Nothing is Lost
Nothing is lost.
We are too sad to know that, or too blind;
Only in visited moments do we understand:
It is not that the dead return ---
They are about us always, though unguessed.
This penciled Latin verse
You dying wrote me, ten years past and more,
Brings you as much alive to me as the self you wrote it for,
Dear father, as I read your words
With no word but Alas.
Lines in a letter, lines in a face
Are the faithful currents of life: the boy has written
His parents across his forehead, and as we burn
Our bodies up each seven years,
His own past self has left no plainer trace.
Nothing dies.
The cells pass on their secrets, we betray them
Unknowingly: in a freckle, in the way
We walk, recall some ancestor,
And Adam in the color of our eyes.
Yes, on the face of the new born,
Before the soul has taken full possession,
There pass, as over a screen, in succession
The images of other beings:
Face after face looks out, and then is gone.
Nothing is lost, for all in love survive.
I lay my cheek against his sleeping limbs
To feel if he is warm, and touch in him
Those children whom no shawl could warm,
No arms, no grief, no longing could revive.
Thus what we see, or know,
Is only a tiny portion, at the best,
Of the life in which we share; an iceberg’s crest
Our sunlit present, our partial sense,
With deep supporting multitudes below.
poem by Anne Barbara Ridler
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Lines On The Old Man's Face
Definitive lines on his face
Convey the pathos of his life
One can see the painful trace
Of anguish cutting as a knife.
His unshed tears locked up inside
Stifled grief that left him torn
Eyes in blank stare try to hide
A father's sorrow yet unborn.
The years have not been very kind
Each day he ached for lost company
His beloved son they could not find
These last days leave him a memory.
War is cruel, unmerciful is Fate
For heroes are the dead and the lost
The lines on his face now sadly state
'My son had paid such a great cost.'
poem by Cynthia Buhain-Baello
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My Wife, In Love and Caring
Those deep etched lines upon her face
Have been incised by love and caring.
I touch her cheek, my fingers trace
Those deep etched lines upon her face,
Which manifest her selfless grace;
Her gift of years. I stand declaring,
Those deep etched lines upon her face
Have been incised by love and caring.
(A Triolet)
poem by Lynn W. Petty
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Faces
I cant read faces but i can read yours;
I know it when youre sad or happy,
not through your smile but through your eyes;
and the lines of your forehead,
and the lines of your cheeks...
they tell your secrets and then mystery unfolds.
The beauty of your chin...and the lines of your lips,
they tell me of something that hasn't been told.
Sometimes you laugh, but you're empty inside...
sometimes you frown, but your heart glowed with pride.
Sometimes serious, but your face
has something to hide.
I know coz your eyes tell me everything,
everything within your soul.
You have so many faces...
and i wonder if the world knows.
I wonder if they can read them,
or see what you conceal..
I wonder if they can see your mysteries...
secrets to steal.
And i wonder if they can look into
your eyes like open doors.
I know i cant read faces...
but i can read yours.
poem by Jessel Jane Tevar
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A Face In My Dreams
I see your face in dreams at night
and wish I'd not awaken.
For the face I see with eyes so intent
are the eyes with which I'm taken.
They search for me and there I am
and then your smile appears.
It quickens my heart though I'm asleep
and takes away my fears
that I may not see your face again
for then I'd be lost at sea,
tossing around in turbulence
and sleeping fitfully.
Your face to me is one of love
that makes me come alive.
And though I'm sleeping, I'm dreaming
and praying my dream can survive.
poem by Edwina Reizer
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Love Letters
She held a pack of love letters tied with ribbons and bows.
these were the love letters that she would never show.
Every one of them was dated first to last
These were the letters that held a life past.
Times may pass and things may change
But memories stay the same.
The writing of love letters had slowly disappeared
But she held on to them from year to year.
She sat with the letters in her lap.
As the tears rolled down her eyes
He had said he would be with her
Till the day he died
And fifty years later
He met his maker
And was carried to the cemetery
by the undertaker.
The letters had been written
with tenderness and love
Proclaiming every thing
Even the stars above.
He said life was meaningless if with her
His life he could not share.
And losing her was something
he could not bear.
Now that he was gone and she
Was left all alone.
The house didn’t seem
like much of a home.
She knew her children would not understand
Why she held the love letters in her hand.
These were the memories that kept her alive
And on that she couldn’t deny.
But her mind and body was fading fast
And she knew she could not last.
So to her children she bequeathed
The letters that she cherished all her life
For that was her husband, and she was his wife.
These are the love letters that your father
Wrote to me when we were young and carefree.
