My first challenge poem!

Hey everyone. This week I offer two poems. The first one is a Veterans' Day Poem I wrote many years ago. The second one is in response to the first challenge poem of this blog! Way to go Dawn. I have a second challenge already and I WANT MORE!! It makes me create something each week, and I love it. Make me earn your support on this blog. Okay...enough already.

This first poem I wrote back when I was at the University of Iowa (thousand years ago). I remember the inspiration was seeing the dark, grey sky reflected in a puddle on a cold Veteran's day. I was out walking. The breeze was making the water ripple. It was like the whole of the world had just cried itself out.

Fades in My Tears

Mute.
Grief-spent the sky stared
At its wind quivering reflection.
Threatened renewed anguish.
Autumn yellow fades in its tears.
I could not console it.

Wisdom.
Plentiful as the wreathes on cold granite
Decorates my mind
Dies in my throat.

Duty Honor Country Sacrifice
Confuses me.

The cost
Humbles me.

Blood-rusted oaks try to hold back
The sky’s tears.
I share it’s burst of pain
But cannot console it.

The effort dies in my throat.
Fades in my tears.
____________________________

This poem is in answer to Dawn Reed Vinkavich's challenge . She recalled the days of our high school days. In those days, we would muster our courage and alcohol, and visit the Black Angel of Oakwood Cemetary, Iowa City, IA. For those not schooled in local Iowan lore, the Black Angel was a statue/grave stone that was cursed, and frequently visited by the curious (and sometimes the brash). In all the visits I paid the Angel, I never once thought about the dead the Angel was meant to remember. Dawn, this poem is not a funny recollection of our teen days, but an acknowledgement of what so many of us missed. Rodina Feldevertova is Czech for "the Family of Feldevert. It is the name chiseled on the base of the angel.

Rodina Feldevertova

In your darkest nights
Amid the laughter of drunken
Mischief looking for bragging rights,
You hold out for dignity.

The mystery of your silent, menacing repose is
Broken by macabre photos
Touches from the curious
Whispers of what is wrong
About you

You did not ask for
The insensitive trampling
Of your solitude.

So many visit you
Yet forget your purpose.

You weep for Rodina Feldevertova.
They lie (unnoticed)
Beneath your open wings
(and) away
From our darkest hearts.

____________________________

May you all laugh and love beneath the wings of your guardian angels.
Until next time.

b

From the memory of a friend

A school friend of mine, Brett Duncan, commented on a poem and recalled memories of he and I catching bees when we were little kids. It got me thinking. Although I usually try to show two poems per post, I wanted to get this out. I wrote it last night.

Bees

Funny how bees (like our memories)
Find their way home.

Can bring back the stuff of love and flowers
(Honey gold thick on the bread of our lives).
Can sting us to tears
(from sacrifice and loss).

If trapped in a jar
They bang headlong against glass walls of reality
(They die)
No matter how many holes we poke
In the lids of our relationships.

If set free
We risk losing them
In the fading blossoms of autumn
(amid choices that were once ours)

Funny how bees (like our hopes)
Will dance to show where the pollen hides.
Will buzz from the beauty of a dew-jeweled meadow.
And give the cool of a petal’s shade
To a friend.
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Let me know your thoughts.
b.