Tag: Poetry

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Poem: 63 Today

63 Today 
 
Uncle Ed called to say his Big Sis would 
be 63 today. Oh! How alive 
that number sounds! I said I stopped counting 
at 60 for you and 45 for 
me. I’m still living in 2020, 
it seems. It was a good year, I think…. or 
maybe 60 and 45 were good 
numbers for me.  
 
It’s impossible to 
not remember, you’re always in my 
thoughts, but I worked today. Current job has  
kept me discombobulated. Life is 
emotionally taxing, financial- 
ly insecure, physically exhaust- 
ing. I’m guessing, life was the same, but more 
so, for you. I know you struggled, but you 
were so caring and grace-filled, it didn’t 
show negatively. How did you manage 
life with no focused care? No time to heal 
from one abusive phase to another? 
Were you ever at ease? Were you ever 
able to reflect and release? Did you 
experience joy? What did you hope for? 
How did you do it? Did you ever heal? 
Had you been allowed to age, would life have  
grown gentle and kind? Were gentleness and 
kindness something you understood enough 
to yearn for? 
 
Your presence was joy to me. 
What was joy to you? Was any portion  
of your earth time enjoyable? Better  
than bearable? Worthy of thanksgiving? 
 
63 today. Each year since you left 
I think I know you better than ever 
and not at all. Who were you, Terry Ann?  
What did you want for your life? Did you leave 
unfulfilled, aching? Did you give in, just  
let go of whatever kept you grounded?  
Wherever you are in life after earth, 
I pray you are imbued with joy, light and 
all good things. I pray no memories or 
shadows of your earthly sorrows travel 
with you. Should our spirits meet again, I 
ask only to embrace you with love and
gratitude. May the Creator of All
convey my prayer, my Beloved Mother.  
 

LaShawnda Jones, May 24., 2023
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Poem: No longer listening

I once heard what I thought  
was a calling. A mating call of yearning, 
of need, of matched desire. 
I listened. 
 
Was someone seeking me? 
The voice seemed familiar –  
its vibration pierced my soul, 
breached the dark midnight of my days  
in the directionless wilderness of life. 
It pulled me, spun me 
surrounded and filled me. 
The melody delighted me. 
Surely it was a call to live;  
to fulfill hopes and dreams 
I kept listening. 
 
Even as I called back,  
I listened.  
Even after I became a seeker  
starving through the ravenous desire 
of a supernova devouring its own light, 
I listened. 
I called back. 
I listened. 
I called back. 
I waited and waited and waited, 
for more than a dozen years,  
I waited for my radiant reply to reach  
the one my soul loved;  
ached for the brilliance of their  
presence to sustain me. 
 
I thought I needed to see, to feel, 
to be seen, heard, wanted, and needed.  
I thought I needed someone to love me;  
someone I could pour love into. 
Yet aging with none of my needs met 
altered my hearing, diminished my longing. 
Silence is not only deafening, 
it deadens the soul and mutes the heart. 
I stopped listening to the void. 
 
A lifetime ago, a whisper tickled my senses  
through the wilderness of the universe. 
But how could that be when  
sound can’t travel in space? 
Relics of my imagination had launched  
on gases of hope, creating orbits of dreams 
in the echo chamber of my heart. 
So… I’m no longer listening. 
 
I will feel what I can, be who I am, exist as created 
with no regard for the sliver of sound heard 
in the wilderness of loneliness, that had only  
ever been my own echo reverberating off stardust. 

LaShawnda Jones
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Poem: Without Reservation

Repost: Have you ever felt like you’re a prophet in your own life? Writing instructions decades in advance of a moment? Or is it that people remain the same no matter the decade?

I’ve been thinking –
perhaps I had an epiphany –
I thought of how I was willing,
begged God actually,
for the boon of being
with you. To my mind,
you were the greatest
possible gift.
Then it came to me
this desire to give, give, give,
to love you with all
my heart and mind
to worship and praise
your body with mine –
it was all wrong.
I was backwards.
I’ve been requesting things
which would not satisfy me
in the long run.
Yes, I want you.
Yes, truly I want all
I’ve petitioned God for.
I do. I love you.
But there is something I want
much more than the pleasure of
pouring my life into yours.
There is something I need more
than my prayer answered.
Something I deserve more than
being a giver who receives
nothing in return.

