turn that caught them in this net
That neither wish to leave with stillborn hope lest they forget,
But who are they to dare impugn the lust of wishful hearts,
Impose on each a purpose that reflects not their own starts,
Too often those who don’t belong or cannot understand
Mar that joy which sings within the mind and slips from the hand,
And so return to what are looked upon as useful ways,
Leave behind the foolishness of what had been wayward days.
Of all the dreams I’ve ever known
But one remains steadfast and clear.
Of all the seeds I’ve ever sown
That with the spring will reappear,
Of all the gifts I’ve ever bought
And cherished with a thought unreal,
Of all the hopes I’ve ever sought,
In faith, which to my mind appeal,
This simplest one, I’ve valued most,
Friendship sealed with kind helping hands,
A love that feels no need to boast,
A heart that cares and understands.
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Claire V. Bogdanos 