“The significant story possesses more awareness than the writer writing it. The significant story is always greater than the writer writing it. This is the absurdity, the disorienting truth, the question that is not even a question, this is the koan of writing.”   ~Joy Williams

from the essay, “Uncanny Singing That Comes from Certain Husks”

Amor Vincit Omnia (Love Conquers All), a depiction of the god of love, Eros. By Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, circa 1601–1602 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Love poems never suited
me. Too un-sentimental,
a realist, an artist. I
wrote of concrete moments,
never tried sonnets or
romantic poesy. One
must have unrequited
love for that — a permanently
present, happy love says
little. Lives content not to
speak — but, lost un-held
things demand words. Need
expression of absence. Loss
or broken dreams demand
a voice.

Love poems never called
to me. Too realistic, too jaded
for fairy tales. I need
to crave the unavailable,
must have gut-wrenching
deep-set pain to push
the words forward, out of heated
muscle, flesh, heart – the poet
in me found you for Muse -
this reminds me of Greek
mythology, love-hate
relationships with the Oracles.

You will be
like other myths, will
grow distant,
un-useable. With time
an old god no longer
believed to exist. Your
shimmering marble
covered in moss,
decay crossing cream,
old water stains and
some new graffiti
will color you unimportant.

April 2011

Related articles

• 14 Great Poets on Their Favorite Love Poems (flavorwire.com)
• Love Poem Links – Barrie (robertojuarez.wordpress.com)
• “The Me Bird” by Pablo Neruda: An Animated Interpretation (openculture.com)

Reblogged from Ordinary Time:

• 

Two weekends ago, two of my girlfriends and I visited the newest exhibit at the Frist Center for Visual Arts: Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age.  It was interesting to see the influence of Protestantism on art after the Netherlands broke from Catholic Spain, and while still life isn't my favorite, there were lots of other pieces I really enjoyed.

Read more… 450 more words

 It’s been a busy few weeks in the world: we’ve all made it through another doomsday prophecy without incident, the US Government (finally) managed to reach a compromise to avoid absolute financial ruin, and a new year beckons with as much promise and hope as we decide to give it! I’m excited and looking forward to making 2013 a superb year and I hope you feel the same!

I don’t usually do resolutions, but I do want to share a few insights and goals for 2013 with you – some ways of being more mindful of the life I’m living that you might find useful as well.

Sometimes you have to take a step back from things to gain a clearer perspective.

It feels especially good to be back at the keyboard and blogging again after an almost six-month hiatus. I’ve always believed the saying that, “writing worth it’s salt carries meaning.” Regretfully, we lose the meaning in things sometimes because of the demands we make on ourselves. Life gets hectic, we get tired, writing becomes more about necessity (must keep posting on schedule, etc.) than it does about content and meaning. I’ve discovered lately that it’s okay to rest, think, meditate, and stop for a minute.  I reached this point back in the summer and realized I needed to take a break from the hectic pace of my blogging and career. Actually, I needed to give myself permission to stop and sort some things out (which I’ll talk more about in coming posts). I want to continue to be mindful of my tendency to let the duties of life get out of hand. This year I’ll try to focus on slowing down and allowing myself breathing room. I’ll seek quiet, peace, and contemplation more often as part of my daily life and ritual.

Some prayers have already been answered. You may already have the answer you seek.

I have a habit of focusing on the “what next” so much in life that sometimes I forget the “now.” The idea of goals and future changes are wonderful, but it’s easy to miss the enjoyment and answers in the present moment if you’re always looking ahead. I want to be wholly present in my daily life and find that days beauty and joy. Each TODAY, in many ways for me, is an answer to a previous prayer – the gift of new awareness and growth I sought in the past come to fruition. I want to recognize and enjoy that as I move through my days, trusting that the next answers will one day come in a distant TODAY down the road.

Gratitude for the people in your life is a deep well of love. Remember to tell them what they mean to you.

