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BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DREAMS

Nov5

 

 

Another poetic duet with the wonderful Ms. Hasty Words.

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Branches, dry and brittle, snap beneath my feet
Stained circles of torched grass litter the ground
And the sun…
Well…
It strains to find purchase inside this compound

Oh it’s no paradise, perhaps more like paradise lost
But understand, my being here ain’t what it seems
I packed my bags…
Closed my eyes…
And took a walk on that Boulevard of Broken Dreams

By night the streets are filled with piercing screams
Fading by day into the crumbling brick of alley walls
And the echoes…
They linger…
As do the voices that laugh and jeer you when you fall

And their piercing eyes watch through windows tall
With such malevolence causing my soul to shiver
I move on…
Undeterred…
As a lone wave in the current of an endless river

This morning I walk alone through all the left over debris
At the items left behind from the nights previous dark
I look around…
And contemplate…
Leaving this city and the doped up remains of a junked up park

HASTYWORDS

IMG_0041

Written by James Sanders and HastyWords


Branches, dry and brittle, snap beneath my feet
Stained circles of torched grass litter the ground
And the sun…
Well…
It strains to find purchase inside this compound

Oh it’s no paradise, perhaps more like paradise lost
But understand, my being here ain’t what it seems
I packed my bags…
Closed my eyes…
And took a walk on that Boulevard of Broken Dreams

By night the streets are filled with piercing screams
Fading by day into the crumbling brick of alley walls
And the echoes…
They linger…
As do the voices that laugh and jeer you when you fall

And their piercing eyes watch through windows tall
With such malevolence causing my soul to shiver
I move on…
Undeterred…
As a lone wave in the current of an endless river

This morning I walk alone through all the left over debris
At the items…

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Child Of Loss

Oct8

So I thank everyone for your patience with me throughout my month long hiatus. I’ve been working on a number of different projects throughout the past month. This piece is one of them. I truly had no idea where it was going, but that’s often the case with my writing. So please take a read and hopefully enjoy. And don’t hesitate to check out my other work and leave feedback. One luv – Jay

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Outside of the elaborate doors of a grand cathedral
A little boy sits on the second step,
He sits, clutching his knees to his chest,
As if he is holding the last breath that will ever enter his lungs

Though I’m not yet near him, I can see that he is crying
Two middle aged women exit the church and attempt to console him,
But his tears won’t stop
It’s like the whites of his eyes are the clouds above the amazon rainforest,
And Mother Nature neglected to change the season

I try not to stare, but still find my eyes locked onto this child’s pain
It feels as if he has cried a river filled with the tears of sorrow,
And my soul has become trapped in the currents of his pain
As I struggle within myself to regain control,
I am now closer, placing my hand on his small shoulder and I hear myself saying….
What’s wrong son?

He looks up at me, with an innocence in his eye that could break the will,
Of the harshest of oppressors in history
And with a tremble in his voice strong enough to register on the Richter scale,
He asks me, when do I get my turn to die?

In attempts to not show the level of concern evident within the depths of me,
I put on the face of a bold man, strong in the resolve of my self being
Sitting down at his side, I look into those eyes and I say to him,
Son, you’re young and have so much more life to live
Why would you cry for a chance to die?

He lifts up his head, points to the sky with his small finger shaking in a way
That makes it seem as if he is tracing the image of God himself in the clouds,
He says to me….they told me that my family went to Heaven,
And that God wanted them by his side,
But when I asked why he left me behind, they just said because it wasn’t my time.

As I search through the maze of thoughts within my mind,
I find that every path ends with another solution of nothing,
And as those same two ladies exit the church to retrieve the grieving boy,
I sit there, on those same cathedral stairs with my eyes still focused on the sky
Torn with the reality of knowing the undying pain inside this child’s mind

Wondering how anyone will ever respond to that question,
Created within the innocence and confusion that is now that boy’s life….
When is it my turn to die???

” Image Courtesy of Daniel Gies
https://www.flickr.com/photos/daniel_gies/6210256302/”

Pain

Sep4

Hello all :-). First off, I apologize for the extended hiatus from my writing/posting. There have been a number of major things happening over the past month (anniversary, job change, relocation, etc.). With that said, it’s time to get back to the fun. This piece is an excerpt from Life & Poetry: Early Poetic Expressions. Make sure you get your copy of Life & Poetry by clicking the image of the book cover at the bottom right of the page. It’s an earlier piece I wrote while dealing with a situation of loss at that time. Happy reading 🙂
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The cause of much grief,
And sickness in your heart
Pain in your soul
Nonexistent from the start
Its purpose, I know not
A mystery to almost all
Why the greatest of God’s gifts
Always seem to fall
So deep and strong the pain
Filling one’s heart and mind
Filling them with wonder
Of why you were left behind
I always ask the question
Yet, the answer is never clear
But I know it will cause pain
And this pain is what I fear
Sorrow, grief and anger
Are part of what I feel
Yet, knowing that they’ll remain
Is a wound that cannot heal
It hurts now more than ever
For I have felt it time and again
The hurt that one can only feel
From the loss of a close friend
One will never know
How much they can truly take
Before the strands of their heart and sanity
Will give in and break
Yet, you feel that point of weakness
Drawing closer each moment in time
And you know the day will come
When that time will fully unwind
But there’s nothing you can do
No way you can avoid it
For anything you use to hold it
The pain will soon destroy it
The only thing you can do is wait
For your point in time to hit
And when that point hits
All you can do is accept it
Never will I doubt God
But of him I will always wonder
How he could allow this pain
To take us slowly under
There’s nothing else to say
Nothing else that one can do
For when that point hits you
You’ll truly know if it’s you.

