When Soap Gets in Your Eyes

I miss the simple things in life. In fact, I’d rather go back to the days of dad teaching me to play chess or me playing with my cousins and my uncle feeding us watermelon with the hot Cairo sun outside. 

I wish my dad was still around so he could teach me how to cope with this life and how to deal with the bigger problems that come catapaulting at me. If only he was still here and I didn’t lose him at such a young age, then the only guidance and advice I seem to always recall wouldn’t just be:
‘Don’t be scared of getting soap in your eyes (opens his eyes wide with soap all over his face – bravest man ever!). It might sting at first but you’ll feel cleaner and fresher afterwards and the stinging will go away eventualy.’
‘When you’re looking for something on your desk, don’t just propel things around the room  frantically searching. Pause. Take a step back so you can see everything clearly and you’ll easily find what you’re looking for.’

Strangely, I’ve been able to translate those into  much more profound advice. Though I don’t always realise it, some things in life are painful but they can often be steps to something better and more meaningful. Sometimes I need to step away from and not engage in all the madness that life throws at me. I need to take a step back and observe rather than expect from this life and maybe just maybe I’ll find what I’m looking for. 

I wonder what you would teach me today?

I’ll Never Complain

I have promised myself that I will never complain.
Every year that passes is another I wasn’t meant to gain.

So I’m grateful for my whitening hair and sore knees.
I’m grateful for my growing boy, my quieter birthdays and my favourite cheese!

I’m grateful for my sweet husband coping with my sour moods,
my crossword books and my favourite foods.

I’m grateful for early nights, and slow weekends.
Grateful for all the blessings that God still sends
and counting on your hand, your closest friends.

I’m grateful for me, for staying strong.
For coping with the words, ‘you won’t have long’.
I’m grateful for time and faith proving them wrong.

But humans are fickle and some wisdom fades.
Even when I’m much older, I might sigh and say, having stopped looking for wrinkles, please don’t ask me my age!

By me

Debris

Mindlessly taking unsteady steps forward
Over the debris of our past encounters.
Rations are offered; powdered love.
love to replace Love.
Over the debris of our past encounters
Comes a stillness in the blackened sky,
Killing us slowly is the poisonous fumes
Spewing from our tongues and our vomited words.

Thoughts Denied

I thought I was all cried out.

That I was done with the mourning,

The last tear had fallen

And the new day was dawning. 

I thought the sweet honeydew

Would soon fill the air,

The soft summer calling 

Would leave me without a care.

Thought the  winter’s warmth would guide me 

Thought all words were true

Believed the last tear had fallen.

Believed in you. 

My Other Me

There you are!
My other me

I’ve been searching
Hunting for you

Never have I loved and missed
A soul like my very own

There you are
My other me

Left me here
With only me

Without the me that smiled
The me that laughed
Made others laugh
Commanding the whole room
Eradicating the gloom

There you are
My other me

Hiding in the corner of 2013

There you are
My other me

The Same Boat

Someone please tell me how it’s done.
How do I slow a pounding heart
So it no longer crashes against the shore of this world;
And yet it is what erodes each time –
Debris from another attack of words or thoughts.

How is it so that all of your seas are calm?
You simply dust away what’s  catastrophic to me;
A merry fat maid, feather duster in hand,
Merrily swaying her big behind to and thro
As she flicks away the thoughts that are unescapable to me. 
That eat away at me
That steal my breath
That collapse my mind.

How foolish of me.

We cannot tell you how it’s done.
We can only teach you to paint the calm over the storm,
Teach you to stand unnoticed when torn.
We cannot teach you to calm the beating heart.
Only teach you to coat it all with a universally recognised art.

Silence

I’m sorry for the silence
I know it’s too loud to ignore.
It’s the everyday every day
That stops me from saying any more.

It’s hard to talk about the weather
The ebb and flow of now
When storm clouds are always hovering
Always darkening my path.

I dream of forming letters
That flow from mouth and not pen
That wash away this stagnant silence,
This muddy pool of nothingness.

I fear you’ll think me boring
With little else to say
Other than fine thank you
How are you dear
And how was your day.

And so I bring the silence
Too loud to ignore.
But if you wade those stagnant waters
In me there’s so much more.

Beyond Poetic Rules

If only we’d been taught to see

Beyond the poetic tools

Taught to write beyond the words,

Beyond poetic rules.

 

We were lost in words and lines on page,

In similes and metaphors

If only we’d just been left to feel

The terror, the fear, the love, the world

In all its beauty with all its art

Spring forth from the page,

The classroom,

The examination hall,

And nestle into our hearts

So we could

Just

Feel.

 

So we could learn without being taught,

Write without grade and petty retort

So we could learn the price we pay for the sun

And wonder at the Wild Swans at Coole

Without having to write any words at all.