A task needs doing,
It’s mine to do.
I take it from the queue;
It becomes all that I’m pursuing.
It becomes my master,
My humanity subdues:
A “good morning” buried, a hello refused
Helps me get it done faster.
But as I leave from task completion,
Things left unsaid—now exhumed—
My thoughts completely consume.
A cause for relationship depletion?
When will I rule my tasks,
Rather than they rule me?
©2014 H.K. Longmore
Oh, birds!
If I could but fly with you today.
A simple life, to be sure:
We’d hang out on the power lines,
Take turns fluttering to and fro,
Chirping and singing and cooing.
We’d race and glide in the sky.
And when hunger struck,
If ever prey we spied,
We’d carefully descend
To take it by surprise.
If I could but fly with you today.
©2014 H.K. Longmore
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In the land of green and red x’s
No dance is ever in step;
Every good deed can be overturned
By the next misstep.
In the land of red and green x’s
Disappointment is par.
Human frailty guarantees
The tally can’t reach the bar.
In the land of red and green x’s
The chroma of the red implies
The focus it will have:
The red gains control of the eyes.
In the land of green and red x’s.
Take a little trip,
It’s not too far—
But you can’t get there by car—
To the land of seventy times seven.
In the land of seventy times seven,
Even when a relationship must be severed
That does not diminish the love that grew.
Though the love may change form:
Eros may become Philos;
Either may become Agape,
But surely love
Will yet endure
In the land of seventy times seven.
© 2014 H.K. Longmore
Posted in poetry
Tagged atonement, communication, coping, forgiveness, frustrations, love, misunderstanding, poem, relationships, resilience, sin
This is an older piece, from what seems a lifetime ago, if not a different life. It describes in part the difficulty of returning to a place where all that you thought you knew about a person and their relationship with you was turned on its head. In the “Aggression” alluded to, I managed to hold my tongue, and prevent an assault from becoming assault and battery.
I returned to the place of Aggression yesterday
Though it still seems like today,
As parted have my pillow and head been, torn
Since yester-morn.
The Aggressor was not there.
If he were, to go I could not bear.
Forgiveness he would have feigned
For a time, on a day I felt alienated.
In his heart
Real forgiveness had no part.
He wanted to keep his reign
Of tyranny.
He called that day to apologize
For the way he antagonized.
Wishing to talk to no one, warned by caller ID,
I left curses unsaid and receiver on hook.
The place is haunting now,
Full of darkness and shadows
Everywhere I looked.
I tried cursing a chair
That it might break—doing no harm
To the person who’d sit in it.
Let the La-Z-Boy die in retribution
For my suffering.
No pattern or form to follow,
No magic incantation—
Only me, my mind, my movements, imagination.
Break or not, I don’t care—
I did it, that’s what matters.
Enough about that, lest
My heart get left
In the darkness in the basement, in the theft
Of my pleasant memories,
At the time of the Aggression.
©2000-2014 H.K. Longmore
Posted in poetry
Tagged assault, atonement, consequence, coping, Henry Lawson, poem, relationships, resilience, self reflection, shame, timing
“A potluck! Whatever you bring, bring fruit.”
The announcement came as no surprise:
His brother was on the planning committee.
Aiming for some humorous response,
He tried to say he’s a little bit crazy
“Can I just bring myself, because I’m a fruit?”
The room filled with the laughter
Of men, mostly twenty-somethings,
And the few women giving the announcement.
“That worked better than expected,” he thought.
Then, too late, he realized it was “fruitcake”
Not “fruit” he had intended to say.
Too much time had passed,
His explanation too feeble.
The label stuck.
Many moons passed;
A certain few still this label used
For far too long, until—
At long last, another opened his mouth—
The jaws of hell could open no wider—
And inserted his foot and leg, up to the knee.
Those who used the label still
Agreed this last faux-pas was far worse,
And bought the burial of the label.
I turn the corner
And spy in the dark,
In the shadows
Behind the seven eleven,
A man in pajamas
And a warm jacket
In the cool March night air.
He swings his foot forward;
Not a graceful motion,
But swift: he kicks
A rock on the ground
Or perhaps just the air.
It brings to my mind
The way I feigned
To kick the wall
After a lost point in racquetball.
Perhaps it was the maudlin song
Playing at the grocery store,
Or maybe echoes of my heart or yours,
But I feel the ache contained
In his silent outburst
In the shadow
In the dark
At eleven thirteen.
© 2014 H.K. Longmore
Posted in poetry
Tagged empathy, frustrations, impressions, poem, sequence of primes
Emotional pain I truly disdain.
To feel it completely would crush my heart;
The resulting torrent would fill my lungs
With that saline solution from my eyes.
So I aim to transmogrify the pain:
Change its form, numb the ache, preserve my heart.
I run ten miles having not run for months,
Just my muscles and bones, sinews and fat:
There’s no water station for hydration,
And no supplemental source of glucose.
At eight-point-three my quadriceps seize up;
My pace is so slow I switch to a walk.
With every step my pain turns; legs now burn.
Sun gone down, the air grows chill, my hands numb.
But let this not raise a flag of concern:
The pain tastes better the second time down.
