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Bits of Poetry

~ Linda R Davis, Raven of Peace & Poetry

Bits of Poetry

Tag Archives: Survival

Let Life Rhyme Again

13 Sunday Dec 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Chaos, CoronaVirus, Covid19, Healing, Hope, Life, Loneliness, Loss, pandemic, Poem, Poems, Poetry, spike protein, Survival, vaccine

I lost my desire to rhyme

about the same time

plexiglass invaded our stores

and pimply clerks ordered

me to click the bleached pads

of dollars, exchanged for goods–

shoppers, too long locked up

and lonely, a kind of death usurped

a joy, usually reserved for spring,

and retuning things,

but the unknown lacks name,

and there’s no map through,

our hearts were confused

and there were no rhymes,

and no rhythm, because time

ceased to be the count count

of seconds, minutes, hours–

Remember, I said it,

it’s unknown, the future bits,

wrinkled, in those deep wrinkles

a hot iron can’t unwrinkle–

so we resigned ourselves

to the sloppiness of prose,

in uneven meter,

I mean, me,

I resigned myself to getting by,

and now I’m on the other side,

of a vaccine,

MRNA with a spike protein,

and I say inject it in these veins,

so I may return to living again,

a life, with enjambed rhymes,

with slant rhymes, NO, a life

with hard rhymes,

like strife,

and knife,

and happiness.

Promise of a New Start

15 Thursday Oct 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Afterlife, Bird Poem, Bird Poems, CoronaVirus, Courage, Covid19, Death, Dying, Forgiveness, Hope, Infinite, Life, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Spirit, Spring, Survival

“There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch, Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.” Robert Frost

Yet, they do fall, and silent, rot

beneath the changing bow.

Birds gather to peck the flesh

making less of loss,

Or perhaps, no loss at all.

You see,

the Universe claims everything

we leave behind.

Our regrets, too,

like spoiled fruit,

eventually fall away

scavenged by the sun.

Seeds are revealed

inside what we took as dead.

Trust me, next spring

there will be a new start.

Hope We’ll Live Through It

12 Monday Oct 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Alone, Chaos, CoronaVirus, Courage, Covid19, Death, Hope, Loneliness, Loss, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Spokane, Survival, Yearning

“The hope is that if you live through it, there will be art on the other side.” (Louise Glück)

Two hundred and twenty days,

the sun and sky, still uncaged,

yet, our lives, like flotsam,

float further and further away

from what we knew:

The Fox Theatre sits empty.

And my friend,

how we’ve drifted apart,

you, on your wreckage,

me, on mine, further and further

from the place. Our lives hit

that large rock. The ship

is lost, lost, lost.

Will someone find us,

and salvage what is left?

What is left?

Smoke Taint: 2020 Vintage

09 Friday Oct 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Anger, Chaos, Civil War, CoronaVirus, Covid19, Death, Death Poems, Division, Fear, Fighting, Hate, Hope, hopelessness, Life, Longing, Loss, Memory, Napa, normal, Poem, Poems, Poetry, politics, Smoke Taint, Sonoma, Survival, Wine, Yearning

What does fire taste like in the glass,

Our fear, red with hate, the flames

of civil war? The skin, and the smoke,

cannot be divided; they say

it tastes like ash, what is left

when the smoke clears.

We can see the devastation.

Remnants of a vineyard;

what was there, before tragedy

made our eyes cry with anger.

The tree and native grasses

are poured out, consumed together,

while the vine exists in water it stored,

but cannot save its fruit.

Its creation, aging in the hot fog

of dreams. Life was supposed to be

the taste of flowers, plums, currants,

and only hints of tobacco,

swirled in our glass.

Fuck the New Normal

30 Tuesday Jun 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Chaos, CoronaVirus, Courage, Covid19, Death, Dying, Emptiness, Fear, Fear of Death, Freedom, Life, Loneliness, Longing, Loss, Masks, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Souls, Survival, Women's Poems, Yearning


The Clerk

Imagine being nineteen again,
still pimply and awkward,
parroting a script
from behind a plexiglass wall:
Phone number, please, you say,
and imagine her fingers,
typing one in. You hear the click,
clicking of keys on the keypad,
sickening,
music of the dead,
you think, you’re dying.

The Enforcer

You’re maybe a hundred pounds,
just a little thing, whose mask
covers two thirds your fragile face,
and they buried you at the door,
the enforcer, instructed to say—
This door, not that, and arrows,
follow them, follow them,
do like I do, with this cover,
my voice smothered, my soul—

Wrong Way

I’m sure I was just standing there,
leaning over my cart, watching
my daughter shop for cards,
when I heard her voice—
not the enforcer,
but a fellow peruser, like me,
another blank face, masked,
breathless, breathlessly,
you’re going the wrong way,
she said, you’re not following
the arrows, she said,
and her bony, dead finger
pointed down along the ground.
I followed it, and sure enough,
she was right about me:
Rule breaker, careless
spreader of germs.
The shame, the shame,
she would have me feel,
for facing the wrong way,
disobeying.

