Poetry 2014

Poetry 2014

 All in the Family Estate Sale

The leftovers are strewn about the house
The children have taken everything of interest
An elegant life-size portrait of the lady of the house
Hangs in the unfinished basement
The price $158
Someone paid a handsome sum for that portrait once
Now it comes down to a hundred dollars
None of the children want a reminder
Of their beautiful mother in her prime

Exit

The mammogram said further studies needed

The timing all off right before the holidays

Didn’t want to alarm my loved ones and husband with that shadow right before Christmas

Didn’t  want to alarm myself

They were persistent at the Women’s Center

They kept sending me letters

They weren’t going to leave me alone

Let me forget

They even sent me certified mail that I had to sign for

I tore up the letters or put them in the trash bin at the Maverick

I put it off

Denial works for a while

Still it does strange things to your head contemplating death

Even cancer

My mind drifted to different scenarios

Chemo

Radiation

Hair falling out

Body mutilated

So sick you almost die trying to save your life

How would it effect the kids?

How would it effect my husband?

I am not a gremlin for punishment

When I go I want it to be quick like a shot

Not slow and and agonizingly drawn out like a drought leeching the last ounce of water from the parched earth

If the worse case scenario is true

I hope they will  forgive me if I decide to end it quick

We all have to go sometime and I choose my exit to be quick

Lethal injection please

  

Birth of a Poet

He drew me in sitting there alone

Staring ahead in deep contemplation at the Barnes and Noble

Faint  scars dot his face
A reminder of the fragility of youth

His afro hair burnished with white curls,
tight as sausages
helmet his head
Three books sit on the table next to him

Langston Hughes

Emily Dickinson

Robert Frost

His own notebook with his writing and more blank pages in front of him

He writes a passage in his book

Reads some Dickinson

Thinks

Writes again

Oblivious to those around him

He chooses to write in a public place

He wants to connect with humanity

Even if those others are strangers

We share the same world at the book store

My Drum

My drum was so different from other’s drums

Drum circles drew me but my drum had a different tone

It had a different timbre  and sound

Even my family did not understand

I often felt like an orphan child

My drum was so different from other’s drums

I felt things others didn’t feel, saw things other’s didn’t see

The voices that echoed through my mind

Had a different timbre and sound

Too Crazy- different and out in left field

Isolation felt like a lone leaf at sea

My drums were so different from other’s drums

Was I born with a call

Is that why my psychic gifts defy reason

My drum was so different from other’s drums

It had a different timbre and sound

Summer Poems 2013

                            Save Some
            
            Save some meadows for the meadow larks
            Some trees for robin’s nests

            Save some oceans for the fish and whales

            Some milkweed for the monarchs 
            Save some wild places for wolves

            Some grasslands for the elk

            Save some ponds for pollywogs

            Some ice caps for the polar bears    
            Save some salmon for the grizzlies

            Some hillsides for the wheat                 
            Save some sunflowers for humming birds
            Some nectar for the bees 

             

            Humans aren’t the only ones on earth

            Our Mother wants us to share 

                        Andrea Hughes

            The earth's population has more than doubled in forty years from three billion when I was in high school to more than six and a half billion today.

                                       Summer Bliss

                Wakeup, wakeup, it’s summer

                the rooster croons

                Other birds echo twittered response

                A meadow lark reminds us

                Bluffdale is a pretty little place

                A soft breeze cools the air

                Wind chimes whisper a gentle tune
                Roses celebrate

                Curls and twirls of petals spiral in

                                powder puff pink,

                                feathered fuchsia,

                                brilliant burgundy.

                Picasso’s palette splashes  sunny yellows, corals, and reds 

                The climber through the window  reflects

                a cacophony of crimson delight

                The solstice envelops us with it’s loving touch.

                Andrea Hughes 

                June/ 2013          

The Spring Muse

                                    Cloud Birds

            The clouds imitate the lake

            A pelican gliding

            A duck dunking it’s head

            A gull fighting for food

            A pigeon turning his luminescent neck

            A Canadian Goose in formation

            Their shapes glide

            Change

            Rearrange

            Another bird forming

            A mystical mirror that moves through the sky

           

                                      Visible Voyeur

                Always living through other’s lives

                Spying on blogs

                Reading the News

                Lurking on websites

                Checking Reviews

                Sharing other’s points of view

                Never speaking your own truth.

                Your camelon colors made me wonder.

                Then Facebook was discovered.

                You could hide behind screens

                Spewing venom and hatred

                arrogant pride with ease

                Now that I’ve heard your voice

                I prefer

                Silence

                 

                                            Theory on Atheists

                People that don’t believe in God

                have not been at the bottom of the well

                wondering if they will survive.

                Or a loved one near death

                had to cry out for help.

                Have not been in a tunnel so dark

                they truly needed a flashlight.

                Falling to the abyss

                must reach out for a life line.

                Drowning,
                could not catch a breath,

                begged  for assistance.

                Their life too easy to stretch soul out of  body

                calling to a Higher Power for aid.

                Tests not tough enough

                to really reach to the heavens.

