I Am Bonsai

Trained bent stunted

plucked trimmed uprooted

At times I feel I am bonsai

and life is master

Master please

set my root to ground.

by colleen hannah

Death’s Duet (lament for the addict)

the dance is waiting

instrument picks up instrument

the waltz begins

one two three,

one … two… it’s the same every day

the violin plays but the music is scarred.

some days I am not the one

who holds this heavy bow.

the music will not be rushed

he knows time is on his side.

the smallest opening,

he slips inside, tears me from within

exposing bones,

plucking tendons

a maestro of madness settled on his strings

begins

to play his way with me.

sound changes

like tarantulas crawling

on a skeleton thin glass table

tic tic tick… tic tic tick

this is not the music I first heard.

he and I continue

this sickly death’s duet

but arms so worn from playing

tired of tired out notes

I have no strain left in me and feel

the opening close

too late.

the music has been written

the very last note drawn

a lonely string plucked one last time this waltz

is over

by colleen hannah

I have lived a life of differences, each one leading me to where I am today. One of those differences, one sometimes I would like to forget, is depicted here. I have learned so much from my journey though and each step taken, whether off the track  or not has brought me to the people who love me for who I am. I could not be more grateful. I know though, as I say in one of the lines in my poem that sometimes we learn too late. I am just so very happy that I was able to finish the duet before the music ended.

The Smile of the Electrically Challenged

℞

Cubed up white screen

memory blares

Hum drum white noise

sticks to the brain

Plain jane white robe

on switch thrown

head thrown back

beepbeep… beepbeep…

electrically convulsive, don’t you think?

monitor off

memory fades

da da da dah… cue forever smile!

What am I smiling about?

Never mind dear

Now give us that cheer

That’s the smile we like to see – the smile

of the electrically challenged.

℞

Once upon a long time ago, I had the max set of E.C.T. treatments allowed at the time, I am not certain I would be here if I did not. But it is a treatment that (for me) stole a lot of my short-term memory, but given the same circumstances (the same all-encompassing depression with no end in sight) I would do it all over again. Now 12 years later, the treatments are much lighter, much less damaging to the memory, and in smaller doses. So please do not let my memories of those days, in this, or any other poem I may write, scare you off if you feel Electric Convulsive Therapy might be a treatment you need. I believe it saved my life, and what’s a little memory shaved off the top compared to that… hmm?

 

Bruises on a Backdrop

———————————————————————————————–

Columns gathered

dappled darkening

bruises on a backdrop

daring her to play in their current

random playground

and horses

go charging

☂ ☂ ☂

Advancing closer

currents sprawling

can she stand

the coming storm?

But instead of fleeing homeward

she faces boldly forward

and mounts

the wilding winter steed

☂ ☂ ☂

lifted up

excitement racing

electrified and radiating

being pulsing ions rising there’ s no stopping she is writhing

vortex forming heart starts throbbing

body’s aching back is arching and

she comes

☂ ☂ ☂

Smashing to the ground

she runs home

safe and grounded

in her flat flannel world

then a spark

illuminating

a few small ions

unexpended from the storm.

———————————————————————————————–

☂by colleen hannah

That little stormy, electric side of me is still in here. I hope.  Just have to catch a cloudburst at the right time.

If Decades- a swing and a wish

A swing and a wish

If decades-

it might be different

but we may not have that long. If we did

then perhaps all our gainsays

whether justified or not

would be received and chewed through thoroughly

then challenged back.

 

But all that swinging

back and forth

takes time we do not have.

So Dad, I would love

to just talk back and forth

and laugh- ’bout day’s events

like when we swung

on the slightly used tire you hung

from the shading maple

in the backyard

of my childhood home.

♥♥♥

by colleen hannah

written for my Dad, whom I love more than anything. And more than anything- I love to sit with him, and listen to his tales. Then we laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

Love like a Citrus Spray

 

Your love is like...

Your love is like a citrus spray

juicy

startling

and sometimes stings

but life without you

would bore me

and like a lemon it would suck

without it’s zing

 

✍ colleen hannah

My boyfriend is like a watermelon. Refreshing- never stings. But every once in a while… the rest applies.

YOU IRIDESCENT FOOL

Shiny, Pretty, but of no real use.

You iridescent fool

shining pretty

colours

like prisms along pools

of clear cut  glass

But vapid

and vacant

no maiden of any intent

would share

the looking with you.

 

 

Ω

by colleen hannah

Many I have met shine pretty but shine wears off eventually, doesn’t it?

It’s time we sift a little substance into the shine.

My Friend (the sea-gull)

There he is – my friend

With wings quite bland

but beak-outstanding                   Flit and  lift

he’s off

not quite got

the flying down but oh

he is grand

 

 

by colleen hannah- for my little friend who just hasn’t got the knack of being a sea-gull. I am not convinced he really knows his true origins at all. But we like to hang out and discuss the days events, nonetheless.

suicide tonight

GONE

<«»>

suicide    tonight

 in my three floor honeycomb

gone

and gone

fly well someone’s son

<«»>

-colleen hannah

This poem was written after a man committed suicide in my 3 story building. He left behind a wife, who lives with the feeling that somehow she could have done something. She could not. But when someone takes their own life they condemn loved ones, left behind, to life filled with tragedy and regret, and feelings of guilt.

The guilt of course is almost always misplaced, but no one who loves someone can ever see their way past the voices that will not subside after losing someone to suicide. The voices that say, “You should have done this, you should have done that” Yes, there is always something more or different we could do in life, but if someone chooses to hurt him or herself there is nothing, nothing, we can do to change that. We can only do what we think is right at the time, and if that is what we did, that is the only thing that matters.

Allowing the voices to spin self accusations only inhibits our ability to heal, and to help and be there for other family members. If you lost someone to suicide you have been deeply hurt, wounded to the core… but to carry on and to heal is the best way to remember your loved one.

And if anyone reads this and is considering ending their life, please, please, remember… tomorrow is a day where everything can change, and there are always so many tomorrows. Please don’t give up, and please don’t let your family and loved ones live a life of pain because you are gone.

Tomorrow is everything. Today is just yesterday when tomorrow finally comes                                                                                                                                                   -c.h.

Ω- HALF PAST THEN -Ω

Spiral spiritualism- no where to go- but back to the beginning.

 

the eventuality of events

calls all future tense

to its

inevitable end

for if our time has all but ticked

then we of course have all been licked

a little to the fix and

ten past then

 

by colleen hannah

a commentary on the idea that all time, and our place in it, has been  plotted or fixed, and is static. We must make room for free will.

Perhaps a better word for it, when it comes to the human race, is mistakes. Even nature has made mistakes albeit beautiful, wondrous mistakes. If we do not allow free will to flourish and admit mistakes are part of who we are, there is no point to our choices we make. We must learn. Or we become stagnant, when that happens we will be clones of clones on a dying world.

we cannot learn without change, without making a few mistakes. This has all been said before, but it seems we have not heard, or not made enough mistakes.

When a mistake is made it is like a step – ready to be taken, ready to be learned from.  Every step takes us somewhere new, tells us something new.

If we have learned from our mistakes then we have never made any mistakes at all, only steps in the right direction. So let’s all take a few ticks to the side of center and envision an actual future, not a reprint of last year’s travelogue.