Poem: In The Arms Of The

In The Arms Of The

I've known you not
Yet have
For now as I do
Growth of love blossoms
This currenly unattainable gem
I wish
To be "in the arms of the ...."

Copyright SGW 2011

Poem: Worst Enemy

Worst Enemy

Raced ahead of me I did
Anxiety’s mind a maze of misdirection
Crashing into walls disguised as paths

Synapse shooting with no purpose
Splashed against the calm
The intruder unraveling me
Leaving remnants strewn about
In chaotic mess

Logic is ignored
Reason?
Ha!
Gone in a flash
A whirlwind of me
Won’t rest
Won’t sleep
Won’t be
Until destruction’s complete

“Jumping to the worst conclusion in a single bound”
A Superman of super-over-thinking
Watch me soar …
And crash
My own worst enemy

Footnote: Quote comes from an internet source I could not identify.

Copyright SGW 2012

Poem: Outside In

Outside In

Midpoints are reflective moments
Look back
Ponder
Successes intermingled with failures

Too many failures

Too many roads not taken
Too hurried
Too gun shy
Too perfecting
Too scared

How often lemonade turned to lemons
Yes, it can be done

Unyielding in violent self-immolation

Could haves
Should haves
Would haves

Didn’t

Sit with this latte
Write and look forward
There are curved roads ahead
Eyes cannot see what waits
And what has come before is done
And not a guarantee of what is next

Copyright SGW 2012

Poem: Cliche Poet Voice

Cliché Poet Voice

Step to the mic with a purpose

Unfolding their papers; commencing

Crowd sits attentive to listen

For all that the poet’s dispensing

But many are no more than just speakers

Pretending they’ve crafted a form

Reading an essay or sentences

It is mostly quite endlessly long

Poems, or “spoken word” missives

Lacking any stylistic device

The pretension of artistic creation

In its ease it must surely entice

What more are they doing than talking

Or reading, more descriptively true

Turning their pages and pages

And pages and pages, they do

At times they dispense with the paper (Wow!)

For they have memorized their mind-numbing tripe

So as they wave with their arms all a flutter

They're the dance of a sham archetype

But the piece de resistance – the vocals!

The cliché of the “poetry sound”

Voicing indignation or fervor

It is common and too commonly found

Copyright SGW 2011/2013

Poem: Rockies

Rockies

High over mountains forever to see
Their depth and their wonder are of timeless degree
God sure as sculptor that would shape them so vast
The landscape lies packed by the marvels He’d cast
How mighty their image, how impressive they stand
However they’re looked ‘pon, they are undeniably grand
Eons been weathered as lifetimes dissolve
Formed by duration of no finite resolve
Reminders endure that we are small in their midst
Here they will be when we have long ground to grist

Copyright SGW 2011

Poem: Vase

Vase

Vase on a shelf
Never deigned to be exquisite
But there

Then it fell
Knocked ‘gainst walls
‘Twas exposed to world

Until it showed cracks
Faded luster

More cracks

So it was left
Left on the shelf
To gather dust

Growing old in its broken solitude

Copyright SGW 2011

Cancer Alliance Blog

People finding their way here looking for information useful to anyone dealing with cancer, should check out:

David Haas, Awareness Program Advocate

Poem: Music

Music(Dedicated to Jerzy Jung, Cat, Novae, and Matt Kay.)

Melodies lift me to spirits removing
Notes of the singer
Gently fine in the soothing
Lilting, the voice of a graceful, soft soul
Connecting the chords as embracingly whole
Strumming guitars
Tapping ivory with touch
All sounds of the music I love oh so much
Strings adding body
Or drums for the pace
A world without song is a world I'd not face
Closing my eyes as each word grabs my being
Every line in a song leaves new stories for seeing
As rhythmic waves bring caresses to heal
This musical ocean is the cleansing to feel
To swing and to sway with a full-measured voice
Heavenly rising within rapturous choice
In music's a closeness to God everlasting
For the heart left adrift there's a line that He's casting
Artistic endeavors through the music discovered
A touch of true beauty in the sounds left uncovered

Copyright SGW 2003

*Inspired by every musician who has left their imprint on me, and shared their gift. More of my poetry is based on the sounds I have heard than on any other form.

50/50

This is not a movie review. I am just home from seeing the movie "50/50," the story based on the experiences of its writer, Will Reiser. I have to admit that I expected this movie to be somewhere between sucks and stupid. For one, Seth Rogen tends to play the same character over and over in movies that are painfully dumb and shallow; he plays his usual character here, too. Secondly, my mother and brother recommended this, which was enough to make me bet my home that it was not going to be good (sorry mom and brother).

Surprisingly, "50/50" is a sweet, tender, funny, sad, fragile, and sensitive film that deals with the struggles of having cancer and human relationships in all their forms.

