A Thorn Tree in the Garden

Jan 2017

Chelsea Rae

I'm the type of person
That if you never declare your love for me
The way the sun shines it's love on the flowers
Then you will never know what it's like to smell the roses
And I will never be able to tell you
How desperately in need I am for water.

#iwishihadafriend

Jan 2017

wordvango

gambled

Jo Thomas sat on the trestle
pulling her hair back
wagging her feet
to and fro above the river's
below.

Recalling the boy she had met there
five years ago
and how he had left
her

It seemed , to her,
like a lifetime
since she had held his gaze
in hers.

It had only been a month.
But, to , youth, to
young love
a day
might be a century.

She heard the whistle,
two of them again,
he used to call her from the woods
with a shrill hello.

She felt the tremble
of the wood
she just sat there.

She wanted to belong to him.

So Jo Thomas
gambled , perhaps
they could be
in eternity.

Jan 2017

Pauline Morris

November Rains

I look back on years gone by
Trying to figure out the how and why
How we clung to each other trying to easy the pain
We clung to each other in the cold November rain
The rains have come around again this year
All alone, I'm standing here
Head held down
As this freezing cold rain splatters on the ground
Making puddles at my feet
As I travel down this dead end street
The cold penetrates my bones
For your not here, I'm all alone
Your memories can't keep me warm
Only images of you in my mind are formed
They where desperate times for you and me
But looking back I can clearly see
We where never ment to be
I was only a life raft in your troubled sea
I wish I'd known then I was just your crutch
That I didn't mean that much
For now the only sound that resounds
In this frozen heart of mine, is this cold November rain falling down

#love #alone #loss #novemberrains

Jan 2017

Darren Edsel Wilson

The Whispers of Dead Dreams...

So many hopes have
been laid to rest,
snuggling tight and cozy
where all dead dreams lie.

There wasn't even time to say goodbye.
Oh, my fighting spirit is now a sleeping spirit.
It doesn't wake to sweet smell of fancy,
to the buzzing of bees and all manner of honeys,
no.
It lies dead in the gutter,
or should I say,
asleep.

The only hope I have left, is to lie of the pain.
To wish away the wash of bitter taste
and lie away the bodies of thought and waste.
I have died too many times to count the carnage
and how I massacred myself,
past, present and future,
there is no more potential,
there is now just a rein
lying slack for lack of force,
the beast was too burdened...

There is a constant whispering.
Voices from a place I dare not venture.
My hands are bent and scarred, like twisted puppets.
How can I mend these broken dreams?
I can no longer traverse the seams,
now torn
beyond are the hopes I knew.
How do I mend the horses?

Is it not the hand of God that restores life
to dead things?
Why do his hands look like mine?
If I do not believe in myself,
how might I believe in him?

As a popular Youtuber put it:
"What is life?"
LOL
It seems the only question worth asking and worth an answer anymore. What would we even do with the answer? You've got to think about that. Is the answer worth anything?

I keep saying in my head, "God, I can only believe in you if you show up right here, right now." If he's not showing up, it surely means he doesn't want to. Maybe that means I'm a scumbag...

If you're one of those people who's been living for so long not knowing what you need, yet knowing you need something, I feel your pain. I think I'll write a poem about that next.

I hope you've enjoyed this poem.

DEW

Jan 2017

Pauline Morris

Angels Falling Like Rain

Started out innocent and clean
Then I heard the angel's screams

Mercy, mercy, mercy
Please

All that remains now is the pain
Watching the angels fall like rain

Mercy, mercy, mercy
Please

Living here in the perpetual night
Angeles now far out of sight

Mercy, mercy, mercy
Please

Shadows of what could of been
Angels drowning in humans sin

Mercy, mercy, mercy
Please

Driven down to bended knee
Watching demons as they glean

Mercy, mercy, mercy,
Please

More agony than I could dream
As angels and demons scream

Mercy, mercy, mercy,
Please

But nothing up there hears a sound
As we splatter on the cold wet ground

#please #mercy #angelsfallinglikerain

Jan 2017

Sjr1000

Therapy Session

I've got many things
on my mind
I might as well
talk to you.

I'm twisted
I'm disturbed
I'm vice ridden
I'm desperate too.