Shadow of Choice

Aug4

A duet piece with Ms. C Burks from Journalistic Expressions. Check out her page and show her some support. Enjoy.

The saddest sound to hear is the cry of a broken heart
The saddest sight to see are the tears that follow
When no words can comfort the overwhelming despair
When there are no arms to run to for encouragement

When the wounds created from a single moment
Inflict the pain of a thousand lives worth of sorrows
And the only shoulder that exists for you to lean on
Is that of your very own broken shadow

And you have more questions than answers
Where the answers given are inadequate
And the direction you’re looking for isn’t available
Then you have to wonder what options you have left

You wonder how does one truly mend a broken heart
When that heart has actually been shattered
And all of its pieces have been scattered
Like fallen ashes on the road less travelled

Do you give up and give in, or get over it
Battle a faceless enemy with numerous tactics
Should you keep your head up and go forward
Ignoring the defeated voice you hear within

Or do you simply leave it all to the falsity of fate
And instead of overcoming the fear of making a choice
You close your eyes, lower your head
And proceed on as lost as a shadow in the dark

Because…..I Do

Jul29

Someone asked me, why do you love her so much?
And at the time, I had this picture in my mind
Of quoting all of these poems that rhyme.
But for fear of running out of time, I
Simply responded by just saying, because I do

With a confused gaze they looked at me
As if I had just committed the highest level of love’s blasphemy,
As if the simplicity of my response made it only one of apathy
Therefore I very matter-of-factly explained my response

It’s like my heart will only beat, when my lungs can take in the air
That I am only able to receive whenever I am standing within her presence
You see, she gives me a reason to breathe

And when God created us, he made our souls on each side of a mirror,
So that whenever we met, there would be no mistaking
That we were perfectly made to reflect the greatness of each other,
Yes, we are soul mates.

Before her, I would often sit and wonder to myself,
Why anyone would find joy in losing control and falling into anything,
Especially love
But now that I am with her, I wake up every single day in Heaven,
And begin free falling in love with her over and over again,
Because I know that whenever the end of that day comes, she will catch me
And I will again be in Heaven preparing for my freefall all over again

I rejoice in the fact that I know that at any given moment,
I can truly say that I am more in love with her than I was even a minute ago,
And that on that day when we exchanged rings,
She became my forever and I her eternity, so understand
That when I answer your question in a way that seems minute to you,
Know that I answer it in the same way that I accepted the commitment
Under the eyes of the most high, by simply saying…..I do

Marionette

Jul26

Behind the curtains that surround the stage,
Hidden within the depths of his memory, she
Holds her position, and with the greatest of precision
She begins to manipulate her living marionette,
With a hidden control of her strings that would make even Geppetto jealous,
Though, her strings are not wasted on mere physical extremities,
These invisible lines are attached to his mind,
Intertwined with the fibrous lines of his emotions,
Embedded deeper than any other puppeteer’s strings,
Into the essence of what makes him a living human being….
She manipulates his soul
While for the normal person the very act of hoping
And dreaming occurs naturally,
But the unfortunate truth embedded within his reality,
Is that the birth of every dream only leads to another emotional casualty
You see, like a normal man living by design, he
Sometimes allows his mind to open the doors to other living realities,
Like caring, nurturing and loving another woman unconditionally,
But every time he tries to step through that door, his emotions are pulled,
Pulled by that very string tied to the depths of his memory,
Cloaked in the evil that is their history,
It begins to force its way through,
And like the most potent of poisonous venoms it begins to,
Suck the very life from his dream, and regardless of anything
That he attempts to do, he succumbs.
And while the sulfurous sting of sadness fills his lungs, he
Regains control of the only thing he still holds of his own,
He pulls those tears from the backs of his eyes,
Guides them through the gaps of his puppeteer’s intertwined lines,
And only allows them to flow on the inside.
So the next time you question the pain in his eyes,
And he simply replies that a man never cries,
Realize the true reality of what it is that you are seeing.
That while you may choose to shed emotional tears,
He simply chooses to work between the puppeteer,
And is most likely internally bleeding.

The Grave Reality Of Loss

Jul14

My second ever poetic duet. This was a partnership with a young lady with such amazing talent, Ms. Hasty Words. Make sure to take time and check out her page. She is truly one of the most phenomenal writers I’ve every encountered. Enjoy.
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This morning something was quietly different
The sky above me was just a cloud dotted blue
All the trees were just a few shades of green
And the poetry I normally hear just didn’t sing

The normal sweet breeze was only but a whisper
The cry of the sun’s eyes seemed only but a whimper
On that perch where the songbird normally rehearsed
Sat the silence of the raven with eyes fixed upon the Earth

The church bells were clumsy with an altered clang
And the train tracks had been ghostly silent for days
Sensitive to tell my heart, what I have known all along
The love of my life, this time, wouldn’t make it home

For so long I have been preparing for such a moment
But for a reality of such gravity there can be no atonement
For mending the scars of a love lost, I have not the ability
And I cannot replace pieces of my soul with scattered memories