New Normal

Fuck that. My latest mantra. Fuck that
and fuck that, too.
Even as I do it.
Where’s the humanity in this?
I want to scream.
But who would hear me?
We’re too busy saving lives
by not living, buttressed
as we are behind masks,
She doesn’t even realize I’m not smiling,
Or, does she? Maybe there’s something
of, fuck this shit, in my eyes,
the only part of me she can see,
if she tries to see, but she doesn’t.

The mask isn’t merely the covering
for a mouth, a nose, —
it’s blanket, too, as in a morgue.
Covering the dead. And I know,
my time is coming soon enough,
but I’m not dead yet, covered as I am,
prepared for burial.
Yet, still pounding on coffins,
trying to pull back the heavy veil,
cursing my heart away,

fuck! Someone help us!

–into the emptiness.

That Day the World Promised to Heal Me

29 Monday Jun 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Alone, CoronaVirus, Covid19, Death, Division, Grace, Gratitude, Healing, Hope, Huckleberries, Life, Loneliness, Love, Mercy, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Sacred, Souls, Strength, Survival, Wilderness

And then the world said,

I will heal you

In ferns, unfurling again,

berries, growing ripe

On the bows of yesterday,

the ones your hands touched,

As you harvested the wild fruit.

This is my great forest of chatter,

it says, in a smattering of late flowers,

a fragrant, maskless breeze,

and trees you can touch with bare hands.

Speak to the sky, it cajoles,

And the sky will answer you back,

With its bold booms, and its wet clouds,

none of this needs viewed

from behind the doom of plexiglass.

The young clerk, who looked down,

and down, and down, faceless,

behind the many layers of protection.

He was humankind, afraid to look up,

afraid to touch, or speak,

or even see one another.

But the world said,

I remain the same, fully open to you.

See me, and I will heal you.

All the Bright Things

16 Thursday Apr 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Hope, Horse Poems, Horses, Life, Memory, Morning, Mt Spokane, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Soul Poetry, Spirit, Spring, Sun, Survival

The sun wakes through a morning window,

stretches itself over the horizon, smiles,

says, it will be a good day,

for horses to lay down and dream,

and I walk into its warmth,

almost able to hope, almost.

The sun persists to midday,

wakes the mountain, still white with snow,

and transforms its peak into a picture,

and if I could paint–

but I will, instead, think it,

in memory of last summer’s huckleberries,

picked there, there, half way up–

the sun smiles again

imagining the sweet boughs,

dark blue berries.

That’s what hope is, it says,

all the things you can see,

like memory,

made bright again.

This Pendant World: Passover

09 Thursday Apr 2020

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CoronaVirus, Courage, Covid19, Death, Death Poems, Dying, Fear, Fear of Death, Freedom, Hope, Infinite, Life, Loneliness, Loss, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Survival, The Universe, This Pendant World

Wasn’t everyone born

thinking

they belong

here forever,

even death,

we hide

behind closed doors

praying it will passover

us,

the ones we love,

cling to,

this earth,

how it swings

on its chain,

from cold days,

to warm—our lives,

like seasons,

which go on and on;

how can it go on

without us?

This Pendant World: Super Moon

07 Tuesday Apr 2020

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Confusion, CoronaVirus, Covid19, Hope, Life, Loneliness, Loss, Moon, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Stars, Super Moon, Survival, This Pendant World, Yearning

3

Some nights

wearing your shoes

on the wrong feet

feels right

The stars

haven’t changed

the moon is bright

Maybe tomorrow

it’ll be full again

big enough

to swing this chain

rock us back and forth

along this painful tether

to which we cling

Photo credit: NASA / Bill Dunford

This Pendant World

06 Monday Apr 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Bird Poems, CoronaVirus, Covid19, Death, Dying, Forgiveness, Gratitude, Happiness, Hope, Horse Poems, Horse poetry, Horses, Life, Loneliness, Loss, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Sacred, Soul, Soul Poetry, Spirit, Spring, spring poem, Survival, This Pendant World, Yearning

2.

Today, I trusted you,

straddled your wide,

bare back,

sweet mare,

doe-eyed, and healthy.

We breathed together

what good there is

of this April day,

and offered thanks

to a world,

mostly untouched:

the mountain, still there,

the grass, still starting to green,

the birds, still returning,

singing their songs

into the dark hours

of the night.

This Pendant World

05 Sunday Apr 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Alone, CoronaVirus, Covid19, Death, Fear of Death, Grace, Hope, Loneliness, Loss, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Survival, This Pendant World, Winter, Yearning

1.

Grace,

where are you now,

embraced in loneliness,

poetry was a kiss,

now it’s this:

today, a fog—

from doorstep

to trees,

to sky—

all blended in white,

our world reduced

to blindness.

Poetry Was a Kiss

04 Saturday Apr 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

CoronaVirus, Covid19, Dying, Life, Loss, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul Poetry, Survival, This Pendant World, Yearning

A bristling north wind,

just rambling now,

cameras rolling for hope,

distant, like the sun.

