THE UNBOUND WE

She sits quiet but seething

Taught what to think, not how

Her damaged psyche

Is just learning to seek

The company of women

Who, like her

Bear scars she wishes to excise

She knows she has the power

Within her to unravel the thread

That's kept her bound to men

Not a single one of whom

Has been any good for her

She is ready to become one

With the whole

She will be part of "we"

Yes.

Lupine Loveliness

Last night you howled me awake

The pair of you, serenading each other

Making music, or love, your voices ululating

Full of such terrible tenderness I found

Myself unable to return to slumber

Sweet but primitive yearning in your voices

Had me wondering, were you about to mate,

Or simply singing eternal love-songs to Luna

As she blessed you with her gibbous fullness

Showering silvery light on shadowy mountain peaks

Thank you for honouring me, oh ancient ones

Granting me your ghostly presence again this year

An affirmation of the circle of life, you surely are

Performing in the darkness as if in a dream;

Stopping by just long enough to grant me peace.                                                                                                                                                                             

To Become Light

I stand free

Ready to become

Light - no more

Excuses - I shift

The childhood

Inherited back beneath

Thunder's umbrella

Deeper than shadows

Of the past

I join to the present

And vow to remain

Here, now

ALONE

In the solitary moments of my separateness
I wonder why you occupy such space
And yet take up so little room
It’s as if you’re everywhere and nowhere all at once

My heart’s chambers on the other hand
Are scoured empty as old pails of lye
Rusting through now in its various weak spots

That comes as no great shock really
Since I’ve been scrubbing at the vestiges of caring for you
Long enough to diminish the thickness of the walls

And even though scars grow without my permission
Over damage we have inflicted simultaneously
I seem able to lessen their callous nature as the years go by

Until they too grow less able to sustain themselves
And eventually I sense them falling off
The way the last withered leaves depart the trees of autumn

I wonder, in my isolated soul, if when I am finally
Irrevocably emptied, without within, unoccupied of energy or life
Will I finally feel the peace of being one with all
Or will my aloneness be the peace I’ve sought all along

Desperately Missing You Who are Gone

I walk at night in the graveyard, and I walk alone

Hoping against despair somehow I will run into you

Knowing in my heart, and in my soul,  you are gone

Reading the stones, I weep, but still you are gone

I try to take it in, realize the truth of it, I am alone

No matter how I twist away from it, I don't have you

Oh what I would give for just one day more with you

It does not matter that I tell myself our days are long gone

No, for then I am left with the sad fact again, I am alone

So, I am walking on alone without you wishing I too were gone.

S.E.Ingraham©

Latching the Gate

A mind floods

with past indiscretions

and other bits

of curvaceous lunacy

Its owner gives

chase as they lace

through narrow synapses

spinning past gateways

permanently stuck open

Trying to map these

is a lesson in futility

as they ricochet

at warp speed from

dark alcove to darker

Gaining even more speed

with dangerous

invisible intent

Any idea of eventual

dwindle, a dim impossibility.

S.E.Ingraham

CHOOSING NOW

In the summer of our lives

When eternity stretched

Before us like a lazy cat

And fall stayed hidden

In the dark corners

Of bureau drawers

Housewives were just something

Our mothers became ...

Never those of us who played ball

Spent months perfecting our pitch

Felt the sting in the palm of a well-worn glove

Choosing to remain ignorant

For as long as possible

Subtracting years ahead

From the now of it

We spurned the future

Chewed the rind of a bitter lemon

S.E.Ingraham©