Between Despot and President

 

When everything goes status quo

and you’re no longer “relevant,”

and people go about their lives

and think you insignificant,

so you decide to start a war

bring guns and planes, and armament

a force of will on full display

between despot and president.

We watch from half a world away

anticipating what comes next.

What will come of this dispute?

What catastrophic end of day?

Our politicians posturing,

to minimize and underplay.

Shall we stand or do we flee?

What advantage will be gained?

I’ll side with democracy

and I for one stand with Ukraine

 

©  GB 2022

All I Have Are Words

I sense the emptiness you feel 

the pain that you don’t talk about

impending loss you won’t reveal.

I feel these on another plane

where such thoughts are spoken freely.

Would that I could lift your heart

raze the darkness that you carry,

yet I don’t know where to start.

Would that you might trust a friend

who wonders at this path you travel

and listens as your dreams unravel

yet doesn’t know where to begin.

On this map we’re left to follow

not every road comes to an end

sometimes we can’t see ‘round the curve

to where the path starts up again.

Many have gone on ahead

and for a while some stay behind—

and through the seeds your words have sown

just know that you are not alone.

 

© GB 2022

For a friend whom I see struggling.  Wishing you light and love on this road you travel.

 

In the Quiet Hours

In the still and quiet hours

when the wind no longer blows,

when the pain eats at your heart

and joy lies frozen in the snow—

how delicate the tiny stem

the one still reaching for the light,

the heart that only wants to mend

that searches for the sun again;

the butterfly with broken wing

who seeks out respite from her pain

as love that’s carried her heart

slips her face like falling rain.

When we’re lost in our despair

and know that we’re beyond repair–

like the stem that seeks the light

and breaks the earth again to bloom,

we ride the storm, the endless night

and wait for time to bind our wounds.

 

© Ginny Brannan 2022

Image C. Parant Appetite for Photos Used with Permission.

Ajar

 

Intimacy takes many forms

the shared laugh, the private joke

a knowing look, a touch or stroke–

a kind word shared, the words that aren’t…

We writers work in ‘vagaries’

take shelter in our metaphors;

we live in one reality

in a house with many doors.

Very few have walked our halls

their footsteps echo from the past,

while still I shelter in these walls

and wonder if my life is cast.

No time machine to take us back

just forward through infinity;

while trying to keep our souls intact

concede our own duplicity.

I've no clue to how I got this far,

  perhaps a door was left ajar

 

© Ginny Brannan

#10

 

Another  month has come to pass

noted on this calendar

of empty dreams. No bright repast

to lighten day or brighten mood

Herein to infinity,

emptiness lies steeped in gray.

redemption waits another  day.

 

Some will see and understand...

Each one mends in their own way.

Vacuous, these empty rooms

echo with our yesterdays.

Neither time nor life allays

to lift the darkness from this tomb;

holding on while life resumes.

© Ginny Brannan 2022

Pea Soup

 

Sometimes the silence is palpable

the emptiness so thick 

you could cut it with a knife

It hides in plain sight—

like tinnitus, that low 

but constant ringing in the ear,

ambient noise until

it gets so loud you are 

forced to confront it.

Then it subsides, 

fades to the background

until the next time, and the next,

and the time after that.

We don’t talk about such things,

in doing so we might appear weak.

Among our friends, only few actually 

understand that to listen is a gift

when there is nothing to be said.

That the offering of prayers or platitudes

does little to chase the pain away.

So I compartmentalize for another day

and move on. Surrendering is not an option

Circumstances would be so easy to use

as a reason, my excuse, but accepting

I’m a victim makes for poor reality;

so I gather up initiative

to recreate my narrative;

as I struggle in my own duplicity

 

© Ginny Brannan 2022