War & Peace

After the war in Norway and the German army left, income
and employment they had brought such as building
roads and airports disappeared.
It was a time when my brother and I stole coal from the train
depot’s supply, potatoes and other root vegetable were    
and the fish in an unpolluted water was plentiful.

We were caught by the police they let me go because I looked
small and innocent. My brother was sent to a youth correction
centre for two years- it still makes me angry thinking of it-
peace had done us no favours.

My mother was doing two newspaper rounds my sister and I
helped her, the morning round was the worst, Norway is a
cold country it was me who found the dead man he had frozen
to death, drunk and falling asleep in a snow drift.

I’m sitting here as an elderly man remembering the old days
and “not good old days” we had each other and family love.
I sit here ancient man with house, car and a modest success,
oh, my why wouldn’t I give to feel the love again, but they
have gone now- all of them- and I’m the only link to our past.

She asked:
You know what's unfair?

I replied:
The sound of your voice and the smell of your hair.

I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
it's not pretty.

it was the first time I'd
realized
that.

It was many and many a year ago,
  In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
  By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
  Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
  In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
  I and my ANNABEL LEE;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
  Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
  In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
  My beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
  And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
  In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
  Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
  In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
  Chilling and killing my ANNABEL LEE.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
  Of those who were older than we—
  Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in heaven above,
  Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
  In her sepulchre there by the sea—
  In her tomb by the side of the sea.

looking at the love of her life, her reflection looked back

why do we fear rejection?
rejecting the chance for positive projection
projecting an image of our own detection
detected by the other's inspection

take a look at your own reflection
reflect on your eyes' connection
connect to the true perception
perceive yourself as perfection

(the rules for a quantum loop poem are that the last word in each line must be used in a different form, as the first word in the following line. It also must rhyme. It can be any length.)

The doctor of Geneva stamped the sand
That lay impounding the Pacific swell,
Patted his stove-pipe hat and tugged his shawl.

Lacustrine man had never been assailed
By such long-rolling opulent cataracts,
Unless Racine or Bossuet held the like.

He did not quail. A man who used to plumb
The multifarious heavens felt no awe
Before these visible, voluble delugings,

Which yet found means to set his simmering mind
Spinning and hissing with oracular
Notations of the wild, the ruinous waste,

Until the steeples of his city clanked and sprang
In an unburgherly apocalypse.
The doctor used his handkerchief and sighed.