Timothy Ward: Poems

136 · Sep 2017

Timothy Ward Sep 2017

After the rain...
While the grass
Is still wet
And the trees
Are still dripping
And the earth
Is still absorbing
Our tears

I will pause

And think of you
And feel refreshed

...after the rain

#love #loss #grief

133 · Sep 2017

The Poet's Pen

Timothy Ward Sep 2017

The Poet's Pen

Oh for the skill of the poet's pen
That I might stir the souls of men
If only to an introspection
Pensive moments of reflection
For in such moments man is real
He can allow himself to feel
To listen, love, to shed a tear
To cry aloud, though all may hear

Pray why is it then
That men, "true men"
May never share
Their love, their sorrow, their despair
Is this the world thus juxtaposed
Where love and sorrow are so loathed
Or might have earth 'tween night and day
Begun to spin the other way?

No fates, nor stars are there to blame
Nor must man's fate remain the same
Pray heed the word the poet tells
In lofty verse he shall reveal
To all who have but ears to hear
To all who would but shed a tear
Oh for the skill of a poet's pen
That I might stir the souls of men...

Co-writing this with my friend abe who is not a member of HP yet. I'm helping with some additional lines and tightening it up - it started as blank verse with some a/a rhyme scheme I'm places. It's a work in progress. Abe is a singer so he sees this as a folk song - he's from Hawaii- so it's Hawaiian island music in his head! :)

128 · Oct 2017

How Much More ....

Timothy Ward Oct 2017

How Much More ....

how much more
will these eyes tear
how much more
will this heart fear
how much more
will this voice quiver
how much more
will these hands shiver
how much more
can one child grieve

much more it is
to find reprieve

This started off as a re-edit of a previous poem to put myself in a more positive mindset. I am truly fatigued from the grieving and want to come UNSTUCK. I know that words matter - they move armies and people and hearts and minds - and they can move states of minds too! I hope I am able to help myself thanks to the support of all of you - I am still stunned each day that life is so different now. I am an ADULT in every sense of the word - there is no safety net now! I must accept the reality and move forward gently

119 · Oct 2017

A Mother’s Love Story

Timothy Ward Oct 2017

A Mother’s Love Story

a score
and two years
of love and
conflict and
rejection and
illness and
acceptance and
love
all over again
reduced to
ashes
.... and memories

We had a tense and rocky relationship as I came of age as a young gay teenager in a Christian household! We ever saw eye to eye and she thought It was her fault I was gay and she had to rectify the error - me! But she softened as only a mother can - and just as we began mending fences and I too started growing up and being less recalcitrant she fell ill. It brought us closer faster, but not close enough, nor fast enough nor LONG enough before she was snatched away. I’m left with ragged bittersweet memories as I try to make sense of the shifting sands beneath my feet and I miss her and regret so deeply the years I truly wasted in trying to establish an “identity” that in death is meaningless!!

#loss #grief #regret #remorse

117 · Oct 2017

Autumnal Cremation - haiku

Timothy Ward Oct 2017

Autumnal Cremation - haiku

the monarchs migrate
a forest is cremated
dark autumn skies

This year has been a difficult one for me personally and for others too! And nature’s wrath it seems is unabated...but it seems to me that the annual migration of my favorite butterflies- the giant Monarchs this year has been bittersweet. They carry with them the weight of my grief on their delicate wings, and as they waft away on currenets of air, i’m reminded of the fragility of life and to live every moment to its fullest! Meanwhile the forest fires consume and I don’t know what tomorrow will bring...

I know one isn’t supposed to explain their haikus but ***** tradition...! The butterflies represent ppl around me who are moving on with life and in time!!! The forest ...are my parents and the lives we lived...our memories and experiences- and the autumn skies is the unknown future I am ****** into each day - even as I am stuck in a blaze that has passed me by!

Wish I could make sense of it!

#grief #loss #ambivalence

114 · Sep 2017

A Covenant

Timothy Ward Sep 2017

A Covenant

An open door
Never a score
Don't use me

Open wounds
Still marooned
Don't abuse me

Crystalline heart
Ethereal parts
Don't break me

If...

You love me true
I'll love you too
Never to leave you

Perhaps someday someone will be deserving and brave enough to share this sacred covenant of two souls searching and wanting to connect in time and space albeit briefly but in a very special way!

113 · Sep 2017

Missing Beauty

Timothy Ward Sep 2017

Missing Beauty

I miss the beauty
of a verse
lost in clouds
of heady prose
laced with numbers
mind in throes
I miss the beauty
of a verse

I'll take poetry over prose any day of the week!!!