©2014 H.K. Longmore
I’ve been bit by the “I can’t focus on any personal projects long enough to complete them” bug again. My banjo was calling to me a few weeks ago, telling me of how I’d been neglecting it for far too long. So I got it out, and had to get my chord book so I could remember some chords I’d forgotten. In so doing, I rediscovered a song I wrote, and another that I wrote lyrics for but no music, both nine years old. So I decided it was time to give the lyrics some music. And that’s taken me away from writing poetry, or finishing my edits for my upcoming poetry book. In the meantime, here’s a quick ditty to let you, my dear followers, know I’m not dead yet.
I’ve offended my Muse
She’s not amused
My pen feels used
The paper, abused
So now I tiptoe past
Unlike days gone by
When my footwear
Announced to all
My imminent arrival.
©2014 H.K. Longmore
Posted in poetry
Tagged bliss and glad life, consequence, coping, poem, relationships
Raindrops fall
Fast, wet, calm.
My vision is clouded,
But my car knows the way home.
I miss the exit,
Then take the wrong one.
My vision blurs,
But my car knows the way home.
My heart descends
Into sorrow and sadness.
At last, with no connection,
I must have found my cocoon:
The crawling of my skin
Must result from falling in.
Clouds cry,
And I shudder.
And my car returns
To where I would have been
Were the day drier,
The weather fairer.
Trying to numb the pain,
I miss my turn
When my focus falters.
But my car, it knows.
With the press of a button,
The shelter called home
Opens to protect
My car from the falling rain.
Inside, wipers run
To clear the remaining
Drops of rain
From the windshield.
Another button press
And the door descends
To shield and protect.
I turn off the engine,
Keep the music playing,
And release the pain.
I let it course
Through my veins,
Overwhelm my brain.
I feel wetness in my eyes
Streams of water on my cheeks.
For tears I’m too vain;
How can the wetness be explained?
There must be a leak in my house,
A leak in my car,
Letting in some rain.
I head inside, the moisture stops.
Sitting in my writing chair,
I put down some thoughts.
Writing done, I discover another leak.
© 2014 H.K. Longmore
Posted in poetry
Tagged become as a child, bliss and glad life, cocoon, consequence, coping, poem, rain, rainy day poetry, relationships, resilience
An ode to Paul, Paul who was Saul, I write.
I write in free form because
Paroxymal Choreoathetosis
Is too long for iambic pentamemter;
Paroxymal,
Too short for haiku,
The subject too serious for limerick,
And not yet requiring elegy.
Paul was given a thorn in the flesh
“Lest he be exalted above measure”.
Some say his thorn was seizures.
Paul bore it well, in adversity took pleasure.
If only I were as upright as Paul!
Perhaps then my thorn
Would not fill me with gall.
After I did my time
In magnetic medical caves,
And doughnuts crossed with x-rays,
Sleep-deprived, electrodes on my scalp;
The diagnosis was given:
Paroxymal Choreoathetosis,
Or some other paroxymal disorder.
Nine years passed
Before a medicine was found to control it,
Too late for the lass
I took to the Christmas dance.
As we danced, a seizure struck.
We left the dance floor,
Roamed the school halls
While I explained my condition.
We returned and danced some more.
Dance over, headed home,
She was dropped off first.
She got out, I was to follow.
I tried but twixt the car and ground
Another seizure took control.
I could not move,
Was near to falling.
My friend, the driver,
Grabbed my coat,
And pulled me in;
Kept me from a serious fall.
Seizure ended, I looked for the girl,
And found her as she realized
I was not walking her to her door:
She ran the remaining distance.
My heart ached for her.
But too embarrassed,
Too socially awkward,
I did not call, write, or visit.
I did not heed my parents counsel
To select one of these to apologize.
Instead, as time wore on,
Through mutual friends I planted
Seeds of information,
Until the thing was understood.
I once found a dictionary
Sufficiently large to define
Paroxymal and Choreoathetosis.
I remember now only that
It had to do with seizures
And lack of oxygen.
Three medicines later, life seems normal.
You wouldn’t guess I could be
Just hours of sleep deprivation
Or poor nutrition,
Or too many forgotten pills away
From a return to that life.
And still my thorn threatens to return;
The threat now seems most often to come
When I’m about to do something
I know deep down I shouldn’t.
But the knowledge that oxygen helps
Means you’ll know I’m battling it;
You’ll know by sudden changes
In my breathing depth and pace.
I ask not for your sympathy;
Your empathy retain.
I tell you so you’ll understand
Should you see the threat of my thorn.
What you won’t know, I’ll never tell
(Not unless we talk of it),
Is the pleading in my mind:
“Oh, Lord, please, no!
Don’t let me have a seizure now!
My God, help me breathe,
Don’t let me lose control!”
Oh that I were as upright as Paul,
And my thorn was to keep me from boast.
I could then glory in affliction;
Privately enjoy my views of heaven.
Copyright © 2014 H.K. Longmore
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Posted in poetry
Tagged coping, neurology, Paroxymal Choreoathetosis, Paul, poem, relationships, resilience, Saul, seizures
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Musings of a Kunderian Monster 
I deactivated my Facebook account last Friday. The time I was spending reading all the articles, taking all the quizzes, watching all the cat videos (okay, so I only had a few cat videos in my news feed, but I … Continue reading →
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Posted on 12 February 2014