He told me of all that life had to offer.
And of all the love he had for me
And that he wanted to raise a family.
When you read his letters you will know
Why I loved this man so.
And now it’s time for me to go.
Because your father awaits me on the other side
And we’ll be together for all of time
poem by Louis Rams
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I Shall Cry These Tears No More
For everything happen for a reason. Blame no one nor yourself accept the changes and challenges within. Cry these tears no more
for if somethings get tough in life its not your fault cry no more. For a mother lost at a young age its painfull but i shall dropp these tears no more
children dying at the young age loosing parents and become house hold heads please hold on because God is here always cry these tears no more
my mom died when i was an infant what did i know? But with God i still have a father i shall cry these tears no more
our youth is dying. Can we do anything please dry that face i shall cry no more
i shall wet these face no more with tears if i can speak today and walk read and write if i still feel all things that means im alive and thank God
remember nothing is hard or impossible make it a point to achieve and therefore i shall cry these tears no more
poem by Ernest Makuakua
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Interactive
I write some lines and you read each word
A word excites you and you take it up to
Seed your fields where you grow your own
Shrubbery of words with tendrils climbing
I look at your garden of words and there is
This word growing into a flower attracting
Me I pick it up this sensual flower and I
Seed it in the lines of my mind now another
Bunch of words like ripe grapes I take one
Swallow it and savor the taste of its sweetness
More lines of words in my throat sliding
Through the lining of my esophagus so smooth
Going straight inside the veins leading to my heart
Sweet, so sweet I could have written the usual
Lines of “ I love you, I miss you” but I couldn’t
There is this roadblock, this writer’s block
The lines stopped, the words are stunted
I stutter, I retreat to my eyes, to see
The face of this woman I love, her eyes
Are gentle, she smiles at me, and waits
For this beautiful silence that gives her life
You stand there, looking for a hint, another
Word to seed the lines waiting to be written.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Forty-Two Years
From a distant land I came
over an ocean that stretch out.
Relatives at the airport greeted me,
their arms stretched out with love.
Years disappeared beneath our feet.
Then like a magic carpet,
we were transported to a reunion.
On air we seemed to walk,
years vanished in moments of handshakes,
each face, that of a stranger, now family.
With each new, face recognition of an older past,
something to build on for years to come.
22 August 2001
Author’s Note:
This poem was written on my Aunt’s back porch on my first visit to Canada after 42 years.
DVH.
poem by David Harris
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Do not read my poems…. [for YOU ]
Do not read my poems…
After I am dead
As a lament, a wail
An elegy, a requiem
Do not read my poems…
After I am gone
When no more I can
Hear your velvet voice.
Do not read my poems…
Alone without me
To comment along
And read with you
But, do read my poems
When I beside you lie
With my head resting
On your supporting arm
Listening to you read
In whisper, in kisses
In silence, in love
In sleep, in dream
Watching you feel
Every word I wrote
I’ll close my eyes - Love
Brush aside my hair
With your breathe
Which half veils my face
Sleepless fevered I wrote
Read me my poems
Now sing me a lullaby
Rock me to sleep
On your broad chest
Diving into your eyes
A thousand times
I am refreshed
By your smile
I’ll write on you a poem
Traced by my fingertips
To be etched in your heart
And burnt into your soul!
So, do not read my poems…
poem by Angelina Pandian
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Makeup
When you wake up in the morning
And you put the makeup upon your face
Do you try to cover up the age and lines
Or only the sins and deceptions and the disgrace.
Do you try to place on a happy smile
By putting bright lipstick upon your lips
Or do you try to cover up your own hard life
Something that someone like you never forgets.
And as you look into your mirror
Do you powder the many lines upon your face
The lines that has stretched from years ago
Unto the present days of your life and waste.
Do you try to cover up the bags under your eyes
From all the many restless and sleepless nights
The nights when you cared not where you went
As long as you went and held on to someone tight.
Do you place the powder upon your cheeks
To make you look so cheerful and so very nice
But as they say you cant judge a book by its cover
And if they knew you, they need only to think twice.
And as you are preparing yourself for the day
With your makeup in front of you and on the shelf
Does it take you a little longer to put it on each day
As you try to cover yourself up and become someone else.
The makeup you have will you pass it along one day
And then show someone else how to cover up their lines
Maybe your sisters or even maybe your daughters
That is though if they need to cover up their lying.
And do you ever step back away from your mirror
Do you ever try to look at yourself as a whole
Does it ever bring tears into your heart and eyes
Do you ever wish that you still had a soul.
