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| Artwork: Cesar Biojol |
I like people who aren’t perfect–
the ones with scars and crooked smiles,
the ones with messy homes and messy lives;
the ones that have felt anger and pain
yet did not give up their souls,
the ones that so many would dismiss as ‘different.’
We are all flesh and blood. We are all finite.
We live, we work, we grieve, we love;
we breathe as one inside this fragile dome...
Hate holds no place here.
© Ginny Brannan 2022
The air, sour and stagnant,
hung heavy in the starless night
finally breaking with the passing shower,
the change announced by the tree frogs
singing with the joy of a children’s chorus,
unbridled and unconstrained.
The white light of an almost-full moon
slants across the yard;
in stealth form, it slips over the sill,
casting odd shapes on the bedroom wall.
The summer nights of a childhood
long-passed have slipped in, too—
a time when rest came easy,
tucked between crisp linen sheets
we’d fold into our dreams,
the earthen smell of dampness in the air,
and the sound of crickets
singing us to sleep.
© Ginny Brannan
Image Credit: Alexandr Vasilyev, Shutterstock 2013
Love once lived here…
built stone on stone, year on year,
mortar mixed with sweat and tears.
a photo worth a thousand words
of what was built back in the day.
now broken down and in decay;
Nothing ever stays the same,
all falls prey to wind and change,
and every tumbled brick and stone
reminds us of the things that were
and all that we once called our own.
Yet what is viewed a casualty
holds endless possibility…
so clean the cobwebs, sweep the sill,
shine the hearth and light a fire;
set the beams and cornerstone,
breathe new life into this place
once abandoned, overgrown.
Dreams are hope filled with desire
and lost inside this reverie
an aspiration from within;
that what was lost can be rebuilt,
just waiting to begin again.
© Ginny Brannan 2022
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but credit where credit is due in that first line that inspired this is borrowed, but all that follow after are not.
How do we know that a snake tempted Eve
to partake of the fruit there in Eden?
Where we there in the tree like a fly on the wall?
Could we hear what they said? Did we see them?
Or is it a story passed down through the ages
placing censure each time it’s repeated?
According to speaker the woman is weaker,
a man would not be so defeated.
So the snake is the fall guy replete with forked tongue,
and the woman at fault for just listening,
and the man claims that he wasn’t near the said “tree,”
oh, and surely we see he’s the ‘victim.’
Yet story asunder, I truly do wonder
if woman fell prey to temptation
from the mouth of a man with the tongue of a snake
slyly convincing that she could partake,
no thought to exactly what was at stake
as he whispered his words of seduction.
A woman is made from the rib of a man
compassionate, nurturing, loving and kind
equal in all ways except save in one:
when push comes to shove, then the woman is done–
indicted as guilty before she’d begun
…and so, in a garden, the first man had won,
* * * * *
Passed down through the ages, a story conceived:
that a woman, a temptress, cannot be believed;
evermore faulted with stained reputation
to bear blame as the one who gave in to temptation.
© Ginny Brannan 2022
How many times can you drown in a lifetime,
how many times can you drift out to sea?
How many times can you skirt the abyss
before you are doomed to fall in, helplessly?
How many times does the wrecking ball swing
before it collides with the walls that you’ve built…
how do you cope when your hope turns illusive
and you’re stuck in the mire of self-doubt and guilt?
Where do you go when there’s no place to go to,
who do you talk to when you feel alone;
caught up in those wishes and dreams unrequited
as you wander on back-roads and byways unknown.
Do you concede when the dark overwhelms you,
and scream at the gods for every detour—
curse them and blame them for all of your ills
and all of the trials that you must endure?
The struggle is constant to fight or go under
our strength may not falter but sometimes it stalls;
we push our way forward, one step at a time,
through all the maelstrom, the darkness, the squalls,
and all of the what-ifs that tear us asunder
knowing the choice that we make says it all.
© Ginny Brannan 2022
She wore green sneakers on her feet
a heart drawn on the toe
a Marine Biologist future planned
her dreams were set and well in hand
Corpus Christi she would go…
I wonder what he thought that day
as he strode into the school?
What could make a person do
that things that he would do?
Was he lost inside his head,
could he hear their screams…
as he tore their lives apart
cutting short their dreams?
Another school has fallen prey,
how many look the other way?
“Thoughts and prayers,” is what they say,
then leave it for some other day.
Another child’s life cut short
how hard is it to know
you claim to be “pro life” and yet,
by avoiding you abet
with the 'same ol’ same' retort.
We birth our children, raise them up
they are the seeds we sow;
their dreams are ours, we hold them close
never to let go,
then find them in a body bag
a tag upon their toe.
The repetition of this crime
reminds us that there comes a time
when we can’t let it go—
for those green sneakers on her feet
with the heart drawn on the toe.
© Ginny Brannan 2022
I can banter with the best
engage in mindless conversation;
smile, laugh, share all the tells
to fool a casual observer,
make believe that all is well
while fending my anxiety
for just a moment's company.
Yet silence echoes in my head
without shape or definition
through endless strings of empty days
in never-ending repetition.
Perhaps these walls that I have built
to guard a scarred and crippled heart
are now a cell of my creation,
and I am locked in solitude,
a prisoner of my own volition.
The map I follow is obsolete
and I am lost, without direction.
The landmarks that I thought I knew
have been replaced since their inception.
I plot a course and forge ahead
along a path that’s overgrown
my footfalls padding unknown trails.
Yet, the air is sweet, a warm wind blows,
and slow and steady stays the course…
if nothing else this life has shown
that I can make it on my own.
© GBrannan 2022