I’ve had a sister since I was two years old. Our relationship has survived and flourished during numerous hard times and good times. We share a unique and special bond – a bond neither of us shares with anyone else on earth. We are the only sister we have. Now, in our 40’s, we understand how truly precious the gift of each other has been. We each have the other end of the rope, will be there for each other and love each other no matter what the future brings.

My sister is truly one of the greatest gifts in my life and I am grateful for her love and presence, for the beautiful and intelligent woman she is. I hope to spend more time in the coming year reminding her of that, sharing thoughts and conversations about how we are and where we are. I want “sister time” to be a priority this year, and I hope to plan a vacation where the two of us can take a break from it all and go have fun. I am looking forward to this new phase of our relationship with deep gratitude and much joy. I want to remind my sister more often in 2013 how special she is and how very much she means to me!

So, that’s it for now. A few insights and goals – I want to do my part to make this a banner year. What about you? Resolutions, insights, or thoughts? How do you plan to make 2013 a spectacular year?

Wishing all of you a wonderful New Year filled with joy! ~Marissa

Picture: Magic Window by Phatpuppy 

Like that elegant lily
white and tender — soul
bared in vulnerability.

We once were tender
white-skinned fragile,
our tiny souls groping for
and gravitating toward
all that was fresh and beautiful,
unaware of dark clouds
drifting toward us, storms
and deep-black-rain-caused
mud. Streaking, splotching –
baby-tender opaque skin –
our souls trapped in a
place of harsh-red silence
covered in deep-dark pain.

We once knew purity
and a place before sex,
lust, violence, rape. That old
white candle flickering
inside opaque souls, we
held the light tighter
with each day passing,
terrified always of a time
when lights were snuffed out.

Like that elegant lily
white and tender –
denied water under
a harsh orange heat.
The slow-burning death –
crinkled-black-brown
burning, until an almost
desiccated-withered brown flower falls,
from yellowed-drought-stem to ground.
We once were tender
white-skinned fragile
child-bodies. Bloodied
bruised to brown-purple,
rag-mouthed crusty blood
spilling across dollar store
dirty-worn sheets.

We once were like
that elegant lily,
white and tender souls,
and we sang, laughed,
cried, survived
that slow-burning death,
bled-out innocence marking
sweated-on, dirt-covered
dollar store sheets
in a virgin-red smear.

~July 2012

Artwork: Gladis110 at Photobucket can be seen here.

Other Reading:

• How Do I Write From My Soul? (smokyzeidel.wordpress.com)

Reblogged from survivingmiddleage:

Reblogged from Caveat:

The rock still stands –
growth of bushes,
briers, and half-dead flowers
covering its north side –
the south side shows
its grooved-smooth-gray-top,
this ragged side, chipped,
well-worn from use.

~ * ~
For thousands of years
it was a place of
fresh-born scrub-bushes
and twisted-tiny
crawling roses. The rock
at noon, the hottest hour
of the day, so it
would pull the seeping blood
deep into its skin.
Faster than room and space made –
bodies slain and pushed aside –
they lined up with,
the crying children
held tight to breast, shoulder, face –
whispering, “remember the honor,
necessity. You must die.”

In this way they fed Molek
the blood of their children
for days-on-end, one-by-one.
Crying babies, death knell ringing
across a summer sky while
the hot-wet-smell of blood
filled the breeze, floated away.

~ * ~

One hundred, two hundred, three
thousand, four thousand, more –
slaughtered into dark-gray silence,
quiet like the years
passing after them.
Two thousand years,
countless days, and
100-millions-girls later.

~ * ~

They come to the rock,
clear the way for sacrifice –
the blood, child blood, warm blood
splashes on the crawling roses.
The lines grow long, filled
with crying children
held tight to shoulder,
breast, face — whispering,
“remember the honor, necessity.
You must die.”

In this way we feed Molek
the blood of our children
for days-on-end, one-by-one.
Crying babies, death-knell ringing
across a summer sky while
we pretend it’s an illusion –
turn away, hide our eyes.

