Wave Song (Two Word Poem)

Wave-song

pendulous legato

escalating crescendo

swelling sforzando

hanging fermata

breaking climax

whispered pianissimo

faint hiss

Waves fascinate me.  They are…..compelling.   I can sit all day and watch them;  perhaps because I don’t often get the opportunity locked in the middle of the Heartland.  I don’t know why I love them so much.  Perhaps because they are the same yet each individual wave is so unique. Perhaps because my heartbeat is intimately tuned to the universal ebb and fall. Perhaps because the sound separates me from the mundane hassles of life and allows my head to focus on a series of…..notes, building one on another to create a soul-stirring universal symphony.   Think of symphonies the next time you watch a wave and imprint its’ melody onto your heart.

Legato: musical notes are played or sung smoothly and connected

Crescendo:  A gradual increase in volume.

Sforzando:  Literally “forced”, denotes an abrupt, fierce accent on a single sound or chord. When written out in full, it applies to the sequence of sounds or chords under or over which it is placed.

Fermata: An indefinitely sustained note, chord, or rest. Usually appears over all parts at the same metrical location in a piece, to show a halt in tempo. It can be placed above or below the note.

Pianissimo:  Very soft. Usually the softest indication in a piece of music, though softer dynamics are often specified with additional ps.

Two word rhyme:  poems comprised of two words per line

Lost Generation (Two word poem)

Generation lost!

Fate failed

Societal cost

State mailed

Carelessly tossed

Youth jailed

************

Unloved most

Abused, derailed

Suffering host

Psyche frail

**************

 Scoured coast

Feelings stale

Future’s toast

Rudderless tale

Some time ago I visited the state adolescent Youth Services Center stationed at Watkins Mill, the state sponsored program for abused and problematic adolescents.  We folded bags for Harvester’s, a food pantry in my area, for an 8000 bag food drive.  I spent an amazing couple of hours with 6 girls, all of whom thrilled to have a visitor and to help with the project.  Afterwards, we shared teenager approved snacks and played Apples-to-Apples, and eye-opening experience to me.  Very few of them could read or understand the words, even though they loved the game.  My heart ached as the young quiet girl next to me tried to sound out words and whisper questions about what they could mean.  She seemed so lost and scared.  While I didn’t know her story, most of the kids placed there are for delinquency, truancy or protection from abuse.  But I was amazed by their sense of fun, politeness and camaraderie.  And touched by their immediate acceptance of me.

I highly recommend trying a service project for yourself.  My day had meaning for both myself and a half-dozen girls who otherwise would have spent the afternoon with no visitors and nothing to do.  Some of these young people don’t have a permanent home to go after their stay at the program ends, having been abandoned by their family.  They will either be placed in foster care, where they will be shifted from house to house until their 18th birthday.  There is no transitioning program.  When they are 18, they are released to go their own way.  No wonder so many go into drugs or prostitution or crime.  What else have they been prepared to do?  Having no home, no family support, no mentor, they are

 L-O-S-T    S-O-U-L-S

I thought the beautiful song “Dream With Me” was very appropriate for this post.  It was written by the soprano prodigy Jackie Evancho and her father and appears on her debut album “Dream With Me”.  Check her out if you don’t know her, she has a voice that will make your mouth drop with shock.  While I am just a shadow,  this is an honest and simple rendition with no equipment or embellishment.  I hope you will love this song as much as I do.

Dream With Me A Capella

Two word poem:  a very simple form with two words in each stanza

Echoes in my Dreams

Whisps of promised help
puff on the breeze
of viral-infused breath
as the screeching cries
of the cremated ill
haunt my restless dreams.

Look out! My steps
tread their harrowed haunts
as breath-deprived shades
wander over desolate streets.

Echoes of the abolished
reverberate in hollow speech,
and dead-tired eyes,
of the medically traumatized…

….and death waits in
beds of the abandoned….

…..as scenarios that tabulate
life and death choices
morph from dark probabilities
into grimly stark reality.

I wake up with fragments of poems from my dreams.  It seems the virus has its hold on my mind.  This is a 4-word-line free poem.

Borderline Couplets

Life frenetic

Overloaded log

Interest Apathetic

Brain fog

***********

Emotion drained

Health cost

Over stressed

Moments lost

************

Unfilled cup

Altered mood

Broken up

Nothing good

************

Hope lost

Frozen goals

Tempest tossed

Empty soul

**************

Respite need

Disconnect

Soul feed

Suspend regret

*************

Peace and rest

Quiet thoughts

Spirit blessed

Contentment bought

*************

Resilient accrual

Battery charged

Cup renewal

Hope enlarged

I really like to write impactful poetic images using 2 word sentences.  It is a mastery of the soul.  In this, I have weaved many borderline personality struggles with the hope that my faith and rest in Jesus can and does bring when I submit to Him. Much of borderline is about submission of self and putting on some kind of armor to deflect the shards of emotion and life events.  Paul gives a beautiful picture of putting on the armor of God: the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the sword of the spirit.  It is the best therapy if one will only embrace it.

I am in an DBT program and it mirrors much of what the Bible suggests only takes out the power that one can recieve through salvation by grace.  I choose to use both of these tools to improve my condition.

Cling (Anaphora and Three Word Line Poem)

My grief clings

to your memory

in the alcoves

of my mind

where echoes of

a silent lament

whisper to you

my smothered potential

 whisper to you

my ungraved progeny

and I weep

with dry eyes

and unvoiced remorse,

solely for you

my unfilled arms

solely for you

my blighted soul

solely for you

wholly for me

For intro to poetry, day seven: Anaphora.  Anaphora is a method where words, or cluster of words, are repeated at the beginning of multiple lines of verse in the same poem.

 

I have never had an abortion or had to give up a child.  But I know the grief that persists for some women who have had to make this choice.  And this grief is the stepchild of our culture, who celebrate the act and ignore the regret.  This is my personal epitaph to all the women who spend decades in regret for choices that cannot be undone.  I know so many of you who grieve alone, feeling that you cannot voice your sadness for choices made in your youth, for arms that are empty but did not have to be, for potential that you didn’t see until the perspective of age opened your eyes.  Whether in adoption or abortion, to some, the grief clings, an ever present shadow.

And for you, whoever you are and wherever you are, THANK YOU for giving life to my husband, who epitomizes the renaissance man.  You would be SO proud of him!

Wheeze please (Two word poem)

Cough, tickle

rattle, w-h-e-e-z-e!

Nasal drip,

tissues, please“,

mutter (miffed),

Damn allergies“!

Snort, sniff….

MASSIVE SNEEZE!!

Ö

I had a horrible respiratory infection for three months this winter.  And again it has crawled into my chest, helped by seasonal allergies.  I feel like I have rice crispies for lungs, for when I inhale I feel snap-crackle-popping sounds in my chest.  It is so disruptive that I cant sleep at times…although my husband would not agree.  Last night I sacked out after a long bout of coughing and he couldn’t get me awake for the tornado sirens.  I apparently sat up when he came in, and mumbled words to him but I remember nothing.  My family and 3 random other friends of my son spent much of the late evening huddled on the couch in fear of their lives but I was blissfully unaware and my stuporous slumber was not broken.  Good thing I wasn’t on call for work!

Two word poems:  a simple concept where a poem is created from two word lines