Hidden Paradise

Holding on to yesterday
Dreaming of tomorrow
Struggling for today

Confusion torments
Simplicity accepts

A piece of heaven remains
Untouched in Bagram
A shard of hell clings to its beauty
Trying to force itself
Upon the children,
the women,
the innocent

Fire burns deeply
Water flushes pain

Grasp each moment
as it passes by
Hold on to love

Paradise is here
Hidden beneath the
War

SIMON SAID

The following is a part of a larger story that I have been working on for quite sometime. Because it is somewhat of a memoir, It is sometimes too painful to continue, which is why I only have 10 pages done. Any comments would help - thanks!


Simon stared out the window. The snow piled down sideways and had started to cover up the pane, so that all he could see now was the cab of his orange truck. He knew it was time to go to the doctor again, but the blizzard was his refuge. The pain had reached inside and twisted itself into black knots of decay and he could barely stand up. Instead, he sat in his favorite leather chair with his right leg stretched out carefully in front of him.

The chair had been his only friend for the past year and it still smelled like her, so he sat for hours on end. Sometimes he even fell asleep, waking occasionally, to rest his nose against the cold leather, inhaling its fading memory. His refusal to get out of the chair that once held her, kept him from going to the doctor yesterday, and it surely would keep him from going today. He looked around the room at his possessions and thought of his success. Each thing he owned however, brought him back to remembering her, and the vicious cycle forced him to shut his eyes.

Two hours later, Simon awoke and looked out the window again. The snow had almost covered the entire glass, and he could only see through a small area, his fading bumper.

“Thank God,” he said out loud, startling himself.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had spoken, or with whom, and his voice had a callous hoarseness to it, as if he were a chain smoker, and had recently quit. Although Simon didn’t believe in God, it was a phrase that he often said, and afterwards, always found himself silently frustrated that he had thanked something that didn’t exist. It would be one thing if he had thanked his wonderful chair - or the table even, but to thank God was ridiculous it seemed, and yet he said it again and again, and each time he wanted to kick himself for his stupidity. At any rate, he was happy that there was absolutely no way that he could go to the doctor and that he had yet another excuse to sit and remember the last time he held her.

It’s not as if Katrina had died or anything, she had just disappeared one day, and never came back. Simon had just taken out the garbage, and they were ready to go on one of those long walks that they took each night around the beautiful neighborhood. When he walked in, Katrina was standing in the doorway, screaming. He tried to calm her down, but she just went on screaming, babbling incoherently about her cat and its fur, and how much she wanted to stroke it. Simon didn’t understand the ranting, or where it was coming from - they didn’t even have a cat - hadn’t for years in fact.

He called the doctor, who told Simon to take her to the emergency room immediately. When he tried to get Katrina in the car, she screeched loudly, and slapped him hard on the face. It was as if she didn’t know him and had never seen her husband before. Simon’s face stung from the icy hand, and he tried hard not to grab her. Frantic, he called the doctor again, and within a half an hour, Dr. Wild standing on his front door step trying to calm Simon down. The doctor wouldn't make eye contact with Simon, who was starting to feel as if this whole event was planned.
He couldn’t grasp what was happening - why the family doctor of thirty years was so formal - why Katrina suddenly snapped, as if she had seen a ghost. It clearly defied all the rules of logic, and Simon was always a logical man.

Within thirty-five minutes, Dr. Wild had explained that Katrina had likely either had a stroke or was overtaken by sudden onset Alzheimer’s disease and would need further evaluation to be certain. Simon was beside himself. What would he do? How could they tell? Was there a test? Could it be erased? Could she come back? Would she remember him? All of these questions and more were thrown at Dr. Wild, who sadly could not answer them without stuttering and stammering and this made Simon even crazier. He wanted to punch the man in the face – the old man who had taken care of his family nearly his whole life. He imagined tearing Dr. Wild’s lips away from his mouth and stomping on them to force them shut. Simon couldn’t breathe, and his heart was thumping so loudly, he was sure Dr. Wild could hear it, and would tell him he was having a heart attack. But instead of dropping dead on the front porch, they were both summoned by a horrible, piercing shriek. Katrina had opened the door and was apparently terrified by the sight of the two men.

They managed to get her in the car, which was no small endeavor. She cried, screamed, and hollered her cat’s name, while angry tears poured down her face. When Simon tried to hold her hand, she pushed it aside and withdrew, as if touching it would taint her. They rode together in bruised silence, and Simon was sure he would faint if he didn’t get there soon.

When they finally got to the hospital, Katrina looked at Simon and for the first time in what felt like an eternity, remembered him. She clung to him as if her whole life depended on that moment. Simon held her and breathed her hair into his nostrils - the hair that he had smelled a thousand times before which was previously ordinary, smelled of roses. He felt her breasts against him, warm, and part of him. They fit together perfectly - better than any two people in the world, Simon thought. When Katrina let go, she reached her lips up to his, and whispered into his mouth the single words that he could never repeat, nor ever forget.