You look okay
I might as well
talk to you.

My life has been spent in shadows
trying to emerge
I've swept the floor
washed the windows
did the dishes too
I guess that is what they call this life.

I've seen the tunnel on one too many codeine
Grandma sent me away

I've gone astray
I blew up my future
behind *******
My children say
I gambled it all away.

One mellows in their old age
No time for anger
No time for drama too.

I've learned to accept myself
Accept you

That testerone
it blows up
it calms down

Sleep it goes way too fast
I wake up to another day.

I've rubbed myself raw
I know what it means to be deranged
I know what it means to long for it too.

You understand.
Don't nod off now
I'm coming to the most interesting part

But I woke up
in another horizon
Woke up on another plain
Another dimension has called my name
This life I now savor.

As you have said
I know it is predictable moves
A complicated game
I never learned to play.

Another opportunity
to prove I'm never
what I'm supposed to be.

I've done the best I could
with what I've got
With that I am at peace

I apologize for everything
I have ever been,
But I am alive
I'm still breathing
have another day to
prove it all again

I've got things on my mind
I might as well talk to you.

I know this a little bleak,
But truly Happy New Year
to our Hello Poetry community.

Jan 2017

L B

...And if You Lose

“…Take your place on the Great Mandala as it moves through your brief moment of time…
Win or lose now
You must choose now
and if you lose, you’re only losing your life…”  Peter, Paul, and Mary
___________

Stitching the hem of a prom dress to the
Chicago Convention on TV
Pink brocade, white gloves to the elbow

Night sticks snap skulls

“...and a time on a 27 will always shine a light”

Seven Day War
but neither of us dance

Whispered under weeping willows
“What will become of us?”

“The New Left” scrawled in my yearbook
under Danny’s name
I stared at him puzzled, half-attracted

The New Left came
from Harvard, Radcliffe, Mars?
to the grimy streets of Lowell
to teach us “worker kids”
‘bout our sorry selves

Aloof
from our bad teeth, unplanned pregnancies
stuccoed bungalows
chrome kitchen sets circa ’53
So far beyond

Alienated
by our worn out dens
with proud TV’s
the evening’s beer proclivity

They, weren’t “Right on!”
with the smell of furniture polish and
lifetimes of motor oil on overalls

We were okay to be organized though
before they left—

Because they knew what mattered!
…and “How could WE  know so little!
‘bout Lenin, Marx?
the exploits of profit and endless war?"

How could THEY know so little—

about the death down the street
‘bout the conflict caused by *in-house “Pigs”

Husbands in Canada
Brothers in Nam

Dying small-town, piece-work kids
Labor's legacy
Lost bourgeois

Freezing on street corners
Telephone’s tapped
Handing out leaflets

to talk of guns...

“Our people blew up the Bank of America!
You know”

To talk of guns…

While Black Panthers were dying
No ******' around

Hell’s Angels—  graphite ghosts
hover in ****** shadows of shared back yard
Revolutionary panic as
mafia muscle makes an appearance
comes-on to me
sped-up and pulls a pistol!…
_____

Guts ran out the holes in my head

Lonely now
…and not so… ready?

Someone suggested “experience”
to explain for certain
the face on the clock
the of wince of Time
and all the reasons there were to die

Should ‘ave asked why— they called it “acid”

Connecting the dots of despair
I saw it all— for the first time

and lost— everything

*in-house pigs: cops in the family

Definitely a GOOD LISTEN.
Another amazing song from Susan's dorm room: The Great Mandala--
Peter, Paul, and Mary-- probably their best and most important song!

6https://www.google.com/search?q=the+great+mandala+peter+paul+and+mary+you+tube&ie;=utf-8&oe;=utf-8

This was the height of the American Civil Rights and Anti War
Movements of the late 1960s.
I was trying to capture something of the American despair and drive for change of that time. Not all of us were drugged hippie flower children. Some of us actually saw the extent of the loss around us, and in my case, anyway, thought I was witnessing the last possibility for change-- the last throes of conscience of a once hopeful people.
I was also really young, facing what I am sure now, was the truth and was really afraid of dying. Thought acid (LSD) would reveal meaning-- sort of a religious search. Only did it once-- You know what they say about "What never happens the first time..." Happened.