The True Chapters of Life
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Month: September 2019

ddangler

A Perfect Storm

Letting Go & Holding On

It was a perfect storm.
Each part of life aligned and designed to collide
An eruption of forces drives down through the sea
Triggering a tsunami of upheaval

Reaching for control to lessen the force
of the pain as it comes faster and harder
Pounding against the walls built for safety
We should be OK, I should be OK
But should is not real

Wave after rolling wave, my soul patiently awaits
Taking with it one grain each moment
As I tumble into the sea
Drawn down into its depths, the dark salty sea fills my lungs

Each grain crunches between my teeth
Control slips away, floating slowly to the bottom as the sand
burst around me upon impact
It chokes me, fighting for breath, for life, not knowing where up is

The storm rages above, the darkness surrounds me in echoing silence
Somehow breathing, I rest finally
At the bottom I sleep, gently in the womb of mother earth
Her milk feeds my soul and I let go of all I gained
I let go of many I loved and
I sleep
In the darkness of wisdom and in the peace of the unknown
I sleep

ddangler

Until It’s Too Late

Love & Relationship

The sun rises each day in a golden blaze 
The flowers bow giving glory to its rise
But we can’t see love until it’s too late

The desire for beauty burns deep down inside
Hungering for perfect love, that healing force
We suffer our hearts poison
Hoping to cover our own souls loss

Our eyes are bigger than our heart
Our bark louder than our bite
In silence it comes, and then we depart
Not knowing she had entered
So we don’t see love until it’s too late

Why is it ever too late
if our heart dares to speak again
Why not step forward
Admit our guilt put down our pen

But those memories never sleep
Awake at night, closed eye during the day
Born to a world we neither love nor hate
Still we don’t speak our love until it’s too late

Love we want we cannot have
Longing for our hearts beat to still
Love we want we just can’t have
Bending towards her fragile will

In a moments flash, our desire is filled
Yet our grasp to tight for our empty plate
In a moments time, we know why
That we never know love til its too late

ddangler

The Echo of the Soul

Pain & Joy

I saw the shine of a pearl beginning to form

A gathering of pieces from the winds of a storm

A sincere and rare beauty of the heart will deceive

She’ll touch you in places you didn’t know you’d need

So hear the sound of love in your hurt so well known

If you’ll just listen to your soul’s echo against the cold hard stone

ddangler

Loving Us

Love & Relationship

Is it possible, the only way some of us can love is when we’re hurt by love?
We’re simply waiting for someone to hurt us?

Then we can prove to them we were right,
we’re incapable of being loved!

Is it possible, we humans run from the very love we need…
Not even we’re running or that we need it?

Maybe it’s them, we think. They’re incapable of loving.

More likely though
….it’s us .

Incapable of loving ourselves?

ddangler

The Perfect Driveway

Pain & Joy

Not tar but special colored blocks, forming a lovely pattern
Very different than any other driveway in the neighborhood- a perfect driveway

Except for those dam tiny, ugly weeds that grow up between those special colored blocks
They were not supposed to grow with the special sand that hardens so no weed can root

But they do and I hate them spreading out in the cracks
They really bother me, spoiling the look of- a perfect driveway

On my knees I try to slowly pull each one out hoping to see its root surface between the crack
But they break off and I lose the root to the crack which really pisses me off

The ones I do get, I put in a pile, and let them rot in the sun beside the driveway
This way they will know how it feels to have no roots and to feel alone next to- my perfect driveway

ddangler

Strangers

Passion & Desire

Any given moment of any given day, morning or night, strangers may visit.
These strangers have different names: desire, hope, lust, urge, yearning, even want.
They pass through as quickly as a flash of light.

When these strangers knock, and one is not alert, we may attempt to turn them away, deny them, even belittle these harmless, potentially beneficial strangers.

This moment of rejecting them can also occur in a blink of an eye, without even knowing we’re doing it.

Yet even though they are denied entry, these strangers leave their fossils behind like ancient visitors. Their fossils have been called emptiness, loneliness, weariness, depression, even heartbreak. It seems, much like an archaeologist, we may be more acquainted with their fossils then the strangers themselves.

