Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
(from "To: Mimi Romanelli"

~indebted to suggestion of
https://hellopoetry.com/MacGM/
for filling me up one of the trillions of missing datapoints
in my slowly diminishing insights & missing knowledges
<>
"I am happy, Dear, to have walked with steady faith on the waters of our uncertainty all the way to that island which is your heart and where pain blossoms. Finally: happy."

from the poem by Rilke
"To: Mimi Romanelli"
see notes

'~~~'
so worthy of my/our attentions,
his reflections on loss, grief and mortality,
for in the natural course of this poet's story,
the interplay of this shopping list of preoccupations,
foremost on this temporal frontal lobe in these waning days
of my perhaps, last summery summary,
that falls upon your eyes with
my guilt that you have clicked upon
this e~pistle, in and un~
tentionally & tensionally
thus demanding & tendering post-haste
my apology

so be advised, be learned, and query why
an essay on ending mortality should be
be finished with a concluding a
"Finally: happy."
by breaching this poet Rilke essay,
one discovers
this poet sees through the storms of his preoccupations,
"the red of his blood,"
because he loves
another human, being,
so many would agree,
yet so few are so certain,
as Rilke,
and yet,

"It is still always that death which continues inside of me, which works in me, which transforms my heart, which deepens the red of my blood, which weighs down the life that had been ours so that it may become a bittersweet drop coursing through my veins and penetrating everything, and which ought to be mine forever.

And while I am completely engulfed in my sadness, I am happy to sense that you exist,
Beautiful. I am happy to have flung myself
without fear into your beauty just as a bird flings itself into space. I am happy, Dear, to have walked with steady faith on the waters of our uncertainty all the way to that island which is your heart and where pain blossoms.

Finally: happy."


<>
Writ the last week of August,
and the first of September
2025
see https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/09/06/rainer-maria-rilkes-letters-on-grief/
A man alone is not a man just a force without a purpose.
No one to protect, to guide, or provide for,
just a force without a purpose.

A woman alone is lost, no one to nurture, or nourish,
no one to teach or cherish.
A woman alone is lost.

Of course my view is wrong,
perhaps sexist or chauvinistic,
but the differences are plain to see,
and to me the differences are complimentary.

A man is completed by a woman
and a woman is completed by a man.

Two halves that make a greater whole
two pieces reuniting one soul.

I am a man without a purpose.
Will you complete me???
A Jerry Maguire moment
She had me at Hello!
When my mother died.
My sense of self slipped away.
The world tasted bland.
We all have it
or at least I think we do
That ache or sorrow of heart
When in moments all alone
we sit sometimes on the edge of the bed for hours
Each breath slow and easy
as that hollow ache swallows the whole heart

I wonder if it comes from God letting us know what it feels like to be rejected by the people we love

When Jesus was 12 he attended the Passover festivals in Jerusalem with his parents . After the holiday was over everyone packed up and left only concerned about their destination . About half way home his parents realized he was not there and made a hasty retreat back to Jerusalem . They found him in the Temple teaching the priest .

Sometimes we get caught up in our destination and forget what we are missing .
"Why were you searching for me ? Did you not know I must be in my father's house ?"

Maybe that hollow ache is the missing presence of our Father's house inside .

Maybe going somewhere without is going nowhere at all .


https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=hjvKcuQdMbw&si=grgF8Cs1-z6MS5MZ
eyes on the pavement,
the tiny architectects
of sky bound prayers.

the children draw dreams
with chalk-stained hands
on the cracked concrete,
flowers, and sky bound birds,
and home and stars and rainbows.

a shimmer of light on stone.

will the chalk bleed before the bloom?
My Chronology
ages
as my writing
stays young

The years
in retreat
as each new song
is sung

A number
but unit
of folly
relayed

Whose essence
a symbol
of prescience
— in play

(Dreamsleep: August, 2025)
Hi, beautiful—
how have these last days been?
I’ve been thinking of you,
you know?

I confess—
I’m a little lost.
I don’t know what I want from my life.

Today I see myself
in a profession that maybe
wasn’t what I truly wanted,
but what I chose
to avoid discomfort.
Now I’m left with frustration.

So I ask you—
what did you want to be
when you grew up?

I remember—
besides being a ballerina,
we used to write so much.
Whole stories.
Whole books.
Our imagination so vast
that today I’m still in awe.

Would you like
to write those stories again?

I will be completely open
to you,
to whatever you want to tell.

Let’s color the world
with our words.

With love,
Me.
What if you’ve truly changed?
What if you’re really ready
to love me the way I deserve?

I miss you so, so, so—
so much
that it feels like a hole
is opening from my throat
down to my belly.

I almost wish I were pregnant—
an unforgivable excuse
to come back to you.

It feels like everything that’s happened
has been telling me
I should never have left.

And God?
And the church?
And our friends?

Ugh—
will you text me again?
Next page