Sarah Flanigan - Poetry Simply Put

I put together a few more pods. You can find them on the podcast page- I also re-recorded a few others, finally found a recording software that I could understand. I think they’re better than the last batch. Enjoy.

We don’t want to forget
so we read
the Names
we sound the bells
we Remember

We don’t want to lose (again)
so we go to the desert
get them their justice
bury our dead
read the Names
sound the bells

We want to honor
so we wrap them
in Flags
gentle their bodies
into hallowed ground
utter prayers
relinquish tears
fight the futility
carry on
build memorials
fight amongst ourselves
drive with the lights on
wonder Why
why can we not live
in co-existence

God does not want this
we do not want this
I do not want this
who wants this?

We do not want to forget (them)
so we read the Names (and weep)
we sound the bells (to their souls)
We Remember (always)

copyright 2008

To write you a poem
I would write it
in a cerulean sky
I would send it
from the shadowed moon
I would hide it
among scattered stars
Shelter it in
sea-green eyes
And it would
spiral
toward the Sun
broadcast
as fractured
Light
and prism
in your
Dreams

copyright 2008

Trees don’t lie
there is an expectation
of the dawn
and tomorrow
will be different
and yesterday too
if you let it

A backward story
makes your beginning
possible
characters out of tune
can sing a lovely
song
if you listen

A solitary hill
is not a lonely place
if it what it shows you
brings you closer
to the truth
and
you can see it

Time cannot own you
nor waste your dreams
if you travel between
the minutes
above the hours
then
it is yours

copyright 2008

And the poet
wrote her story
in lovely metered
prose
Nothing more
that she could do
than lay
her heart
eXposed

Life is still a
dance
no matter what you
do
And everything’s a
chance
a door
for walking through

She leaves it widely
open
and worries not the
risk
and fills the air
with Chopin
and breathes in
morning mist

The days will make
the colors
that shade
the things to
come
still, the world can be
a dullard
and leave your soul
undone

So the poet
writes her story
and scribbles at it
still
with no dreams of
glory
just a view
from toP of
hill

copyright 2008

Lullaby and goodnight…The song came back to Karen on an evening rare and fragrant. She could nearly hear the voice that sung it. She knew it had been soft and sweet and that it contained tears. The windchimes tickled by a small poof of breeze conjured a mobile - shiny - and it had music too. The tune, Karen couldn’t remember, but she knew it was happy. And there were pictures of sweet clowns on the walls, which were painted blue, like the sky and swirled white into winsome clouds.

Lullaby and goodnight…the voice reached for Karen again and she pulled her old sweater around herself - tighter to make a cocoon that could embrace her anxiety. She chewed on her lower lip, craving a cigarette, something she’d given up in a previous life along with booze and fast-talking men.

“What woman gives away her own child?” Karen had asked herself repeatedly over the years - and more now that she had a child of her own who slept like an angel in her room, inside the house that belonged to the steps that Karen sat upon. Waiting.

Karen checked her watch but couldn’t see the time. She should have turned on the porch light and waited inside, but she didn’t want to make it easy for her. Why should she? The woman had never made it easy for Karen. “What mother doesn’t want their own child?”

Karen sat in the dark and waited against her instincts, her better judgment. Lullaby and goodnight...the warble sought her out again which teased tears from large grey eyes. Did they have the same eyes? So many birthdays, so many years of looking, hoping. Meeting only the answer, no. So much time gone by that Karen regretted consenting to see her. Instead, Karen wanted to hurt her, make her feel abandoned, lost and unwanted.

The breeze grew stronger and leaves skittered like a thousand tap-dancing mice across the walk. “What mommy doesn’t want her little girl?” the question screamed in Karen’s head.

A car made a slow ascent up the hill and in her direction. Karen tensed. Was this it? Would she finally face the woman who gave her to strangers? The car rolled to a stop with a slight squeak and Karen was on her feet, halfway down the walk, no longer thinking of old wounds and past betrayals, but reacting with a need that had never left her.

The passenger side window powered down and the driver leaned toward it. “I’m looking for 132 Oak, is this it?” the man asked.

Karen stopped mid-step, shoulders slumped and she shook her head. “No,” she pointed east, “it’s that way.”