Memories

Reach inside this turmoil
and force stillness

I am withered; tortured
from years of abuse

Rays of what used to be sunshine
have merged with clouds of confusion

A piece of my smile -
subsumed by your addiction

When will it end?

When your body finally succumbs to
destruction,
and your 9 lives have ceased?

Or is there hope
that the miracle
for which I have prayed,
shall finally be answered?

These questions stand in oblivion,
unanswered -
leaving this chaos within
flaring with hope
and despair

***********************
Climb into my soul for a day
and witness the bruised love
that I have for a man

whom I envy, and yet despise

I am left alone
once again...

a four-year old girl
begging her daddy to wake up

Shutter

Camera lens open
Capturing beauty's existence
With one push of a button
the image
is our only way to hold onto
Time as it passes

Shutter closes
and the moment is gone
We are left with a photograph
that will never be captured again

Swept Up

Summon me to the sky
Oh Wind

Caress me - let me fly

Away

Let me attach myself

to your power

and blow through your cities

and over your oceans

and upon your mountains

and then...

like sudden stillness

let me float back into

tranquility

Jerk

Captured

Stifled by your emotion
stunned into silence

Again

I wait for the tears to flow
But instead I receive an
angry slam in my face

The door crushes my finger
and you laugh

Aloud

Sometimes I wish you would
just keep drinking
until the bottle swallows you whole

Kindred Souls

Worlds apart

You and I

Breathing the same pious air

Smelling the same scent of earth

Noting the beautiful words

that spill effortlessly upon our souls each morning

We read the blogs

and block out the news

Scanning for the remnants of simplicity that

Weave their way into our lives

Poetry steals the sadness from our hearts

Prose leaves us aching for more

The power of words form

Crosswords and sonnets

Novelas and essays

Books upon books

Shelves upon shelves

You and I,

Although worlds apart

Seek the same goal

Knowledge

and

Freedom

Words of wisdom

to give us peace

in this chaotic place

A Moment

A moment of solitude
stroked my heart tonight
wishful and dreamy
simple and pure

Peace captured my soul
for brief second in time
I was One with the world

with you
with everything

we became NOW


and then ...

I fell back asleep

Chaos Sweeps Me Aside

I know it's been forever - - - I can't seem to think of any new words - or perhaps my soul is too busy to write down what my heart feels. BUSY. That's the excuse that everyone uses when they forget to set aside times for themselves. Really, I am though...

So - Here goes one on the fly:

Busy as a bee in a bumbling hive
my life buzzes by

But I try -
and I try -

to set aside some time
to breathe

the busier I become
the easier it is to
move away from boring

and toward my bustling
schedule that needs to accomodate
me -

a beautiful
life
that's too busy
building
blocks
around time

to really be free

too busy for even a bee

De ja vous

Creeping through the curtains of trust,
my soul and its memory collide -

For upon my hollow heart of tin,
she weeps a sonnet in shallow breaths
and smiles as the teardrops scatter .

A pale light explodes underneath her skin,
gaunt and haunting she fades into dust
and I am left sifting through the ashes
of fine remembrance once again -

A Lovely Place

Like a gentle breeze of nostalgia
you flutter through my dreams

calling memories of late night summers
and five course meals

the scent of your house lingers; roses and sugar
fresh tea and cold cream

as I stir awake,
I am reminded that selfless love remains
a spring draft in a heavenly dream

and I am left with a promise
to love as purely as you

The Convert

The smell of Pakistan crawled inside his nose and he felt the need to vomit. Memories of neo talibs came rushing to his mind, and it was all he could do to suppress the pictures that once wrought his psychotic state. Outside was bleak and gray – the mountains appeared smeared with dirt: brown and colorless. Since the war, Abdul Khalil no longer saw the majestic Sulemans as beautiful, instead he viewed them with contempt and anger.

As he stepped outside of the Chai Café, he remembered he had forgotten his passport on his dresser. Panicking, Abdul raced back to the hotel, afraid that the clerk might steal it, or perhaps sell it to make a few rupees. As he approached the front desk, he saw a suspicious character, a definite extremist, jumping into a taxi. Abdul began sweating, certain that if his passport was gone, he would have no way to get out of this wretched country, and might be forced to succumb to memories everyday of his life until he escaped.

When he reached his hotel room, Abdul noticed the door was ajar, and a servant was inside cleaning. He pushed past the servant and over to his dresser, which was wiped clean, no remnant remaining. Screaming angrily in Urdu at the servant, he demanded to know what had happened to his passport. The servant was a Pahtan, and had no idea what the crazed man was talking about and stuttered a reply in Pashto only to be given an irate look of desperation from the man.

Abdul began shaking, frightened of the possible consequences if it couldn’t be located. He ran down the hallway towards the stairs when he heard some muted voices in English coming from the lobby. He could only make out a few words from a man with a British accent.

“Have you seen this man?”

“What time …. check out?”

“Shukria, Allah hafiz”

Abdul didn’t know what to do. Could they have been talking about him? Should he be seen? What if they had his passport? All these questions ran through his mind as he paced the hallway.

To Be Continued….