Tag: poetry

Simply Kind

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 3 Comments

summer veggies

She measured the grace she’d been given
The grace she’d given and recalled
The fragile mercy that faltered
Fell rotten from the vine
Missed the perfect time for picking

Because keeping up and tabs and score
Bring nothing but hauntingly familiar pain
And they can take a soul to the brink
Of dissatisfied
Disappointment

Shatters all the dreams for harmony
A perfect pitched life of faith and love
Of getting on and getting past
And loving again
With everyone in her  world, the one in which she lives and breathes
And stumbles, errs, trips up and forgets when to speak and when to listen

Well in love, where to step and how and when

Throw open the window
And let grace blow in
Rustle the curtains and carry out the stale narrative of past grievances
Let freedom fly on the kite tails
Of the tender mercies
We simply choose
To forgive

Wind whistles during the storm
And after
Comes the quite
The pregnant pauses ripe for reconciling

Score keepers and old story telling
And not looking a man in the eyes
Drain faith
Dampen hope
Mute the message of
The Gospel

She wants to see faith at work

And just saying hello to your brother
And not walking away from a sister

You don’t know how
The Gospel
Speaks so sweetly
When you, the messengers are

Simply kind

She wants to see faith at work

Giddy-Up

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 3 Comments

the nets - mcvl at night the mary margaretGiddy-Up

Yesterday I felt the sad creep up
Mixed with confusion
Draped around my soul
I swallowed my tears, the hurt in my inside
Places, deep and dark
Pushed them down
With all my might

And all the while I wrestled
Joy was creeping up and in
Waiting to soothe me with her balm
It was the words of a sister friend
And news waiting to rock me gentle
Balm on gaping throbbing
Places

And faith restored in me
In eyes that met
Mine
In love standing on the dock
Reminding me of love
That overcomes
Screamed the breeze
That brought the joy
That raised me up again

And I recalled the moments giddy
Cheered me up
A flash of scattered happy
At small and wondrous things
And I recall the look of kids at work
Hanging over sides of boats
Beside a mender of the nets

So I raise mine
In hopes of catching giddy joy
Even while I stand graveside today at two
Especially there
Remembering that life will always
Bring me joy
If I raise my net high, in the breeze when it blows hard
When it comes gentle
Always
While I raise my net
Untangling sadness from the threads
Breathing deep of sweet forgiveness

And reminding and remembering
The days of giddy-up
Are here
When I stand beside the grave
At two o’clock today

In Defense of Poetry – ( The Defense Rests )

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall

poetry in chalkHand him the mike
Give him a voice
Let him take the stand and state his case
Spit it out
Hush the jabbering crowd
While she speaks
Raise your right hand
And tell us you will tell the truth
As you see it

The poem
Has something to say
She has the floor now
We are all ears, waiting
For her to speak her peace
About the doors closing, and opportunities waning
How she is too complex
And if not that then far too
Boring
She is not gotten
They don’t get it
She muses
what is the point
If no one is listening why even speak
To what has been said about her kind
They are not always
Kind
Yet
And when
The child in you
And the child in me
Slows the pace and finds the time
To walk into the poet’s corner
Peace prevails and no one comes out fighting
The economy of words may be sparse
Compressed and punctuation odd
Line breaks take you by the hand and lead you down a crooked path of
Words
no rhyme more than half
the time
But if you take a second
Hyperbole again
And perhaps go back for a second
Read
You may come to like
Or even love
Not the poems
The metaphors or simile
the poets forms and oddities
But the heart of the one who simply
writes
the
Poetry

Seems the jury is still out
The Defense rests her case

Bullseye, The Peach, and A Blue Thread : A Trilogy

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall

Bullseye

bullseye bike

You did not miss the mark
The feather-tipped arrow of your release
It did not fail to land
In the right spot, spot on
Perfect imperfection
A bullseyed penetration
Drilling through the target
Seen by eyes of love.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

The Peach

peach 2013

Sitting on the counter
Inviting me
To open up
Summer
rsvp my intent
And begin the ritual
Tradition washes over me with sticky memory
And sweet my taste buds eagerly await
Weigh the choice of
All alone or mixed with cream
Perhaps thrown on a bed of greens
The remembering is the beauty halved
Of the ripe flesh and soft warm skin
I peel back to find the gift and enter in the dance
Peach and I
Our summer can begin
We cannot hurry
Nor can we wait
In blinks and nods and a few short days
September will arrive
And memories of sweet ripe fruit
Will dance alone
Like visions of summers past rolling around in my mind, a dream
Of days in the past
So I must eat a peach
And savor all that is ripe and good
And ready for the picking
These are the days
These are the hours
Of grateful living
Peach and I, I and Peach
Our summer has begun.

+++++++++++++++++++

A Blue Thread

modern trouseau charleston

Followed me
Or I followed it
Unknowing
On the way
To Blue Bicycle Books
Everything was shades of blue
Cars behind at red lights
Who knew they made dump trucks
Blue
In front he lead me down Highway 17
And then I crossed the bridge
Under a canopy of blue
With white monstrous clouds waiting to release
Raindrops
And hit the sidewalk like a blue streak
The storefronts presented me with blue
And I wondered if this occurs everday
This theme of beauty
Threads through a day
Some days it is red and others gold
And greens of summer, water’s aqua too
If I would look in front behind and closer
At this one  life
That like the two  young men on the news
Not yet at the age I am
Could end like that
And have it all just stop
Out of the blue.