Life, In Focus

what have you done with all my memories

the ones I had packed organized neatly in the box in the

back of the hall closet

you must know the old box from the forties once my mother's

with taped corners faded roses faded recollections

hidden far in the back under the heavy guard of the panini maker

waffle maker my favorite slow cook chili cooker

I thought they would always be safe

heavily protected from harm or loss

irreplaceable to me they may have been stolen maybe sold at our

last garage sale to some unscrupulous someone rifling through

the stacks of photos decade by decade seeing my younger

brother in a seventies crazy plaid shirt and crazier plaid pants

being sent to elementary school against his will knowing

what was in store for him

after all these years it still brings tears to his eyes

what was mom thinking

wringing my hands holding my aching head

cursing struggling to recreate the years since I last saw it

hopelessly I realize I may never see it again

that everything I once was is gone that is

until a moment of enlightenment

when I suddenly remember I

had moved my memories from the closet

to the basement to make room

for a bread maker

that's never

baked.

JPPestana

Life In Focus

3.6.2022

 

 

Musings From Nauvoo http://voodoonauvoo.blogspot.com An Invitation To Worship crow row easily casually 

 

over the ghostly so slender row of sycamore

 

their slow slower strutting observed studied in clover buttercup mud their searching for is an open question an invitation for those far more knowing in an instant spring rain in winter changes colors terrain comfortably splashes onto drenches a gentle poem across the way the country church is smaller than 

 

the sign greeting god and you if this is religious you must know now you holler to god god smilingly hollers back crow bow

quietly rise with

silenced wings a voiceless witness

to what has

been

 

JPPestana

Invitation

3.5.2022

 

The Great Concealer

a badly shaken cloud

shies away hides behind

another cloud

then another

the wind strengthens 

suddenly it is knives and ice

cuts across these bleeding fields

takes no prisoners

trees sway bend one way

then the other

they only confuse

trace the dizzying wind

for his only eye

shaded from view

he thinks this may be what it takes

to shake loose

this breathless

concealed

seduction

JPPestana

The Great Concealer

3.4.20

In Progress Narrative exercise only

she looks over to her dresser 

her mother's mirror returns her look quick smile

she senses her mother's smile warm touch

generous against her pale freckled skin

she loves her morning sun more so now

on her sunny porch her flowers stir when 

they feel her slippered feet stopping at the squeaking hinge

rattle and slap of her screen door

a soft breath of rain greets gentles them

her eyes blossom rainbow as they always do 

she clears her throat as if to sing 

pours her irish whiskey tea 

adds some honey touch of ginger she is fortified 

delighted to just sit 

out of the blue she exclaims that 

most of the streets around here are named after trees 

she guesses the trees were here before people and

just named the streets after themselves 

she nods in agreement

from a flock of modest clouds 

gangs of robins raucously fly into her small holly tree 

the autumn berries so brightening so ripely red 

become winter berries 

she dreamily sips at her cooling tea

the dew irish green grass young clover 

spread easily in an accidental breeze

fox leave their den 

spend their morning dancing together

a mother's love and holding hand 

watch fox dance

as only fox

can

Portugal Gal

what are you doing on this rickety pier

juggling small balls of flaming sun for loose change

razor sharp knives or grenades would have been enough

to impress me applauding

looking at the costume of you light blue sky

your perfume is shining white madeira

I wonder if I have seen you before

not that that matters

If I did I am sure it was a summer dream

the sound I heard from your heart

your parting lips is a chainsaw idling

thrown to me in jest

caught in the applause

of the odd tourist

the sun extinguishes itself

a couple juggles 

chainsaws 

and her 

dangerously 

teasing

glances

JPPestana

Portugal Gal

3.1.2022

 Just Notes 

In progress

 

 

New Blood

was there something you 

wished to say 

in this this much later winter

words seem harder to come by

your grayness exceeds the bleakness

of empty streets drained and emptied hearts 

the blank canvas framed gold in the corner 

was once hung over the hearth's

licking warming flames 

it was your likeness in smoke soot ash

or are you are this dead leaf 

that refuses to fall to the 

rough ground

listening near and far 

for the new blood

of an exotic wind

dying down

to nothing

JPPestana

New Blood

3.10.2022

 

whole then broken then blown away

a resting place found only in the calm

if the winds die to nothing

an unmarked end for 

in your shrunken brittle curl 

 The White Bridge

the stream runs crookedly goes unnoticed until

the same long hard rain

 muddy dull water churns and gurgles like some slithering thing

is what it has always been

a shallow flow pushing dead leaves in the end

from muddy banks to a muddy pond

cuts through day and night  twisting

twig and branch and trunk

where does it start where does it end

when then was 

there are few here with you now

are the desperation of 

pain and sorrow

the forgetting

of knowing 

what is gone

is already 

too late

to say

 

 

 

say

He Waits To See the Irony of Rime

 

on shadows blunt edge

raining ice falls relentlessly

thunders down on these leafless

most common oak

over a longer arguing night

he sleeps through restlessly

waits to see the doubtless morning sky affirming clouds

unbinding releasing an immaculate beauty

conceived in the climbing reaching light

she reigns over everything

that no longer exists but wishes did

he wishes to exist in a fraction

of her simple given gifts

her unfathomable rhapsodies

nobly the oak carry the shear weight

majestic tapestries draped thickly thinly crystalline

each and every tree for once sees

through the sun

in his hands

and only by chance

all the riches known

to woman

queen

and

man

JPPestana

He Waits To See the Irony of Rhyme

2.25.22