As a cancer survivor, I got a chill from watching the cold-hearted and detached doctor telling the Joseph Gordon-Levitt character, Adam, that he has cancer. The doctor reminded me so much of that day, February 1, 1999, when Dr. K___ told me I had cancer with nary a hint of feeling, compassion or understanding. I could feel Adam's shock and sense of confusion in those filmed moments.

I also felt the tinges of painful remembrance as Adam walks down the hall after his first chemo treatment. My memories returned to radiation sessions I had or more recent visit to Sloan Kettering for exams, biopsies and blood tests. As you leave, at least for me, you tend to notice people as if you can see through them. You observe and feel more deeply. Adam, though stoned from marijuana-laced macaroons, experiences this, and you see with him in a way that is artistically filled with depth and awareness.

You feel Adam's mortality throughout the movie despite his coolness and seeming refusal to succumb, until, finally, he admits his angers and fears. You are touched by his realization that his mother, though overbearing, means well and loves him. And you ultimately appreciate his best friend, the Seth Rogan character, Kyle, who stands by Adam 100% throughout.

While it was hard to come to terms with the relationship Adam develops with his therapist, Anna Kendrick's, Katherine, for its unlikeliness, Kendrick portrays Katherine with such a soft combination of gentle, awkwardness and determined support, you dismiss the weakness and appreciate her role in helping Adam through his struggles.

So this is not a review of "50/50," so much as it is my connection to it as a cancer survivor who was touched. One last thing, too: For all the single women out there, did I mention I am a cancer survivor?

Poem: Whole

Whole

Pieces lay tattered as remnants imparted
The gift of a promise turned grimly discarded
Relentlessly dreaming from irrational hope
It’s the curse of belief as the end of my rope
Truth belies wishes that at hand comes some start
The female whole that has broken my heart

The garden’s grown weeds far too countless to name
As the faces and memories play repeated refrain
Seen as the tease of a flowering bloom
What is left in the wreckage, only darkness and gloom

Exhaustion takes hold with a deadening vise
Years built ‘pon failure comes with too great a price
Sit and I write as remembrance transcribed
The pain will remind; hurt will abide

Copyright SGW 2011

Poem: Nameless

Nameless

Everything, everyone, wherever might turn

A maddening silence would be all to discern

Reasons may vary as any drop of the sand

Though intentions bring promise the results are less grand

False are the footsteps from the masquerade dance

You follow the sign posts yet never advance

Stand misdirected with paralyzed grip

A stifling sickness that can shoot from the hip

As one quiet poem crafts a marking of words

Shout from the rafters and never get heard

Copyright SGW 2010

Poem: Corporatocracy

Corporatocracy

The decisions are made in the shadows
Where the big-monied interests can thrive
Manipulating systems of power
As they keep the illusions alive

We can reference democracy’s standing
A republic’s the story some tell
And the tea-drinking masses can swallow
All the Kool-Aid that business will sell

It’s the bankers, CEOs, corporate interests
That devise all the rules to the game
‘Cept for sprinklings of progressive rebellion
Politicians are a lot of the same

Regulations are weakly concocted
Though they will sing us the “stifling” song
And the tax rules overwhelmingly favored
The richest of rich all along

The media won’t spotlight these actions
And the ignorant pull ‘gainst themselves
A small oligarchic construction
As the rest of our interests are shelved

And this teabagger movement is nonsense
For it fights for the richest man’s cause
Where the cause is moralistically lacking
As the ones most in need it ignores

So the dance is congressional illusion
It is fraudulent and merely for show
The outcome’s determined in darkness
Where the powerful interests can grow

Copyright SGW 2011

Poem: You

You

Cleanse me of the grime of exasperation
Frustration of an endless walk
Talk of what I have missed
Listlessly awash in sorrow
Tomorrow arrives and finds me gleaming
Dreaming of the promise you bring
Singing transcriptions found in words
Heard anew
You

Copyright SGW 2011

Poem: Adrift

Adrift

Out 'pon the ocean where horizon meets sky
Distance is timeless and the blink of an eye
Reflections of promise in the vastness of sea
In the softness lies hidden unforgivable plea
Dreams gone awash from the shores where we'd sit
Throw in the secrets we release bit by bit
With the sun gently fading what is light starts to fade
The singer can sing but the songs' all been played
I watch and I listen and I search to no end
The ocean demands quite a lot of a friend

Copyright SGW 2011

Poem: Loves Ones

Loved Ones

The quiet moments are fraught with complexity
Your absence is painful reckoning
Reminiscences of countless memento images
Better times
Someday, smiles will recall infinite joys
Now there is empty need for just one more shared day
Sense awareness of you lingering within my soul
I can’t lose that … I won’t
For you brightened my life a million times … a million ways
I will keep a lock box safely in my heart
Visiting you there
Never forgetting; always loving
Always

Copyright SGW 2011