Sarah Flanigan - Poetry Simply Put

(for Michael)
Behind the glass wall
he waits
in the outfield
to catch a fly ball
shoot her to homeplate
winning the game

Behind the glass wall
he waits
by the seashore
waving at gulls
dancing the waves
away from his pant cuffs

Behind the glass wall
he waits
at the schoolyard
to meet his children
carry their bookbags
and detail their day

Behind the glass wall
he waits
for his true love
to unlock the door
and open his heart

Behind the glass wall
he waits
for your heart to
listen to his heart
and know he is there

Behind the glass wall
he waits
calls out your name
with a voice from inside
bangs on the wall
with fists in his mind

Behind the glass wall
he waits
for his angel
to bring him his peace
and lead him away
from behind
the glass wall.

copyright 2007

Today we mourn the loss
given us that day
we hold our candles high
we bow our heads and pray

We read aloud the names
of everyone we lost
and we don’t forget
the heartbreak or the cost

We miss them all so much
our hearts won’t let them go
holding fast our memories
we feel our teardrops flow

Tomorrow we’ll return
to our normal lives
we’ll put away our sorrow
assume a calm disguise

We’ll close the photo album
and lock our hearts down tight
and pray that next September
we have made this wrong right

copyright 2007

Hot, sultry, steamy. Labor Day weekend is a bust. Nothing to do but swelter and try to stay conscious. Relief doesn’t come. Sleep doesn’t come. The appetite is fickle and wants nothing I give it.

I’m beyond tired. My mind isn’t processing rightly. I’m angry and frustrated with everything.

I long for a quiet place - without room mates and neighbors or any intrusion - that is cool and let’s my mind wander to a place long time missed and nearly forgotten. Where I can string words into the portrait I see in my dreams.

The breeze comes and I am encouraged that there are cooler days ahead. Days with clear thinking and even revelation. Days when petty, slanderous remarks don’t affect me and I don’t mind so much that life isn’t fair. That people are cruel for the sake of cheap laughs and quick nods. That no one is paying attention to what matters and the price we pay for our ignorance.

But today, I meander through my own misery and stumble through my own labrynth of concept and ideals, right and wrong, good and bad. Today, I long for anything that will lift the weight from my head and the heat from my too-brown skin.

Tomorrow will come, it almost always does, and with it, a new bundle of complaints and bushel of victories. My eyes will see things differently and forget what they have seen today. My heart will glue itself back together and the drum beat that is life will call out - leaving behind anyone too slow to get in line.

copyright 2007