                                            Miracle Worker

                                                For My Niece

                Perfect portraits

                Photographic paintings

                Minute details noted on canvas

                Nuance

                Color

                Precision in expression

                Gifted

                Creative

                Expansive

                Handicapped

                Legally blind

                Life’s paradox

                Out of hardship

                Comes exquisite masterpiece

                                         Life is Good

                Easter sun warms the earth

                Baby colts frisk through the pasture
                Seagulls return

                My mustang convertible opens to the heat

                Cruising around the park

                Children swing and climb
                With Springs return the day is magic

                People picnic and feed the birds

                Run and walk
                Sap returning to trees and to their veins

               The leaves peak out of their bud chrysalis
               Testing the air
               Blossoms of color pop with celebration

Ocean Medicine

Just spent some time in Laguna, California and other beach cities rejuvenating myself on my annual trek to the ocean.  My poetry muse came out to play.

                        Heads bob like birds on a platinum sea.

                        They wait for the perfect wave.

                        From the top of the cliff I glide with pelicans

                        wind currents catching my hair.

                        Gulls soar,

                        free fall,

                        then lift,

                        freedom in their flight.

                        With a bird’s view I watch the changes

                        clouds merging and shifting above me.

                        A ribbon of silver cuts through shining glass.

                        The sun a spotlight on the water

                        moving away

                        away

                        away

                        until it disappears

                        in an endless ocean.

At the Ritz Carlton on the top of Laguna Cliffs watching the sunset.

Rob Wrote

My love and I watch the setting sun
Remembering when we had just begun
Two hearts entwined like the shinning sea
Knowing our love was meant to be
Birds aloft
Catching the wind
Bring the joy of love again.

Heart Murmur

At fifty-eight my heart began to talk
Life's slings and arrows had taken their toll
Though strong it began to complain
Enough is enough
My heart strained
Enough is enough
Please no more pain
Enough is enough
It said again and again
May life be kind to my heart
Or it may bleed and then drain.

Favorites

May and September

My father’s favorites

Sewing the seeds and reaping their rewards

The miracle of life’s cycle renewing again and again

My dry farmer father lived by those cycles

Watched the rain and almanac reports

Depended on God’s grace to deliver

Faith was the watchword of each equinox

The farmer in me shares those same favorites

May with it’s spring energy bursting buds and seedlings

Rays steaming the soil in my garden boxes

Awakening meadow larks that share their jubilant joy

September’s abundance brings fruits of summer heat

Squash, homegrown tomatoes,cucumbers

Colors rich with shades of Autumn

Ochre, lemon,sienna,crimson treats

Wickedness Never was Happiness

                                                             

Wickedness never was happiness.  Humans seem to fail to get that concept right and are continually testing that premise and hurting themselves and others.  That we will all answer to God for our lives, is something that everyone should consider.   What if God is there and watching everything we do and we’re going to have to answer for our actions? Would we still live the same life if God was watching it?  Whether God is real or God isn’t real is not the true question.  The true question is how did you live your life? Did you live your life helping other’s or hurting others?

When people know how they should be living their lives and choose otherwise, they are actually going against themselves.  There is a scripture that says, “I am bound when ye do what I say but when ye do not what I say ye have know promise. When Commandments are broken the result is often very damaging to the self and others.  On the other hand when we live God’s laws, it’s funny how much happier and better off our lives seem to go.

God gave us commandments and laws for our own well being and to help us have a happy life.  If we follow the commandments the result is a much happier life. Breaking God’s laws hurts ourselves and hurts others. He gave those laws to us because he loved us and wanted to show us the way to be happy and healthy. 

Human nature is often like the Wiley Coyote in the Road-runner cartoons.  Humans always get caught in their own traps and fail to learn the lesson and keep making the same mistake again and again.  Wise and soul searching people learn the lesson. 

When people betray other’s through pretending to be something they are not, it will come around to bite them.  When people know better and then turn away from what God has taught them, they are in a worse position than those that never knew the laws.  The consequences for betraying God and our fellowman are unhappiness, loneliness, and a lot of heartache.  God’s laws don’t reward bad choices. God’s laws reward good choices.    Whoever decides to break God’s laws creates their own heartache because they chose their own heartache by doing something they knew would be harmful to themselves and others and did it anyway.   It is just the natural law of cause and effect. 

So many people think that they are the exception to God’s laws.  Guess What?  You’re not.  No one escapes the results of breaking God’s laws.  One way or another, people will have to pay for their actions.  That is why choosing  right actions is the smart way to go.   If you choose the right thing in the first place you can prevent a lot of sadness and heartache.

One nice thing about God as I have learned about Him is that He forgives people.  He believes in mercy and love not an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.  Justice as in an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth only keeps the negative karma going.  All God hopes for us is that we will leave sin behind and turn to him.  He has said, “I cannot look upon sin in the least degree of allowance.”   I think he is saying to us.  I can’t look at you hurting yourself or another with the least degree of allowance because I love you and I want you to learn to love yourselves and others the way I have loved you.   He does not allow sin because he knows it will only hurt us.  The good thing is that if we stop sinning and turn to him and start living our lives correctly, he forgives us.  He has said that if you repent and sin no more, though your sins be as of scarlet you can be as white as snow in His eyes.  Thank goodness we can repent and there is forgiveness because none of us is perfect and we all need to repent for things we have done. The important thing is to make better choices in the future and obey God’s laws so we can be happy.