Haibun: Shaken, not stirred

For De’s Prompt on dVerse Poets Pub. I haven’t followed any rules this go around.

Haibun: Shaken, not stirred
“A martini. Shaken, not stirred.” Bond, James Bond

My husband was a James Bond aficionado. He knew everything about him. When he was in hospital dying, his only regret: he would miss the new movie.

He will be watching from heaven when I go – I will be stirred without him by my side.

 

Cold Stars

For Amaya’s prompt at dVerse which has some strange rules. I hope I fulfilled them all. If not, oh well.

Cold Stars
“You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

I look at the impersonal stars in
the cold night sky
and I wonder –
do they know you died and left my sky?
do they care?
they shine all the time you know.
you just can only see them at night.
How can I care about the end of civilization
when my life changed so drastically?
Is that why you stars shine on in the cold darkness?
Not caring?
You stars suffered an unfathomable loss
eons ago?
And still burn with the pain of it?

The Songs of Birds

A quadrille for Dverse Poets Pub. It is quadrille Monday and De is hosting. She has gifted us the word “fill” or a variant of the word.

The Songs of Birds
“You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

It is cold and rainy but the trees
are speaking with the voices of birds.
Their songs fill the air –
they must have known I was lonely and
needed a friendly chirp or two.
I wander around this empty house
like a ghost – weeping.

Sorrow is Shit

For Carrie’s Sunday Muse BlogSpot.

Sorrow is Shit
“People once believed that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes, something so bad happens that a terrible sadness is carried with it and the soul can’t rest. Then sometimes, just sometimes, the crow can bring that soul back to put the wrong things right.” ― James O’Barr, The Crow

the crows were once my friends.
then a great sorrow overtook me
and I exploded in anger and then finally,
deep harsh tears.
the crows left me.
I am alone lying here,
the crow drops a key into the empty
cavity that is now my chest –
sans husband, sans heart, sans friends, sans love.
I wish the crow would replace my friends.
sorrow is shit without friends.

Love

I chose option 1  for Mish’s prompt – a book that is physically close to me and that means a lot to me – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
A short not-quite poem.

Love
“ ‘You’ll stay with me?’
Until the very end,’ said James.”
― J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I will stay with you,
Until the very end.
I held him until he took his last breath –
my beloved husband whom I love until the end of time.

Days Pass

For Carrie’s Sunday Muse BlogSpot.

Days Pass

The red of sunrise, the blue of the sky all remind me that you are gone.

The End

A haibun for DVerse Poets Pub. It is about new beginnings. I am ending the haibun with an American Sentence instead of a classic haiku.

The End
“Grief is like living two lives – One is like pretending everything is alright, and the other where your heart silently screams in pain.” Anonymous

December 22 my husband died unexpectedly. He had been in the hospital for a few days but then, he died. I sat and held him untl he drew his last breath. Christmas did not exist this year. The New Year’s did not exist. Nothing exists except the deep pain. I walk around the empty house and look out of the windows. The beginning of the year dawns grey and rainy. I curl up in Brad’s recliner wrapped in the blanket. I don’t think I will ever get warm again. Half of my heart has died.
I look up from the depths of a mine, a caged canary beating my wings against cold death.

The Mine

The words. I did not use all of them. solitude, cage, moonless, identical, circle, gravity, canary, root, platitude, apparition

For Skylover’s Word List.

The Mine
“Grief is like living two lives – One is like pretending everything is alright, and the other where your heart silently screams in pain.” Anonymous

January 3.
the smell of petrichor rises
from the roots and
moist air circles me
in the moonless night.
solitude cages me.
an owl drifts across the sky
like an apparition.
I look up from the depths of a mine,
a caged canary beating my wings
against death.

Car Accident

My husband has been in hospital for a week now with extremely bad pneumonia and twice he coded.  So my thoughts have been solemn but still hopeful, but then again, solemn.  I have been comforted with a notebook (which I rarely use) recording thoughts, poems and of course, American Sentences.  This is a grim poem I wrote after I got to the hospital and experienced several bad accidents on the highway within a half a mile of each other.  It is grim so if you don’t read, I understand!

Car Accident
“Pain is strange. A cat killing a bird, a car accident, a fire…. Pain arrives, BANG, and there it is, it sits on you. It’s real.”
Charles Bukowski

In the blackness long lines of lights.
two bad car accidents within a half-mile of each other –
one at one exit,
the other at the exit opposite.
I see the firemen hosing down one site.
I think to myself:
on one hand, we gawk.
we want to see the blood on the highway,
the crashed cars.
on the other, we don’t want to look.
Death.
It reaches out its claw
and catches us as a raptor does
a mouse in a field.
We want to know we survived.
We need to know we survived.
Death being hosed from the highway.
We don’t want to look.
but then again…

 

 

 

Ch-ch-changes

For the Midweek Motif at Poets United -Change

Ch-ch-changes
“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.” Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein
 
I stood at the foot of my grandmother’s bed
and watched her draw her last breath.
It hit me then,
I will never be the same after
experiencing this.
I stood by my father’s casket and I thought,
I will never the be the same after this.
I stood in front of the minister with the man
who was going to be my husband and I thought,
I will be different after this.
I watched my mother draw her last breath
and I though I will never be the same.
I am an orphan now.
I will have no children to watch me die.
I will have no children to be changed forever.
I watch the seasons passing
leaves and flowers sprouting,
Rose petals dropping,
Leaves changing color and dropping,
Snow falling in the woods.
I am changed forever.
I am forever changed.

Ghosts

For Bjorn’s prompt at Real Toads.  He asks us to flashback to a time and place in our memories.  Smells, songs, words will all take us there.  Thank you for the interesting prompt! 15 lines on the 15th in Honor of Shay Fireblossom, a true poet and friend.

Ghosts
“Ghosts don’t haunt us. That’s not how it works. They’re present among us because we won’t let go of them.” ― Sue Grafton, M is for Malice

The sign said, Pansies for Sale.
I closed my eyes and remembered
pansy eyes.
I am surrounded by ghosts.
I remember lovers, chefs, drugs, family.
Mostly I remember the pansy brown eyes
of my grandmother dying from bone cancer,
my mother’s pansy brown eyes
as she lay dying from the effects
of dementia and heart failure.
Even in winter I remember that perfect June day.
She closed those wilted pansies
for the last time.
I remember that perfect June day
not long after she died of your dying by your own hand.

 

Forgetfulness

Posted on Poetry United, Pantry of Prose and Poetry #3  For me, a long poem.

 

Forgetfulness
Time, we say, is Lethe; but change of air is a similar draught, and, if it works less thoroughly, does so more quickly.” ― Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

it is cool, finally.
The hot breath of summer has stilled,
fallen into the arms of Morpheus
seeking there the river of Lethe.
*Ameles Potamos is sluggish
and yet it is crowded with the souls
of the dead leaves,
all of them drinking to
forget the summer that was.
the leaves clog the creek
at the foot of the hill,
drinking, drinking.
autumn rains will come and flood the banks
washing their corpses away.
frost covers them with sparking lace
dressing them for their funereal best.
I cup my hand and drink from the icy waters.
I close my eyes and sleep.
I awaken no longer remembering the heat of summer.
I awaken remembering only autumn and winter cold.
The beaver moon shines bright in the sky,
frost sparkles in its light.

 

*Lethe also known as the Ameles Potamos (River of Unmindfulness), the river flowed around the cave of Hypnos where its murmuring induces drowsiness. The shades of the dead were required to drink from its water in order to forget their earthly life.