When we can welcome even their fossils, mere symbols of death with an openness and acceptance, I suddenly notice those lesser know strangers, whom I turned away earlier, have returned.

It is then when I feel whole, as if I am the creative, imaginative person I was born to be

ddangler

Life my Lover

Living & Dying

The windows of loss wide open to the breeze
Uncertain of what loss to describe
I take my pick like snatching a leaf from inside a tornado

Loss, sadness and heartbreak is my partner
She is my lover giving me back lost pieces of myself
In my union with her I rest in her gentle arms, against her quivering chest of weeping sorrow

My mother has left the bounds of this earth
My father slowly slips away from his rotting, failed body
A friend blew his head off from life’s heavy hand
And my beloved sisters body betrayed her snatching her from our
desperate grasps

Letting a marriage turn to a friendship, rips away all I knew of certainty
And daddy’s little girl now proud with breast, fly’s away like a free kite in the wind

So I make love with loss and discover her lovely wetness
She brings imagination and creativity through her dark, mysterious eyes
Loving me like no lover could, she kisses my forehead with a caring assurance

She shows me what love is, while inside my orgasms shake my world with pleasure and with doubt
Forcing me to leave behind old parts of myself
And gather up of what remains

She, life gives all I need to live

-dd 2010



ddangler

Like Father, Like Son

Living & Dying

Holding his naked head in my hands I felt a different man. 
His hands raised me as a child.
Now he was a child himself, broken and fragile.

The plain, at times distant man, who couldn’t speak the words “I love you,” was now a vulnerable old man, needing me, his son, to hold him and love him.

As I stroked his head, I saw his skin so close.  It frightened me.  
His hands had freckles just like mine. I recall as a child, drawing imaginary figures around those freckles with my fingers. 
Now these hands, that once wiped the spit from my mouth, were in my care.
This man, whom I loved so deeply was a stranger to me at that moment.  
That moment when I despised him for who he wasn’t.

But I knew he tried with all he had inside
What kind of man am I and why could he not lend his guide
when I was lost and afraid with no place to hide

All I needed was for him to say was, “Son, I’m sorry for your pain, I know it hurts and I wish I could make you feel better. I have no answers for you, but I have arms, a safe place where you can weep when its time to weep, and rejoice when its time to rejoice. Your tears are your strengths and your sensitivity is your manliness. I am here when you need me.”
This was all I needed but he was not able to do that. 

But still. I held him there in my arms and wept.  
His hands, so strong, still full of life.
Yet he too may have wept for what he never got from his father. 

I may have caused him grief. And his grief came from what he knew he could not give me.
The more we love our children, the deeper we grieve.
We know one day we shall leave them or god forbid, they leave us. 

The more we love, the more we grieve, knowing we have more to lose.

And so that day I loved this man, just for who he was.
I held his head in my hands as he fell asleep…
forever and forever he shall be my father and I his son.

dd- September 27, 2009

ddangler

A Mind of its Own

Love & Relationship

I’ve fallen in love, only a few times before
But now I know when something is sure
It speaks when I can’t hear, trust cannot be sown
My heart has a mind, a mind of its own

But trust is its language, it speaks it so clear
So trust I must choose, if I want to live near
Near my center, my bones, my insides so true
That give me shape, beauty and shadows of you

Though love is a choice, whom we choose is not ours
So live close inside and trust in the stars
The stars and the moon, a pearl and a stone
Our heart has a mind, a mind of its own.

ddangler

A Feather in the Wind

Letting Go & Holding On

My hand outstretched before me 
A feather rests there in my open palm
Released in flight 
It’s a mere hint of the heart of its creature

My fingers want to caress, savor, and treasure it but my heart will not allow it
It has no roots, no home, no owner; I would not know what to do with it
Other then wiping my brow with its insincere nature

To move, it will only blow away
To close my hand around, will only reveal how little there is
What can i do with what looks so beautiful on its surface but is dead inside

A feather in the wind is beautiful on its own

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