Epiphany showed me
more than anything
I want and need
to be loved and desired
without reservation.

It showed me you should be
the initiator and I should follow.
When you give of yourself,
cover me – pour your life into me –
those will be my true gifts.
When you choose to love me
with your heart, mind and spirit…
choose to join your body with mine in a
symphony of worship and praise…
Those are acts worthy of my devotion.

I was sitting and thinking –
my ask was so limiting.
What I was shown opened the heavens.
My efforts are useless against your inaction.
So, my love, I must back away from temptation.
I must resist the urge
to supplicate myself at your feet.
Resist my obsessive longing and
suppress the desire to shower my gifts on
a man who does not value
or reciprocate my devotion.
I must resist that part of me until
you present that part of yourself to me.
Your gifts will replenish and revive
even as your presence restores.
Your love will cover
even as your strength shelters.
When you join your gifts to mine
WE will become our greatest blessing.

~ LaShawnda Jones, 2004 (ed. 2017, 2022)

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Poem: Attention Seeker

You have my attention
never lost it, despite
trampling it with dismissive ridicule
What will you do with it now
What have you ever done
To keep my focus and hope
other than laugh and brag with friends
while keeping me in perpetual limbo
Indeed, have you ever given me
your purposeful attention
Focused your energy on me
Strove to be more than
a nice guy liked by all
Did you ever envision yourself
as a man of integrity standing by my side
A man of purpose joining his strength to my vision
Unlikely, as your form of noncommunication
layered with emotional hiding
seduced me into the shadows
I can think all the thoughts or not one,
do nothing, say nothing
and get the same wide-eyed,
“I’m a nice guy” non-response
received when I did everything
to look like a fool out of my depth
A foolish woman
who gathered all my available courage
to speak all my known words
of admiration, love and desire
To a being who sparked the light in my spirit
yet could not comprehend the nature of my offer
Now I understand my vibration
was beyond your frequency
You couldn’t perceive me
beyond the physical appearance
you considered unworthy of your commitment
My attention meant nothing when it was all I had to give
Even though it’s what you wanted most from me.
You were attracted to my light but had no respect for it.
Yet here we are orbiting still
What are your intentions?
Do I willingly enter your rabbit hole
of emotional grief with no hope of any satiation
To allow you to feast off my energy
Watch you eat
As I starve
You bask
I wither
You soar
I drown
You chose someone else
I grew in grace, seeking understanding
from a God who would put you
in my spirit, yet keep you out of my life
Maybe you were never the one
I was to commit my future to
Perhaps the real test is trusting God to provide
beyond what I sense in a life set on orbiting you. 

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Poem: This is a test

this is a test
and only a test
if I do nothing
what happens
if you do nothing
what happens
if I do something
or anything
perhaps one more thing
what happens
if you do nothing still
what happens
if I do everything
all things
reach down to move your feet
or up to puppet your lips
what happens
and if at the end of it all
you still do nothing
what could have possibly happened
your heart and will
are yours to control
mine are mine to protect
for every level of effort
I perform, the outcome remains
no forward motion
no synchronicity
no reciprocity
so I’ve learned to do nothing
like you ….  
flirt with the air
deny responsibility
through inaction
save energy
stay where I am
move forward on my own
momentum with no
expectation or disappointment
after, it was only a test

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Poem: Have I ever loved?

