Author: jhodgesfifteen@gmail.com

Categories
of Loss and Loneliness

I Just Do

I Just Do

Why do I need?
It’s not admired
I wish I were an island
like some of you
Yet, so acquired…

I need you
To talk to
To walk with
To spend an afternoon
Such am I

Hours, too many, spent alone
All right for some, but not me
To need, a crime
just to ask for time
I need, I just do

I curse myself for wanting
Am I so weak to need?

In this world, alone
I reach out
A weakness I have
A meekness
A curse

I realize a friend is not forever
A shame
loyal and true
doesn’t matter to some
why me?

I need, I just do
I would stop
but I cannot
To stop, to thine own self
would be untrue

I need, I just do

-J

Poems of Loss
and Loneliness:

Follow Us

Weekly Tutorial

Categories
of Love

Perfect

Perfect

The ocean waves
Slow motion days
Birds singing
Angelic sounds
fill the stillness

A harp playing
A flute saying
be still

A long breath
A deep rest
underneath
a palm tree

A cool breeze
A familiar peace
resonating

The tide quenching
A cloud shading
the sand

Waves crashing
Gulls laughing
The day fading
slowly

The Sun setting
The sea and horizon gleaming
The tide heading
for the shore

A walk in the sand
moon shining
A shell in my path
still moving

Ocean glistening
A bouy listening
A boat sailng
in the distance

My love waiting
baiting a hook
throwing a line
then saying
I love you

-J

Poems of Love:

Follow Us

Weekly Tutorial

Categories
of Reminiscences

City Style

City Style

A little ditty, a ditty-do
about a day in the city
The city, it’s style
how it used to be
what we used to do
the things we knew
our point of view
and when going to work
was red, white, and blue.

Men with brimmed hats,
a suit, a starched shirt
buttoned to the top
with tie to match
a Timex watch, a pin or a tack
polished shoes and matching slack
an overcoat, a blend or wool,
half or full and made to fit
don’t forget the matching grip
looking good, just the times?
The times we lived before the slip!

Women, thinner
in suits; not slacks
but in skirts to match
a cashmere sweater, even better
heels, a matching purse, perhaps a Coach
they wore make-up, a do, a pin or broach
and a hint of Channel Number Five.
They left the elevator and the stares,
their charm and essence left behind
for those whose eyes that they would capture
and compliments of those enraptured.

Been a while, such city style.

-J

Poems of
Reminiscences:

Follow Us

Weekly Tutorial

Categories
of Loss and Loneliness

Life After Love

Life After Love

Can I stand up on my own?
Can I stand to be alone?
Is there life after love?

Is there life after love?
When I wake and she’s not there
When I break, there’s no one to lean on

When I need a kind caress
holding hands and all the rest
Is there life after love?

In the morning when I wake
I make the coffee, half a pot
morning breakfast, not a lot
do my best just not to break
a saddened smile I have to fake

Is there life after love?

An empty house, an empty heart
My soul cries out for her at night
All my days are not so bright
Where has love gone?

Is there life after love?

Every week I shop alone
What to buy, still unknown
Get my groceries by myself
then put my love up on a shelf

Is there life after love?

Is there time to find another
She to me was like no other
Can my heart, my soul, recover?

Is there life after love?

The love I feel never wanes
I’ll do my best, all the same
to let my heart heal again
and find someone to be a friend

I’ll never be the same
after love and all its pain
I may never love again,
just trudge on until the end.

Is there life after love?

-J

Poems of Loss
and Loneliness:

Follow Us

Weekly Tutorial

Categories
of Love

The Extraordinary

The Extraordinary

Some are blatantly, obviously extraordinary. Others never realize; realize that they are just as or more. A pity. What becomes of these extraordinary men (and women), their extraordinary lives and influence?

Over lifetimes of ordinary defeat and disappointment, they sometimes break or fade, not realizing that their defeats and lumbering are, in fact, the extraordinary and amongst their greatest assets.

Beauty evolving. Suddenly, becoming our strength! My wish is that you break, break and experience depths of extraordinary muster and courage within.

To all, we must show kindness, love, devotion, and care lest we be ordinary. We must glory in our extraordinary lineage, whose power is boundless and extraordinary beyond what we can now or ever comprehend.

You are, perhaps, the most extraordinary of all. Exalt in your being as you are a child and as a child, your potential is ever-evolving and has no bound.

Though you are old and have just discovered your purpose and power, God will give you time to recognize your influence and love; your ability to contribute greatly to his unfolding creation which, at the very least, is another of his children.