So as your prepare to start your brand new morning
With your lipstick and powders and so much more
Do you ever wish that you could just wash your face clean
And never have to cover up your ways and lies from the nights before.
Randy L. McClave
poem by Randy McClave
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I Don't Know Where The Past Is Gone
I don’t know where the past is gone
I only know most of my own life is over-
I don’t know where the past has gone
I only know so many people I loved
Are no longer here and will never be here again-
I don’t know where the past has gone
I only know that that chance I had that hope for so many years
Can never be mine in the same way again-
I don’t know where the past has gone
So many moments of beauty and love and opportunity missed and longing unrealized-
I don’t know where the past has gone
And what of it I should miss
And why I should long for it so.
I don’t know where the past has gone
And where my life was lost and why I did not do better in it-
I don’t know where the past has gone
And what will be when for me
Everything is only the Past gone
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Lesson
I keep on dying again.
Veins collapse, opening like the
Small fists of sleeping
Children.
Memory of old tombs,
Rotting flesh and worms do
Not convince me against
The challenge. The years
And cold defeat live deep in
Lines along my face.
They dull my eyes, yet
I keep on dying,
Because I love to live.
poem by Maya Angelou
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Would He Even Know Me Now?
The past is full of shades and shapes
Of people, come and gone,
'Whatever happened to so and so, '
We say, when the mood is on;
But closer still, our parents live
In the warmth of our hearts and minds,
And my father often returns to me
To haunt my quiet times.
How do you deal with a love so deep
That it tears your life apart?
The day that he left, he took a piece
Of my ever caring heart,
He died, and so did I that day,
But I couldn't even cry,
A loss so great to a fickle fate -
I wept, though my eyes were dry.
Though that was twenty years ago
I remember in every way,
He'll always be just the way he was
On that final, desperate day;
But I have changed, I'm older now
And life has never been kind,
The years have indelibly traced their path
On my face, my body and mind.
My father knew me way back when,
A child, a teen, young man,
I hovered around the forty mark
When he left in the Lord's great plan;
But one thing worries my troubled mind
And it haunts my thoughts somehow,
If we were to pass on the street today
Would he even know me now?
5 March 2008
poem by David Lewis Paget
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Take To The Sky
I met you just last year
You were the one
I wanted to be near
To hold, to love, to kiss, to be with,
To just have around for all of my life
But you were gone,
So far away...
I couldn’t hold that precious face
I was just left with so much space
I feared I would never see you again…
Let’s take to the sky
Just take to the sky my dear
Let’s take to the sky
And just fly away from here
I wanna see your face again
And hold you in my arms
I wanna have you here with me
And soar until we’re free
You left me the other day
And I thought that I would die
I feared I wouldn’t breathe again
and watch my life pass by
A few days pass
You act like nothing happened
But I can see right through you
And can tell you’re missing me
Let’s take to the sky
Just take to the sky my dear
Let’s take to the sky
And just fly away from here
I wanna see your face again
And hold you in my arms
I wanna have you here with me
And soar until we’re free
Your soundtrack never stops playing for me
It keeps repeating
Being told all of these things
Made me want to block it all out
And never even believe
But now time has passed,
Things are better; I can’t wait to see you.
Let’s take to the sky
Just take to the sky my dear
Let’s take to the sky
And just fly away from here
I wanna see your face again
And hold you in my arms
I wanna have you here with me
And soar until we’re free
poem by Xx Charmer Xx
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New Life
So mad am I,
people are always
walking all over me.
Children are always
marking up my face
with colored chalk.
They're hop scotch
freaks, always jumping
on me, all the time.
Even the day I
was born and still wet,
hand prints, and names they
wrote on me.
Now many years
have I been here
time is catching
up with me.
Cracks all over
my body, now today
given new life.
So many ages will
I be here for you
to walk on this sidewalk.
wrote 4-9-07
I Lost The Poem I Wrote In My Mind
I LOST THE POEM I WROTE IN MIND
I lost the poem I wrote in my mind
When walking to Shul this morning-
I can only try to recall its thoughts;
‘Walk too fast and the mind cannot hear itself
Walk slowly and listen to the poem inside yourself.
The road ahead the trees the sky
Has a beauty too great for you to write
Thank God for your sight.”
The best lines are forever gone-
A poem to replace a poem
Is not as good as the original-
I wish I had the words for all the beauty God gives me in my life
How wonderful it is to be alive- sometimes
And to be able to write poems – even if somewhat poorly.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Turblence
A face in my night time dreams
No disruption could stop
So deep I cannot awaken
The face I see
With eyes so intent,
Are the eyes which I am taken
They look for me...
