The Trophy

Magpie 42

High on your pedastel
Hands on your hips
Impervious to
Time slipped by
Lime light
Tarnished beauty
Basking in a memory

© 2010 by Tammy Newman. All rights reserved.

This snippet is in response to this week's Magpie Tales photo prompt.

Time Chimes

Magpie Tales Photo Prompt

Bing - Math Class
Ring - Recess
Gong - School's out
Clang - Graduation
Chime - Somebody's married
Tink - Happy hour drink
Ding - TGIFing
Dong - Monday returns
Chung - Not enough done

© 2010 by Tammy Newman. All rights reserved. 

Sorry to pull out an old one but unfortunately time has gotten away from me again this week so I'm posting it to this week's Magpie Tales prompt. I'll try to get a better handle on time...um next time. :)

Parables of the Brokenhearted

My shine is a little dull this morning
I'm tired of understanding
So hideous, it's stunning
I don't want to think
Of how you don't want me
Restless in my house
Our house, my house
Tossing and turning in my bed
Our bed, my bed
I sleep with the memory of you

I am the daisy
Whose petals are plucked away
As you decide if you love me
I am the tree
Whose bark you cut
To write your initials in
I am the ring you tossed
For your trophy

In the shower I lather
My face wet
I miss you
I'm sorry telling you I love you
Hurts you
I wish it made you smile
Coffee black
Sugarless
Where did it all go?
No control, spiraling
How did I lose you?

I am the daisy
Whose petals are plucked away
As you decide if you love me
The tree whose bark you cut
To write your initials in
The ring you tossed
For your trophy

I wish I made you smile
I sleep with the memory of you
My shine is a little dull

© 2010 by Tammy Newman. All rights reserved.

The prompt of One Shoot Sunday made me think of heartache and reminded me of this lyric I wrote for a friend over a year ago. It also a perfect contribution to Jingle Poetry Potluck on moods and feelings.

What do we know?

Photo prompt from Magpie Tales.

Fact or faith
What’s the difference?
Two and two are four
Is it?
What is two?

Knowing it is different
Than feeling it
I know hard
Have faith it will hurt
Feeling it lacerates
I know love is good
Have faith it is beautiful

Feeling it is euphoric

My grandmother was right
“Nobody knows”

But there is faith

© 2010 by Tammy Newman. All rights reserved.

Inspired by this week's Magpie Tales photo prompt.

These Walls...

My travel companion Mambo in Greece

These walls grow tall
Mortar of “I don’t care”
Dries slowly and hard
Covering cracks
Where light once shone through
Untouchable

Anticipating the core
Biding time
She lets down her hair
But he’s too heavy
Chisel in hand chipping away
Persistent

These walls crumble
Mortar forgotten
Rainbows resilient
Tentative stepping
In this forgotten place
Loved

© 2010 by Tammy Newman. All rights reserved.


Inspired by Jingle Poetry's Potluck Monday. Also participating in One Shot Wednesday.

Buoy Resiling

Photo by Andy Ilachinski

I come here alone
To think
To talk to you
Walking the distance
Shouldering the storm
Each step journals
Heart’s desire break
Questions
Drops reverberate in the waves
Mine or yours?
You meet me here
Like a chowder
Knit scarf
You comfort me
Rushing to embrace me
It is what it is
Good in its being
Knowing
I resile
Buoy in the storm

© 2010 by Tammy Newman. All rights reserved.

Inspired by One Shoot Photography Challenge. I love the beach on a rainy day. Perfect time for solitude and thinking.

Memory of Sand

We had each identified our top three things we would regret not seeing or doing on this trip. One of mine was Santorini, and now after being there twice I hoped to never return again. Heather picked hiking the Samaria Gorge in Crete. I spent the first weeks of our trip dreading the hike and hoping she would change her mind. I have always had bad knees and worried I would be able to do it. I never told Heather this but in the end the hike and memories surrounding it are a highlight from that trip. Since then I try to include a hike in each of my travels and have never been disappointed by the effort or vistas.

Our ferry was late arriving in Crete. All of the buses had left and we had to get to the other side of the island. Our schedule for the hike was tight, leaving it at the end of our trip. 24 hours. That’s what we had to find a place to crash for the night, do the hike, and then catch an 11 hour ferry ride back to Athens and our flight home. Taxi it was.

Typical of our experience in Greece, our driver heard our plan and became very concerned about our timeline and decided he would help. The hike we knew was slated as a 6 hour hike. If we wanted to be done in time to fit our schedule we had to catch the bus heading up to the summit of the hike early in the morning. We were visiting weeks before tourist season and there were very few places to stay. I can’t recall why, but Crete was the only place we didn’t have pre-arranged places to sleep.

Immediately arriving in Chania, our driver took us to his friend’s place. There we stood in a vine draped courtyard while three men, the taxi driver, his friend, and his friend’s father, assumingly discussed where we would stay in their mother tongue. That moment stays with me. It was night. The sky was black. Cement, vines, and Greek surrounded me. I thought it couldn’t have been more perfect.

It was decided: Heather and I were to stay in their hostel still closed for the season. This was not to be the last time I was astounded by their generosity and kindness. We set the alarm and crashed for the night.

In the morning we walked to the bus station, ready to start our day. Although uneventful, the bus ride left many foreigners woozy with motion sickness from the hairpin turns up, up, up narrow roads. When we arrived we took no time starting the hike down, down, down stairs for hours, covering 1,250 meters. I watched my feet as much as the majestic view. 

Marching ahead of Heather, she let me set the pace. I giggle now when I think of how fearful I was of my knees and there I was hiking down a gorge with a gal who had had a knee surgery and was wearing a knee brace.

We stopped at the midway station with many from our bus. An older German man had fallen somewhere along the climb and had torn up his hands. Doctoring him up with band-aids and antiseptic gel we started on our way again fearful of seizing up and not being able to go further. I was sore, sweaty exhausted, and having the time of my life. We passed mountain goats, men with donkeys tasked to help those who couldn’t make it, boulders, foliage, and imposing mountains.

We arrived at the most beautiful beach on the Libyan side of Crete. I can’t recall if it was truly the most beautiful beach or just very welcoming after that grueling 5 ½ hour hike. That’s right; we completed the hike a ½ hour shy of the 6 hours. Proud of ourselves and utterly exhausted we changed, with little care for modesty, into our swimsuits on the golden sand. We were eager to refresh in the crystal blue Libyan Sea.

I still beam as I recall us laughing to the point of bursting as we were beaten around by those vigorous waves while our German friend floated by with this bandaged thumbs up. Nothing had ever felt so good.

On the ferry back to Athens we lay on our top level bunk beds listening to the family below us sleeping, thanking God for the wonderful day and the people we had met. The father who owned opened his hostel to us the night before had been at the bus station anxiously waiting for our return and cheerfully saw us off. Somehow in that 24 hour period he had become our Greek father.

This memory was taken from my novel in progress and was inspired by Theme Thursday's prompt of Sand.

Fried Chicken

This cock crows
Thrice
Fatter than he is
Eating with all
Three
Chest puffed
Breast white
Titillating
Strut triumphant
Roost in this house

Inspired by this week's Magpie Tales and the conversation around me. Nothing like friends for fodder. Also tossing this hat in to One Shot Wednesday.