Welcome to Day 10 of the 2012 April Write – the Poets Jubilee Olympiad.
Today, I would like to introduce your Guest Host, for Day 10, Kamran Assadi, Freelance Writer, Performance Poet and Poetry Editor amongst many other things.
Your topic and title for Day 10 as chosen by Kamran, is ‘Loss’
Please watch the video to read his poem which is called…
‘You Lost One, A Loved One’
Some of you may find this a difficult, quite personal subject to write on, so I understand if you chose not to share/post your write for today.
Angee
xoxo
The April Write 
Gay Reiser Cannon (fb group member)
The Ghazal of the Bells
You turned and walked away through cherry blossom rain
As sixteen men struck the temple bell, twilight fell
I sailed across the sea walking stones by stone wall
Ta Chung words wrote your loss, I read as twilight fell
I followed flowered trails of loss into Beijing
The size of its bell crushed my heart as twilight fell
I fled from beauty and sailed beyond Indochine
A shipmate told of the Ming Bell as twilight fell
My ears ring and bells everywhere proclaim your loss
For us the ship rang eight bells end as twilight fell
A Russian sailor remembered his land of bells
Fields and valleys echoed, he said, as twilight fell
I sailed through the Suez as far as Isles of Bells
Through shire and county bells chimed as twilight fell
Life’s journey will never let me slip love’s cincture
As I rattle my hollow bells and twilight falls
(c)10th April 2012 Gay Reiser Cannon
Katie Rendon (fb group member)
Strong One
I went to bed that night
Expecting you to wake me
Too early the next morning.
But it wasn’t your silhouette
That lingered in my doorway,
The hall light casting an ominous shadow
Preceding those dreadful words:
“He’s gone.”
I was asked what shirt I’d like
And how to part your hair.
Although every wish was granted
You looked nothing like yourself.
I tried to breathe life into you
And thought I saw your chest rise.
I took your hand between mine,
And told Mom, “he’s cold.”
I recited you a poem,
And hundreds of glossy eyes
Watched as I trembled
My last goodbye.
People kissed my forehead
And promised they’d be near
If I needed someone to talk to
But no one ever was.
I don’t remember whose car
Escorted me across town.
It felt empty except for wispers
“She’s being so strong.”
A hand on my knee,
A kiss on the cheek
That like your hand,
Turned cold too quickly.
Visitors came, with food
And prayers, and promises.
They all told me “you’re so strong”
But each day, fewer came
And left earlier each night
Until I had to except
You were gone
And I was alone.
Through blurry, teary eyes
Your picture would come to life
And we would share a laugh.
The wood grains in the paneling
Shape shifting into crude figures,
Taunting me. “You’re the strong one,
You don’t need anybody.”
Your picture grew still.
So now, when shadows are unfriendly
And the whispers are about me,
When only photos make me smile,
And I can’t breathe life into my relationships
I find myself staring into the mirror
Waiting for the walls to shift
And I tell myself
“I am the strong one, I don’t need anybody.”
(c)10th April 2012 Katie Rendon
Zita Holbourne (fb group member)
It’s said you can’t lose what you never had
When it’s gone it’s gone, too bad
How do you explain the loss when it was never real
The loss of something you couldn’t see, smell or feel
How can you seek out something impossible to find
How can you justify the pain of losing your mind
(C)April 2012 Zita Holbourne
Halim Flowers (incarcerated poet, washington dc usa)
I remember the first moment I lost him
Or somewhere in between
Either way
It was a GREAT loss
Somewhere around the time he popped his first cherry
Or took his first lick
He was different before that
Very much changed forever thereafter
Such a BIG loss
Before he started selling poison to his own village
And exchanging crack for sex from his classmates mothers
There was once a time before his hands were covered in blood
Before he became a cannibal
Before he started to eat his own people
He was so beautiful back then
So handsome
Because in his brown eyes you could see a bright sparkle
Of innocence untouched
Undefiled
Before it all was gone
Such a great loss
Before he became consciously unconscious
When he was unlearned and pure
The moments in time before he became a brand worshipper
When his mother could dress him in anything
And he know relationship with his ego
He was special back then
Harmless in a sense
Loving
Non-violent
He could love without expecting anything in return
Before he grew cold and too calloused to forgive
He was forbearing
Now its all a GIGANTIC loss
I wish you could have met me before this loss……..
(c) April 2012 Halim Flowers
WOW…truly powerful! Halim, displays extreme maturity and skill, as he takes you there..into his life! This writer offers a great visual with his storytelling ability, his truth!
“Losing Myself”
I’m feeling detached
A sense of limbo surrounds me
Blissful and frightening limbo
I move from moment to moment
In one, I let it all go and move on
In the other I try to hold it together
I feel like I am disintegrating
Being eroded like the cliffs of Dover
Every time the water touches my heights
I lose a piece of myself on the outgoing low
For every step I take forward
A piece of my positive is stripped away
I try to leave the negative right where it belongs
Far away from me
Out of my touch, my reach, my thoughts…
But there will be only so much I can take
Before there is nothing of me left to rebuild.
©10th April 2012 Angela Edgar
Mark Paleologo egg salad my dear
it has been a generation
hoping dreaming wanting
all sun bleached photographs
taped above a register
spotted with water and salt
that song that wonderful song
we would try to dance
but collapse into the other
sobbing
.
i bought you a gift
an inexpensive necklace
i could not afford
.
i woke from deep slumber
chest heaving panic
fearing that i
should have told you
how much i adored you
one more time
then i remembered
i did
.
i always hated
your salamander shoulder
but always loved you
.
i stared past the twin red stars
so unseemly morning
an untimely run
in the stocking of night
in an hour conceived
for imperfection
.
i need a valet
and a vacation this year
ah, barcelona
(c)April 2012 Mark Paleologo
Adam Rowland3:11pm Apr 13
Loss
Betwixt the event horizon and reality.