The rock still stands –
the growth of bushes,
briers,
and half-dead flowers
covering its north side;
its south side chipped,
well-worn from use –
waiting.

~July 2012

This poem was written for the 100-million-girls website. This site was created, and is managed, by my friend Sheree Rabe. Sheree is a poet, an attorney, and now a human-rights activist that I met via Twitter. She has a wonderful poetry site HERE, but it’s her 100-million-girls site HERE that prompted this poem. The site is dedicated to creating awareness and change in the world, and to stop the mass slaughter of young children in our world. PLEASE take time to visit her site and consider helping in this endeavor. If you’d like to know more about Sheree’s poetry, 100-million-girls effort, or if you’d just like to say “Hi” — you may do so in the following ways:

Sheree Rabe
3267 Bee Caves Road
Suite 107, PMB 281
Austin, Texas 78746
Sheree@shereerabe.com
My blog is at http://www.poetonpoetry.blogspot.com
Facebook Page:  http://www.facebook.com/poetonpoetry
Find me on Twitter @poetonpoetry

OR

BLOG: www.100milliongirls.blogspot.com 
FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/100milliongirls 
TWITTER: @100milliongirls
PERSONAL WEBSITE: www.shereerabe.com 
#shereerabe

Artwork Credit:   Artwork by (c)  Tirin, aka Tilde Carlsten. Please visit her blog (offering a variety of interesting topics and great artwork HERE.) Thanks and gratitude to Tirin for the use of this picture.

Citations:

Wikipedia contributors. “Moloch.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 11 Jul. 2012. Web. 21 Jul. 2012.

Molek – explanation from Wikipedia:

As a god worshipped by the Phoenicians and Canaanites, Moloch had associations with a particular kind of propitiatory child sacrifice by parents. Moloch figures in the Book of Deuteronomy and in the Book of Leviticus as a form of idolatry (Leviticus 18:21: “And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Moloch”). In the Hebrew Bible, Gehenna was initially where apostate Israelites and followers of various Baalim and Canaanite gods, including Moloch, sacrificed their children by fire (2 Chr. 28:3, 33:6; Jer. 7:31, 19:2–6).

Moloch has been used figuratively in English literature from John Milton‘s Paradise Lost (1667) to Allen Ginsberg‘s Howl (1955), to refer to a person or thing demanding or requiring a very costly sacrifice.

Two fireplaces remain
in this house, built in the Twenties.
Their elegance long-lost,
forever-gone,
each leftover mantel
a home for knick-knacks, small
framed pictures, newly received letters.

The living room boasts a fancy
oil heater – modern,
square box of fire –
heat roaring behind tiny doors,
the ring burning bright.
Brown-box filled with fresh oil,
proudly standing
on the hearth, winner
over the old fireplace it hides –
Better than wood and coal,
used sparingly – this precious oil -
on the coldest of days.

Loyal, old dinning room stove
stays true to plain and useful.
It’s black-iron belly – gorging
itself on wood and coal,
a ritual breakfast-dinner-supper.

Each day – You
hot-top, flat-for-use practical friend.
You, I loved and understood,
as you joined me in play –
melting-and-mixing crayons
in old tin cans. Trying to find
that certain-perfect and unique color – Like
a favorite pet: I fed you, cleaned you, played
beside you on cold winter nights . . .
anticipated your warmth
on cold winter mornings.

No fireplaces remain
in this ghost of a house
wavering and faded in my old child’s mind.
Each mantel long gone,
along with the heart pills,
chipped collectable plates,
half-cut school pictures, and
several frayed pieces of unfinished-hand-tatted-lace.

~July 2012

Artwork Credits: Special thanks for the use of Journey by ©Svetlana Novikova. Please visit the artist at her website or at Fine Arts America to find out more about her work, or to purchase a print, poster, or greeting cards. Also, you can see her information on our Featured Artists Page.