Who am I if not
A creature created in the
Image of love?
But what is an image
If not a facsimile?
Non-original
Incapable of being
Authentic
If love is a reaction to receiving
For we love because
We have first been loved
Then what of the love
That was supposed to pour into me?
What am I pouring out
If I haven’t first received?
In this dimension there has been no
Sheltering arms
Encouraging embrace
No partner or mate
With whom to lay down
Or to build up
What would I know
Of a gentle touch
A tender kiss
A thrusting merge
An expectant birthing
A purposed feeding?
How am I to learn
The deep nature of
Sharing in true
Relationship?
When my existence
At every level
Has been solitary
Relating to myself
Even in
Disagreement
I am right
Though my conclusions
May be wrong
If I don’t even know
What love
Looks like
Feels like
Sounds like
Smells like
Tastes like
How could I possibly
Recognize love
Identify myself
As love
Give what I haven’t
Received?
All these years
I thought I was offering
Though I knew I was begging
Trying to avoid my emptiness
Attempting to camouflage
My brokenness
Seeking to heal to
Wholeness
While offering my image
Of wholeness to the broken
But if love is
Absent from my being
How was I ever whole?
How was I ever able
To offer myself?

7/15/19

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Poem: No Straight Lines

If life isn’t linear
Then we’ve already loved
Believing time wasted away
Waiting for what’s
already been

If love isn’t chronological
Surely there are no regrets
Deja vu confirms
What’s come and gone
Past is prologue to future’s past

Reality is never knowing you
Even as my spirit calls you home
Though we’ve only shared shy fleeting touches, my body
Flushes with memory of joys
Yet to come
How can there be certainty of tomorrow while languishing on yesterday’s dead-end paths?

If life were a straight line
Perhaps we would have missed each other in the rush to reach all the next destinations

Perhaps it’s better that we met on this long winding road and continued our separate paths

Perhaps combusting too early would’ve been mutual destruction
Fire that once consumed may now simply keep us warm
Comfortable enough to sustain life
Not enough to turn back time
Maybe we needed to learn to control passions, hopes, expectations
Maybe we needed to unlearn biases, roles and assumptions

Is that reductive reasoning?
A function of call and response?
If existence is a squiggly fifth dimensional experience
Suffering must be an element
Necessary for elevating consciousness

I see you. I feel you.
Yet you’re always out of reach
Present in mind, absent in body
Still, I am here. Where in the continuum are you?

How do we reconcile space, time, and
Waiting through choices that made
Parted ways divergent lives?

~ by LaShawnda Jones, 2022

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Quote: “Parted from me yet never parted.”

Last week’s Star Trek: Strange New Worlds used a beautiful greeting between lovers that really spoke to me. It was repurposed from the original Star Trek series, Season 2, Episode 1.

T’Pring: “Spock. It is I.”

Spock: “T’Pring. Parted from me, and never parted. Never and always touching and touched. We meet at the appointed place.”

T’Pring: “Spock. Parted from me, and never parted. Never and always touching and touched. We meet at the appointed place. I await you.”

(Star Trek, 1967; Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, 2022)

Shortly before hearing this greeting, I had written a poem with a similar theme (see next post for full poem), snippet below.

Reality is never knowing you
Even as my spirit calls you home.
Though we’ve only ever shared shy fleeting touches, my body
Flushes with memory of joys
Yet to come.
How can there be certainty of a future while languishing on a broken detoured path?

#startrek #starcrossedlovers #poem

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Poem: Bury Me in a Free Land by Frances Harper

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Make me a grave where’er you will,
In a lowly plain, or a lofty hill;
Make it among earth’s humblest graves,
But not in a land where men are slaves.

I could not rest if around my grave
I heard the steps of a trembling slave;
His shadow above my silent tomb
Would make it a place of fearful gloom.

I could not rest if I heard the tread
Of a coffle gang to the shambles led,
And the mother’s shriek of wild despair
Rise like a curse on the trembling air.

I could not sleep if I saw the lash
Drinking her blood at each fearful gash,
And I saw her babes torn from her breast,
Like trembling doves from their parent nest.

I’d shudder and start if I heard the bay
Of bloodhounds seizing their human prey,
And I heard the captive plead in vain
As they bound afresh his galling chain.

If I saw young girls from their mother’s arms
Bartered and sold for their youthful charms,
My eye would flash with a mournful flame,
My death-paled cheek grow red with shame.

I would sleep, dear friends, where bloated might
Can rob no man of his dearest right;
My rest shall be calm in any grave
Where none can call his brother a slave.

I ask no monument, proud and high,
To arrest the gaze of the passers-by;
All that my yearning spirit craves,
Is bury me not in a land of slaves.