Dearth of certainty.
Paucity of abundance.
A tautological red shift.
My mind wanders.
Incomprehensible quanta of arrears.
Eruption of ambivalence.
Surgical hesitance.
A rhetorical rearrangement.
I should have bet on black.
(C)April 2012 Adam Rowland
Chelle Lee “SUICIDE NOTE”
Stare in the mirror and view my self-portrait
The image is a bit distorted
A smile so crooked
When I look at it
I get disgusted!
Analytical of my current self
Wounds inflicted by misguided steps
I flee my own help!
To the point of intensifying
The incredible pressure I’ve always felt
To never want to be a disappointment
Wear my sadness as an ointment.
—and yet…I am still God’s anointed—
You see…
People have hurt me in ways
One can’t imagine
I often don a guilty display
For allowing it to happen!
—typical reaction—
Figure this…
If I never expressed my pain
What room have I to complain?
Just smiled and laughed
Like all was well
Internally, it became
The death of Michelle.
Trust level shot to rubble
I sanctioned the trouble
Inviting the devil
To enter the huddle.
I match the enemy with faces
(one I’ve even been to church with)
Regularly conversed with
And see on a daily basis!
If I said it?
I meant it!
—No disrespect intended—
But, the only one who should be
Offended is me!
The reflection is a grim reminder
This daughter of Zion
Can’t arise and
Put the past behind her!
Lowering my head…
Ashamed to even
Call His name
My faith is dead!
Pools of tears enfold me
Cascading uncontrollably
—just about to ease my grip—
Hands trembling nervously
As I purposely load the clip…
Fatigue is setting in—
Knuckles poke my chin—
I bend my knees…
And with a resounding plea—
I close my eyes
And ready to die
I remorsefully pull the trigger!
—this new light starts to flicker—
I catch my breath!
A tortured soul laid to rest…
—change is ammunition—
For those who are driven
To extreme depths!
So, with one prayer—
I killed my flesh.
“The Missing Ink”
All Rights Reserved ® 2008
My piece is actually old, but the minute I saw this topic, I had to revisit it because it is truly is one of the most deeply personal and intense pieces I have ever written. I thought it was so befitting & I hope you all won’t mind that I shared it here. Everything else I’ve posted so far, was off the top of the dome. – Chelle
And this is one of the reason’s I’ve included it here. Powerful write. Angee ( AWC Host)
Justice Clarke
For My Brother Daryl by Flowetic Justice
You were always there
when I was such a young by you
you watched me laugh cry run and play
held me in my fear and shared in my joy
though we were years apart in age
you always took time to talk to me
to ask me own I was
no matter what personal business you were engaged in
and paved a way for me in private school
and taught me that mamma didn’t raise no fools
you were so cool
I admired you so much
and it hurt me when I found out you were ill
and I prayed that I would not lose you
we were just starting to become so close
and I was old enough to go where you went
to the clubs and such
for I was a young man entering college
perusing the knowledge on the field of the mind
and how you taught me no matter the actions of others
to still be gracious and kind
I wish we had more time
I still cry when I think of you suffering in that hospital bed
the image seared inside may head
and on this day I wish you a happy birthday
and I know mom is doing the same as me
as see you through our tears
and feel you too in our hearts
in truth we are never apart
for I love you and always will no matter what may come
I know you are there watching over me
and at times I may not have been at my best
and I still do wrong
and feel ashamed
but I remember what you told me
and how I chose my name
the essence in the real meaning of Justice
and how to treat others
and so I thank you
and I am so grateful to have known you
to have grown with you
to have shared a home with you
my love always and forever to you
my dear brother Daryl
Sincerely ,
your little brother Craig
Thoughts of a single Man 2012tm
Justice Clarke
Just Another Day Without You by Flowetic Justice
I waited for you to come but you never came
I had hoped to see you
so I could finally know if what was said was true
did you feel about me the way I felt about you
but you never showed and so the door in me closed
and the heart lights were shut off
the key was tossed away
and day by day the pain wore on in me
blaring in unheard decibels
the howling roaring on a path to a road of solitude
as i tolled the tracks of my life
waiting for a train to come that carried you back to me
I wonder at times
do you still think of me when the soft breeze catches your cheek
do you feel the whisper of my breath
speaking humble words of unrequited love
when the sun is shining and the warming rays touch you
do you think of the warmth of my touch
the mental rush
and the hot spark that was the connection between us
what happened to us
where did we go wrong
we were writing a epic song that spanned so much farther
and ran so much deeper
than mere ink pun the pages
dearest mine
I still think of you at times
when the bed seems too large in the dead of a frosty night
how I wish you were there and I could hold you tight
for it is then I feel like the last man on Earth
alone in a n endless crowd
weeping silent words never spoken aloud
you are so far away from me now
why did you have to go
could you not have stayed just a little bit longer
could we not have made our bond just little but stronger
I bled dark water upon the empty scroll
in public view
of my intentions for you
and I felt yours for me were true
was it all a game or a lie
or where you just a bird that needed to fly
so many unanswered questions of the why
the when and the how
but I cannot not relive the past just live in the now
just know that if you ever want to return to me
the locked door still has a key inscribed with your name
the spark still flickers
and can became a roaring flame
held warm in the palms of love
but if I do not hear from you
if there is no message no reaching hand
then all I can do as poet and as a man
is continue to write and bleed my soul
in the hopes to warm me of my inner cold
just remember my love was true
and as I wake each morning
attempting to navigate this awkward lonely road
and survive
another day without you
Thoughts of a Single Man 2012tm