112 · Jan 2016

You

Timothy Ward Jan 2016

You

Your voice
Soft and reassuring
Your words
Kind and loving
Your breath
Warm and comforting
Your lips
Tender and inviting
Your kiss
Our hearts atingling

110 · Aug 2017

Musings on shrooming...

Timothy Ward Aug 2017

Musings on shrooming...

psychedelic
semaphores
unfurling
jolly rogers
cloaked in
blue peters
waving and
drowning
in turbulent
seas of
vacuousness

what would it be like to do LSD or psychedelic mushrooms? I wandered lonely as a cloud ... haha.. always wondered about Wordsworth???

107 · Aug 2017

The Pearl

Timothy Ward Aug 2017

The Pearl

The loss of you
Is a grain of sharp sand
Embedded in my heart
It hurts with every move
Every tortured breath
But I know
That if I can only hold up
Long enough
The time
And the pain
And the living
That flows over it
Will form a thin,
Smooth, gleaming layer
Around this tiny fragment
And then
It will not hurt
Quite so much.

More time
More friends
More living and
Less thinking
Will add coat
After coat
After coat,
And one day
Some day
It will form
Into a pearl.

And then
I'll hardly feel it at all!

That little
Sharp...
... grain of sand.

103 · Oct 2017

Grace

Timothy Ward Oct 2017

Grace

stop the tears
quell the fears
hope capsized
dreams realized
the feuds erased
a son embraced
requiescat in pace

A friend shared with me today that even as I grieve I must find a way to see the gratitude in the time that we had together. The last days for mom were tough and the decisions I had to make difficult, but I was lucky to have the time to be there with her. It wasn’t catastrophic where she got hit by a car or some other catastrophe!

Not much consolation but some perspective nonetheless.

101 · Oct 2017

Letter to Mom

Timothy Ward Oct 2017

Letter to Mom

Another day, another night
Acrid air, acerbic sight
MRI’s, CT scans, RT feeds
Oh please forgive me

22 pills, twice a day
Pulverized, force-fed toxic buffet
Eight “feeds” a day... “vitality”?!
Oh please forgive me

Heart rates spiked, fevers rose
The medical team... yet a new prognose!
“Now she needs to breathe you see!”
Oh please forgive me

Seizures broke, bedsores grew
I didn’t know what to do...
Your silent stares, a deafening plea
Oh please forgive me

Six weeks in - comatose
I held you in my arms...reposed
All I wanted was to flee
Oh please forgive me

And then that fateful day arrived
They said you were now past revive
I sat benumbed…just you and me,
Please forgive, I set you free…

I hope somehow through the “ether” she reads this so she knows what transpired during her last few hellish weeks. It was a new set of spiraling circumstances everyday and I truly did the best I could do to keep her alive, and when that seemed futile her comfort was paramount. And when her comfort was compromised, my god....my god....my god... that’s why I write this to you mom - in the hope that you understand. I so desperately wish I could have talked to you just once about this all. You stared at me penetratingly but not a word slipped through - I only saw you wince in pain. Lord alone knows how much you endured, how much you suffered - at the end - it is NOT about me but about YOU! I hope as a son - no matter what, I did right by you.

#love #loss #grief #forgiveness

99 · Sep 2017

Your Touch

Timothy Ward Sep 2017

Your Touch

hands graze
shuddering jolt
my heart skips

sensual fingers
tracing moisture
quivering lips

heated breaths
sinuous twists
enjoining hips

96 · Sep 2017

The Mirror

Timothy Ward Sep 2017

The Mirror

and as i
look deep
into your eyes
i see cruel
expanses of
emptiness and
insecurity and
self
deprivation
i see
me

50 · Oct 2017

Unanswered Prayers- Haiku

Timothy Ward Oct 2017

Unanswered Prayers- Haiku

the porridge is hot
a young man prays...quietly
the porridge is cold

Many a family in dire circumstances have skipped meals or left them to go icy cold outside an ICU ante room as we prayed fervently for a divine intervention that never arrived. I’m left fatigued at being so selfishly prayerful and equally angry at the hollowness of the rationale provided in the aftermath of my mother’s demise. I have no answers and fewer questions- reaching ambivalence I guess.

39 · Aug 2017

Goodbye

Timothy Ward Aug 2017

Goodbye

a flutter of wings
the long goodbye is over
we are at peace now

The last day when mum finally passed on and I saw a white pigeon fly away from the hospital window. 12 hours later she was gone. It was the first and last time I saw a white pigeon in the crowded city.

#haiku

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