The driver nodded and put the car in motion and headed back down the hill and Karen, toward the house. She wasn’t coming. Too much a coward. The story would have no ending - happy or otherwise.

Karen released the tears from their prison of restraint and stood at the steps weeping, hugging herself, knowing that truth would never be hers and that God had decided that she didn’t deserve it.

Then a hand touched her shoulder. “Karen? Don’t cry, dear.”

Karen dare not turn, not look, not believe - she could not bear to see emptiness again.

“Karen, it’s me … your mother..” and the voice was like the song, the lullaby and the hand was gentle on her trembling shoulder.

“I can’t look,” Karen wept. “I can’t look,” she whispered raggedly.

“It’s all right, I understand. You don’t have to look. I’ll just stand right here - so you won’t be alone.”

As Karen wept, the hand of her mother rested gently on her shoulder and stayed there as an anchor to the truth of them. And Karen’s mother sang, “Lullaby and goodnight…”

copyright 2008

It was a warm breath at the back of her neck. A poem committed to memory, yet never read. It stalked her - followed her wherever she went. Ever present, yet impossible to capture.

Sometimes quiet, like a low hum that murmurs in the background. Sometimes as tempetuous as a summer lightning storm, crackling against a sultry sky. Usually it was a persistant song that hung in the air and whispered her name. That hovered over her bed at night and crawled into her dreams - teasing her, caressing her and forcing her sleep-heavy eyes open. To look.

But it could not be seen with eyes - only felt in the everywhere of the space. Waiting. Holding its breath and pretending it wasn’t. It was a mirror toward which she reached and was met with a duplication of her own outstretched arm. The heat that emanated from that reflection back at her said, ‘yes, I’m here.’

And she had conversations with herself about it - hoping she was simply going mad and soon would find a medication to turn it off and send it packing. Though she knew it was not madness, nor hallucination - it was real and palpable, dimensional, tactile, smellable, tasteable. With the ability to travel over time and space effortlessly, finding her wherever she was, wherever she hid. It was a surge of heat that shot through her core, found the place where it could nest and call home.

Tags: ghosts

Peace flees my garden
intruders thrusting poison
and I cry for help

copyright 2008

Tags: original poetry

I was, I am
and that
never changed
but I did

I leapt and I spun
but the new shoes
never quite fit
Bare feet are best

A floppy hat
and garden gloves
teach me more
than my recent travels
and books of foreign text

Beer is better than
martinis
no fruit, thank you
A tattered map
leads me home

The ocean is
my compass to peace
No voice
changes
That

copyright 2008

Tags: home, Poetry

Sarah held the
magnifying glass up
to the clues
her vision was waning
and a pain
of mystery knotted her
neck and shoulders

“I know it’s here….
If only it would say
Hello..” she mumbled.

But Sarah knew that
puzzles could be
resolutely mute when they
wanted to be - and this one
did

She picked up the
hand mirror and
lost a dazzle into the
silver handle
Both of Her peered back
from the beveled glass
one smirking
one laughing
They would be of no help

So she put on the kettle
which sang an
aboriginal tune so
intoxicating
she next found herself
down the rabbit hole
again
dressed in ceremonial robes
and wearing a particularly
bejeweled mask

Alice stood next to her
and tried to lead Sarah
through the maze
but she couldn’t move
“Time has fixed me, all right,”
she said to Alice
who only smiled and whispered,
“What will be, will be. It’s only a matter of
Time.”

And the teapot
began a lilting soft
jazz that
brought her back
to the kitchen table,
all of her books,
like children seated there,
chattering excited prose

Sarah fled the kitchen
for the quiet of her
bed
“I must sleep,” she wept
But a thousand dreams
barred entry to that wish
She climbed out the window
and leapt to a
low-hanging pink cloud
that was soft
and easy to embrace
“I do not belong here,
either.”

A smile in the distant
sky
bade her most-South
and built a footbridge
across the ocean
though Sarah knew
not to place a step there
for it would disappear
behind her and
she would never find her way
Home
again

Sarah pulled ruby slippers
from apron pockets
and clapped them together
Hoping for a tornado
a swirl of Force
to put her right again
but the weather remained
temperate
and she continued to
float….

Tags: introspection, puzzles