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Stephen E Yocum Jul 2016
Dappled rain drops of sunlight
Upon my open window shine.

While out across the valley hovers
A rainbow of neon majesty,
suspended in thunder cloud blackened sky,
An optical trick of rain and sun.

From within the dense dark clouds,
Lightning bolts flash and reach the ground.  
The air smells fresh and of ozone electricity.
The hair on my head stands on end.

In wonderment and reflection,
I am humbled and transfixed,
by all that Nature is,
In this one small moment in time.
Stephen E Yocum Jun 2016
Images and murmurings of my yesterdays
play like color movies inside my head,
Memories of love and adventures,
mixed with some regret.
Of red painted female lips,
Of passion sweating upon the sheets.
Of youth spent folly,
Of chasing Demon ***,
and being drunk for weeks.

Of sail boats on azure seas,
Of palm trees a sway in tropic breeze.
Of brown skinned maidens bare of breast,
Of white sand beaches pristine,
with not a trace of Human print.

Of brilliant blue/green Pacific seas,
Of magnificent underwater reefs,
alive with thousands of aquatic occupants.

Of the songs of Island People ,
never previously known, or heard,
Nay, chants they were instead,
Haunting ancient rhythms,
etched forever upon my soul.

Of lives and places briefly touched,
Of people loved, lost in time,
Of all these remaining indelible images,
within the echoes of my mind.
Reflections of time spent in Fiji,
Tonga and Samoa years ago.
Stephen E Yocum May 2016
Human wisdom is nothing more than time paired
with our natural ability for quizzical attentiveness.
Paying attention is everything.
The difference between knowledge
and ignorance.
Stephen E Yocum May 2016
Night Vision
I see them still,
From time to time,
Their goofy smiles,
Their laughing eyes.
Still hear their *******,
Their growled complaints,
Their farts in the night,
from five bunks down.
The relentless joke telling,
The brotherly jabs.
Still see their sad empty eyes
When no mail from home arrived.

Oh and the lists of things
That they would do,
When back they'd go,
Into the World,
Added to daily, always growing.
"Get that new Camaro,
Set them tires on fire!",
"Cruise the strip back home
and pick up chicks."
"Put on my blue Class A,
And strut down the block for all to see."
"Find that foxy girl from English class,
and make her my wife".
"I'd tell my mean old man,
to actually *******!"
"I'd find that bully from back in school,
and teach that fool a thing or two."

We were but boys,
Too eager and green,
Posturing and playing at being men.
What I wonder, would they have become,
Given the chance to grow to a man?
Young lives cut short by ballistic pain.
So now still they linger, boys they remain,
Night visions left in the mud and the rain.
A Memorial Day repost of mine and respectful
salute to lost friends' in yet another needless war
that should never have been.
Stephen E Yocum May 2016
Started with words as most things do.
anger escalated to yelling and swearing.
She came at me, fire and hate in her eyes,
This petite little woman I called my wife.
Her fists pounding my face and chest.
Shocked more than hurt, I extended my
arm to hold her off.

No man could ever do what she just did,
Not without my strong physical rebuke.
Yet I turned not a hand to this woman I loved.
A day before I would have taken a bullet for her,
and now it appears she'ed **** me if she could.

How does Committed Love so quickly turn to this?
So it would seem, love is not even skin deep.
My father warned me of this fact, a truth
I refused to hear, and upon him I had turned
my back and chosen her.

To her disrespect and abuse,
I did what any decent man would do,
I walked out the door and never returned.
Relax friends, thankfully this is not truly autobiographical.
Yet it does happen all too often, just did to a young friend
of ours. Abuse is not merely a male disease. Girls and
women too, can and are infected. A learned behavior,
a sad family legacy passed down from damaged parents.
Stephen E Yocum May 2016
Cheeks wet with,
Mascara tented tears,
She aimlessly puts one foot,
In front of the other.
Down a path unknown to her.
Seeing and feeling nothing,
Out beyond herself and,
His parting words still
Reverberating in her head.

She had thought herself
Hopelessly in love with him,
That he loved her in return.
He had said so often,
Yes granted, whispered
mostly in passion,
In the sweet hot darkness,
Of her bed.

He was everything she had
Ever longed for,
The answer to all her dreams,
She had given herself completely
Never one thought of regret.

He had painted such beautiful
pictures of all that lay ahead.
God knows he is a gifted talker,
Could no doubt charm,
Birds down off their perch.

She'd had boyfriends and lovers,
Yet never one like him.
She was hearing the footfalls
Of aging fast approaching,
Yet still just twenty-six.
By now most of her girlfriends
Were well married,
Some being mothers
Of long standing,
Homeowners and,
Driving a van.
Grown to adults,
Living in a grownup's world.

Dark thoughts started,
To invade her mind,
This was not the first time.

How might she do it,
End this pain?
She had no gun to do the thing.
A rope, a tree perhaps?
Maybe some pills would do the trick.
These thoughts again considered,
Only made her sick.

Why had she given him such power,
Over her mind, heart and soul?
Why had she been so silly,
To have swallowed his line of ****,
Lies that took over her very being.
With visions, that could never fit.

Then she began to laugh at the
words he'd used as explanation.
"Truly Dear Girl it's not you,
It's me, I just do not deserve you."

She then stopped,
And smiled,
"You *******,
At least that final line of yours,
Was the only true one,
You've ever spoken.
I know my worth,
I am too good for you!
And It's your loss,
You insufferable *****!"

She turned, lifted her head,
Straightened her shoulders
And walked purposely out,
Of the darkening forest.
Her smiling face still streaked
with trails of now dry mascara,
the light of hellfire in her lovely eyes.
A female HP friend suggested I repost this 2014 offering.

"It is truly a blind man (or woman)
that judges their own worth solely
through the eyes of another."
SE Yocum 1998

Brokenhearted lovesick pain is seldom a terminal ailment.
Stephen E Yocum May 2016
From youth, not unlike the love
I received from my family, I surmised,
that extended love might be everywhere.
With artless, open arms and heart,
I embraced this simple notion.
In time, sadly this childish wish
was honed to a hard truth by maturation.

Friends and loves come
and go, fleeting in heart,
and committed soul.
Unreliably, flowing in and ebbing out,
like deep undulations of an ocean,
all too often with sneaker waves
that pull us under. Breakers pushing
our ship onto the rocks, in a sea
of shallow unfulfilled expectations.
Encounters becoming disappointment,
with too many frogs kissed.

My educated suspicion is,
beyond our family of blood kin,
Faithful canine love is the only
other "truly committed devotion"
we are likely to get.

In the end, that may well be enough.
Perspective wisdom can be a bitter lesson.
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