And there I am
A smile appears
It fills emptiness in my heart
Though I am asleep
Taking away my fears
I may see your captivating face
For a long time
Tossed around in turbilence
In a lost and stormy sea
Still sleeping fitfully
Not to awaken
Your face is one I 'love'.
I'm sleeping
Im dreaming
In my prayers, I ask? peacefully
Let me survive.
poem by Howard Johnson
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This Is Me
How can you just say that you love me yet to leave you alone
You said these walls were here to protect us, but it's still not a home
All these questions that are burning inside with answers I'll never know
'Cause you're the only one who knows how you feel, but you're not letting me know
What is it, love
Can I help you
I see where this has gone and what it's coming to
I look to you
Enough
Chorus:
I can't believe this is me
Where I can touch and not feel you
I feel I'm lost in a dream
Between what is and what seems
Having to face not to need you
You know you owe it to me
How can you think we don't need you
I'm tired of running away from my fear and the day
That our life has no meaning
Without a word or a reason
Like a coward, you're leaving
Sitting here inside an empty room that was filled with us
Only boxes to define what was left of what we used to call love
It's sad that after all of this time, you have nothing to say
Ooh, and the only thing that you could've done, you choose to walk away
I'm thankful, love
I don't hate you
'Cause I'd rather live and know than what you put me through
I needed you
Somehow
I can't believe this is me
Where I can touch and not feel you
I feel I'm lost in a dream
Between what is and what seems
Having to face not to need you
How could you do this to me
How could you think we don't need you
I'm tired of running away from the fear and the day
That our life has no meaning
Without a word or a reason
Like a coward, you're leaving
I can't believe this is me
I wasn't wont to believe you
I feel I'm lost in a dream
Between what is and what seems
Having to face not to need you
How could you do this to me
How could you think we don't need you
I'm tired of running away from my fear of the day
That our life has no meaning
Without a word or a reason
Like a coward, you're leaving
song performed by by Jennifer Lopez
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Silent Conversation With Myself
do not care to read me carefully, just skim over
some words that may call your preferential attention.
do not mind the smaller ideas, or the images that
you find hard to imagine. They may not be images
after all but just blotches of my stains, the negligence
of my trembling fingers, the lapses of my brains,
the slip of my tongues, the cliches of humanity,
seeking meaning in the meaninglessness of words.
this is mumbling, this is plain rambling
do not ever mind what i am writing. this is not about you.
or myself, or the society that like sheep simply graze on the grass
not knowing that on the next step is the landmine that kills them,
or why look for the meaning of loneliness in words or lines or poetry.
are you going home tonight? on a train. sit there. look over the window.
see the line of trees, do they shout at you? No.
and move your eyes, as though you are scrolling for names on the
cell phone, like roving camera, you do not have to look that far on the
20th person sitting across the other side.
someone is sitting next to you. listen to his silence.
feel the vibrations of all his problems. try to unmask the cover of his face.
are there words covering his face? none.
or if words cover his face and body, try reading them all silently.
most of the truths are not said. Not even written. You always see them
next to you. Be it on the train, the bus or the plane. Or simply when you
walk along the cemented paths of the park. Here comes another
lost soul. Talk to him. Do not write poetry.
this is mumbling this is plain rumbling. Do not speak poetry.
write them and let them cover your face.
That is the best way to speak.
This is what is life is all about.
Speechless. Alone always.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Ah late Grandma Is Back
last night late grandma showed her face
on the screen of my mind
perhaps that's her way to say
she had received the merits sent her
from the supplications
at the Mahavira buddhist temple
the temple where new year candles flicker
in little red cuplets filled with oil
through the night on festive occasions
on grandma's face is a spirituality
i had never seen before
she looked a different person
after so many years, she has been to somewhere
and yes she has put on weight
like before not a word was spoken
but who needs words when one's face itself
can tell a story more profound than a thousand words
who needs those lengthy descriptions when a mere look
at a face is able to show us the spirituality of another realm,
and hers tells me the spirituality she has imbibed is thicker
than the one i am in
sure she has been to places all these nine years or so
you know through her ace there is a religion somewhere
governing us all, a spirituality that carries us through
each realm, each day
a God can be seen through the face of those
who have journeyed into eternity
if you have the blessings to have them back to you
for a split second or two, right on the screen of your mind
a spirit keen to share with us the graces they have imbibed
since the day they left, a holiness no words can tell
a face treasured for the all the stories it can tell
without the need of words
poem by John Tiong Chunghoo
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