There is a sun,

we tell ourselves,

behind the clouds,

and cold of this breeze,

a life we once knew,

where poetry was a kiss,

an embrace,

a crowded room,

alive with chatter.

What They Said About Love

28 Tuesday Jan 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Courage, Death, Divorce, Forgiveness, Happiness, Hope, Infinite, Life, Love, Love Poems, Marriage, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Survival, Vows

New eyes, your eyes,

not their eyes, you see

yourself anew, beginning

to love again. How can that be

a bad thing? Love is not bad,

ever. Make it worth it,

she said, and she’s dead now.

If she’s right, you thought,

could it save us? A love—

worth it, worthy of—

holding past what we thought

it was, what they thought

it was, to what love is:

mostly forgiveness,

he said it, I’m sure,

in the vows. Forgiveness,

he went on & on

about grace, & letting go.

What Darkness Have You Known?

21 Tuesday Jan 2020

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Tags

Aging, Courage, Death, Dying, Hope, Life, Loneliness, Loss, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Snow, Soul, Soul Poetry, Souls, Strength, Survival, Winter, Winter poem

Imagine

if someone covered you

in ice;

how would you feel

in a chill

blanket of snow?

What darkness have

you

known, the kind

that can kill you,

your voice

silenced

in wind-drifts,

the hissing whisper

of winter’s kiss?

A Memory of Wings

26 Wednesday Jun 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Birds, Butterflies, Persevere, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Singing, Souls, Souls Singing, Survival, True Selves, Truth, Wings

Wings of butterflies,
a vague memory
of our wings.
Birdsong. We sing,
as we struggle to hear
the melody. Revive
and persevere.
Strive.
We hear it.
Some days,
it’s easy,
like today:
the journey,
the song,
the singing

Survivors Who Love

24 Monday Jun 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Childhood, Children, Divorce, Forgiveness, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Survival, Surviving, Trauma, Violence

What is the opposite
of the violence
you witnessed,
hostages to our pain,
too young to know
what normal should be?
But tonight,
all three grown,
and at my side,
the peace
of survivors who love
and forgive–
because what else is there
except to love
and forgive.

The Sweet Smell of Starting Over

18 Saturday May 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Bird Poem, Bird Poems, Bird Poetry, Birds, Death, Divorce, Eternity, Forgiveness, Freedom, Grace, Gratitude, Happiness, Hope, Infinite, Life, Longing, Love, Love Poems, Mercy, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Rain, Sacred, Soul, Soul Poetry, Souls, Spirit, Spirits, Spring, spring poem, Starting Over, Survival, The Universe, Unity, Women's Poems, Yearning

Even the stars are made of this:

sunshine & sweet petrichor.

What comes from above,

and we are made right,

our thirst, our life—

forgiveness,

after years of anger;

we finally feel love again.

The earth wreaks well of redemption,

grace permeates the dry ground.

And, the only sound we hear now,

birds,

who sing of starting over,

or, at least that’s what we hear,

like the smell of fresh water,

among grass, and clover:

sunshine & sweet petrichor.

A Refuge of Birds

17 Friday May 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Birch, Birds, Family, floods, Grass, nests, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Refugees, Starting Again, Starting Over, Survival

Flood warnings, became flooded streets,
a gathering of mud, and other debris,
while in our yard, a branch broke,
from the old birch tree,
and in it, the grass nest,
a family of birds, now refugees.

And, I imagine them searching,
for a place to start again,
free of broken, flotsam dreams,
their past life, falling from this tree,
as the birch continued to bud,
and the grass continued to green.



Homes, Like Cathedrals

16 Tuesday Apr 2019

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Tags

Cathedral, Divorce, Family, Homes, Hope, Loss, NotreDame, Poem, Poetry, Survival

Loss, it leaves an open space,      
         a void
that can become a vacuum
         or, it can heal.

Loss, it can create chaos,
        as homes,
like cathedrals,
        burn
and we wonder
        what will be left?
to rebuild from the ashes.

Veterans of Dead Bones

09 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Death, Humanity, Letting Go, Loneliness, Loss, Love, Memory, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Sacred, Survival, Surviving

We are veterans of dead bones,
products of love, and its loss,
memorizers of last breaths,
and what letting go feels like.
The front line of memory gives way,
what we held in our hands,
dissolves, like water on clay–
muddy water, returning
to muddy ground, then dust;
it is a fate that awaits all of us:
empty arms, encircled of sacred air,
grasping at remnants
of what we valued there.

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  • Let Life Rhyme Again
  • Promise of a New Start
  • Hope We’ll Live Through It
  • Remind Me
  • Smoke Taint: 2020 Vintage

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Linda R Davis Poetry on Smoke Taint: 2020 Vintage
Linda R Davis Poetry on Smoke Taint: 2020 Vintage
Linda R Davis Poetry on Smoke Taint: 2020 Vintage
my valiant soul on Smoke Taint: 2020 Vintage
Linda R Davis Poetry on All the Bright Things

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Death Forgiveness Hope Horses Life Loneliness Loss Love Poem Poems Poetry Soul Souls Spirit Survival Yearning

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