-J

Poems of Love:

Follow Us

Weekly Tutorial

Categories
of Love

If I Could Write a Love Song

If I Could Write a Love Song

If I could only write a love song
I’d start with a starry night
I would write about the moon
and your face there in the light
I would write about your smile
the way you hold me oh so tight
all the little things you do
and the things you do just right

If I could write a love song
It would surely hit the charts
I’d tell you ’bout your beauty
all your grace and all your smarts
The way you bite your lip
when you think of something new
The way you hold my hand
and your eyes, so baby blue

If I could write a love song
I would sing it to the world
tell everyone I love you
and that your my only girl
I’ll never leave you lonely
I’ll never make you blue
You make me so darn happy
It’s the least that I can do

If I could write a love song
I’d whisper in your ear
all the nothings I could think of
and I’d make it very clear
You’re my one and only
I want you for all time
I might write it when I think of
all the words and all the rhymes.

-J

Poems of Love:

Follow Us

Weekly Tutorial

Categories
of Humility and Change

A Little Prayer

A Little Prayer

When your down and troubled
When the weight is heavier than you can take
When your mind is tortured and your heart is heavy
Say a little prayer

It doesn’t matter if your prayer’s unanswered
Take the action
Say it aloud and say it often
You might just find, the act is awesome

If no one hears, it doesn’t matter
As you have set the ball in action
Recognized the need for guidance
Allowed for God and satisfaction

Even though, you feel the same
A day will come when all the rain
Will all dry up, and all the pain
Will disappear and seem in vane

You’ll start to wonder
Though it took some time
If God has helped you
be just fine

There’s time you need to be all right
Time you need to quell the fight
Just let go with all your might
and say a little prayer.

-J

Poems of Humility
and Change:

Follow Us

Weekly Tutorial

Categories
of Loss and Loneliness

I See Dead People

I See Dead People

Grieving one’s own death
A chore one does reluctantly
for we have died and it is hard to accept
The denial, the anger, the bargaining
in the balance, a worthwhile
process of growth and rebirth

The mistake, the common ruse
To hang on to the completed, the finished
for we are no longer living the past
All is dead to us
as we embark on an unknown
and adventurous journey

To drag the memories and alliances
to our new and wonderous existence
To lament the time and glory
ends in prolonging the awful purgatory
the entrance to a new and better understanding
a better course, a better life than was the last

The binding chains drag the corpses
from the life now extinguished into the present
and the people lay still beneath us
no life, no movement, no use as they have died
long before our love for them stopped glowing
Such are memories and the life that bore them
the life we must abandon as we were, ourselves, long before

To loosen these chains
to break the cuffs that bind
A difficult but necessary task
as the life once lived, once loved and cherished
has withered and must be buried alongside
Alongside the others, the others let go and forgotten
Those for whom we glowed and then forgot

These chains but keep me in a bewilderment
a confusion and a discomfort not deserved
preserved in formaldehyde and rouge
a puzzlement though the puzzle has been solved
the question answered repeatedly in deafening silence and stillness

In the stillness,
the cutters forcefully break the steel
Freed are the wonders of escape
the running, the arrival, the welcoming place
where I lay down and breath
breath in new life, new experiences
the clatter of the chains behind me, still
Still deafening in my ear.

-J

Poems of Loss
and Loneliness:

Follow Us

Weekly Tutorial

Categories
of Gratitude

Ambling Man

Ambling Man

As I sit and meditate
soft music and nature sounds
filling my head

As I contemplate my journey
I realize that I have walked a crooked path
A path with many turns, winding

Forks that I have taken
Many
I have faced great heights and deep chasms
I have known glory and defeat

The crevasses into which I have fallen
barely escaping and near impossible to climb
Yet here I stand to walk, again

Exposed by the light
Hidden by the darkness
In this life, I have seen things
I feel more than most

Unfairness and redemption
Purity and evil
Love and Hate
Success and failure
Things that seemed perfect
Things that were terribly ugly

The path has leveled,
suddenly narrowed
Once crooked, now straight
No longer my worst enemy

The roads not taken
I have surely travelled
Some would say a waste
Now my greatest asset
I can comprehend peace

I must amble along
Leave my rambling to younger men
Resist the forks, fewer, still tempting

Resist what once appealed
Those places that angels fear
The demons I have danced with
many times

I have earned these lines
Each speak to me
of times unique and wonderful
of deep regret and some of sorrow

Yet here I stand to amble on.

-J

Poems of Gratitude:

Follow Us

Weekly Tutorial

Categories
of Love

Music Appreciation

Music Appreciation

my hands on your curves
your neck stretching to my lips
I suspire, softly blow
you quiver, your chamber fills
you softly sound
I press your keys
and the tone of your being
fills my head as you
caress my soul

-J

Poems of Love:

Follow Us

Weekly Tutorial

Categories
of Loss and Loneliness

Endurance

Endurance

Often, I question my survival
Madness dogs and I scurry for relief
My problems, high class
My mind, fragile and weary
I persist

Many so afflicted, my brothers and sisters
In silence they suffer
Ignorance, their salvation
as many do not realize
the battles and the defeats
they endure

They fight in desperation with courage,
courage they would deny
They feel overwhelmed and defeated
They endure, fight another day
A hopeful stalemate, their deliverance

Their life, worthy,
as their courage to press on Is heroic
They live as an example to the rest
Their significance, nil, but for the others
who admit no challenge or fear.

Strong are the weak when they fight
When they endure
When they conquer
When they overcome that which is inside of them

-J

Poems of Loss
and Loneliness:

Follow Us

Weekly Tutorial

Categories
of Reminiscences

In Time

In Time

Time for remembrance
Time for elation
Time for forgiveness
and great exaltation
No time to journey
into the depths,
for I have awakened

Forty years since then
Now delighting in my old friends
My thoughts of them, often
Here again, at last,
and me, without a coffin

Like kids with allowance,
we run, jump
into each other’s arms
We grin, we laugh, as in the past
On weekends
we’re destined to have a blast

No sorrow, no pain
for I am now as I was then
To know that I was not abandoned
by time or distance or fork or bend
Alone and lonely, never again
Never again, a true godsend

Without a father, without a mother
You lift me up unlike no other
On our own in unison
we carry on just like we’re brothers
To know you now
to have known you then
My greatest joy is you, old friend

Fortunate to have come together
no matter what we all have weathered
Your story, mine, they’re meshed together
As one, we share our life’s endeavors
The joy, the laughter, not on our own
So let us travel, but not alone

To know that we’ve been friends forever
To cherish you without pretense
You thrill me like the best friend ever
Without you, joy is just past tense

But now you all stand before me
You cheer me on and don’t ignore me
The future holds a joyous end
Until that end, you’ll be my friend.

-J

Poems of
Reminiscences:

Follow Us

Weekly Tutorial

Featured Image

Categories
of Loss and Loneliness

Adrift

Adrift

I’ve lived a life, full
exciting! turbulent! somewhat satisfying
Now, I grow old
I ponder and wonder
if I’ve outlived the worthwhile
and my days are slow

I look for a reason to go on
Find little satisfaction
as my days are routine and dull

I long for an embrace
a smile and another to relate to
Will these days, on and on
lead to joy, yet unknown
and fill this emptiness
I have grown to know

No plans, no ambitions
No clue as friends and family grow fewer
Each day, I pray
and know a loneliness that festers

In me, I know frustration
An ocean of hopelessness
where I drown in ignorance

My faith wanes
My fears ebb and flow
I go down for the umpteenth time

Help me, Lord,
trust that I will not drown but float
find a buoy in this sea of unknowingness
and drift until, once again, I see the shore.

-J

Poems of Loss
and Loneliness:

Follow Us

Weekly Tutorial

Categories
of Humility and Change

Last Leg

Last Leg

Careened no longer – afloat
my mind adrift
an ocean of thought
a shakedown cruise
with no room to swing a cat

a run, a voyage
a dead reckoning course
of faith and fear
almost drowning
in a sea of unknowingness

all squared away
at last exploring
the horizon wide
the past, my wake
great care, no crew
no trimmer I’ll take

last leg – I’ll make it a good one
from captains and comrades
I’ve learned the ropes
my rigging is sturdy
my bearing is straight
my life, my compass
my map, my fate

rough weather
no stranger to me
survived the great storms
on all the high seas

this one’s a doozy
my ship, it could break
from stem and to stern
the old man is awake

tossed and turned
barely escape
the wrath and the churn
of God’s might

terrifying calm
the crisp night air
my resolve out of trim
me and my boat
swaying with sea and with wind
leave me with worry, relief
and some gin

harbor sighting
a ship’s bell ringing
refuge at last, a port
or so seeming

the anchor lights
in good shape, redeeming
not one but two
soon will be gleaming

leagues of time and distance traveled
the journey soon comes to an end
my boat, a wreck, me much the same
nevertheless, I’ll state my claim…

the voyage is worthy
your boat, just the same
Avast ye young mateys
be sure you are so
for life can get stormy
this salty dog knows

great waves,
hard rain,
strong winds may blow.

-J

Poems of Humility
and Change:

Follow Us

Weekly Tutorial