sink don’t sink
into that hole
you’ll never reach bottom
you’ll reach bottom
sink don’t sink
into the past
there’s no return
you do return
sink don’t sink
into that heartache
to revive don’t revive
the hurt once more
14 Thursday Mar 2024
14 Sunday Jan 2024
17 Sunday Dec 2023
Tags
anniversary, candle, creative writing, light, memory, poem, poems, poetry, rhymes
i lit a candle for you
for that’s what i do
when the day arrives
to remind me of you
and the single flame
it burned all day
till succumbing to
a smoke-filled haze
oh what more can i do
in memory of you
and the flame that once
burned so bright in you
04 Saturday Nov 2023
Tags
ambition, anniversary, creative writing, death, memory, poem, poems, poetry, time
five years have passed. your death has gained in age like a child. i remember not long before you left you asked me, so what do you want to do with your life. you confessed that often all you wanted to do was move things from one shelf to the other which you demonstrated with your hands, lifting an invisible object from a pretend shelf and placing it one level below. yes, i realize morphine had a lot to do with this pantomime, but i also believe you had many other dreams, other things you wished to do in your time that might have defied your circumstances. i made a promise to myself then, a promise i aimed to keep, and yet now that these five years have passed, i realize i am not so different from you. for here i am on the train of time, hoping for more, as i watch the scenery go by.
01 Sunday Oct 2023
she was the key to the whole mystery
her tears explained everything
and her fleeting smile
was like a desert’s vanished light
he had to let her go
he had to return the gift
the dream the everything
he took away
no more talking now
he is all talked out
so he drives into the night
leaving the mirage of paris tx
far behind
10 Sunday Sep 2023
Tags
creative writing, forgetting, memory, photos, poem, poems, poetry, yesterday
what do you do to forget
do you drive out to zuma beach
leave your car keys on a red beach towel
swim far beyond the waves
till shore and sea are one
or do you go to the mall
any old mall and drift past window displays
makeup counters shoe racks
and droves and droves of shoppers
while you buy nothing
or do you do what you usually do
write a poem any old poem
good bad or indifferent
hoping cryptic allusions
will mask memories of yesterday
30 Wednesday Aug 2023
Tags
creative writing, drawing, dreams, light, memory, poem, poems, poetry, sketch, stained glass
dreams and memories
are similar to me
i see your face in both nether light
and stained-glass memory
(sketch by a. l. anzalone)
17 Thursday Aug 2023
Tags
I think of this sometimes, I’m not sure why: a news item about a lost dog and a young man who lived at the turn of the twentieth century. I saw a brief newspaper story about them while scrolling through an old newspaper reel looking for something else entirely. Why my eyes fell on this irrelevant story, irrelevant to my purpose at the time, I don’t know. But I stopped to read it and the story has stayed with me to this day. It’s a sad story. I will state that clearly here for those who probably know I tend to write about sad, depressing things, but so be it. You can stop reading at this point, if you wish. But for me the story has such resonance and meaning and poignancy beyond its simple narrative. The boy was 18. He had lost his dog. He was new in town. Had probably come to L.A. to start his life. Nothing was said about where he came from. It was an acquaintance who related the story. The person said, the boy looked all over town for his dog. It was his best friend. When he couldn’t find the dog, he committed suicide. So the report was about the boy’s suicide and the supposed reason behind it. As I said, the story was very brief. Just the facts, no mention of other problems that may have been factors. What stood out for me were the basic elements: the lost dog, someone saying “it was his best friend,” and the frantic searching that ended in the boy’s suicide. It hit me hard, and it still does to this day. For only a few years later, I lost both of my dogs, one after the other, through unfortunate circumstances (a botched fatal dental cleaning and the subsequent decline in her little pup’s health), and my memory reached back to this story, to the feeling that dogs can literally be your best friend, that a suicide can result from their loss. I’m not being dramatic here, and I’m well aware that such a confession may be pathetic to some. But in all honesty, I understood this boy. And I think a few others will as well. That is not to say that I am thinking of suicide. Don’t get me wrong. What I mean to say is that a dog and any companion animal can be so linked to a person’s sense of self and well-being that the loss can be that overwhelming. In other words, an animal-human bond can be as deep as any purely human bond. Scoff, if you will, those who think this is pathetic (read here a close relative of mine). But as I said, I believe some will understand.
14 Monday Aug 2023
01 Saturday Jul 2023
here is the scar
a laceration
healed into a half smile
from the appendectomy
i still wonder was necessary
alongside my breast
the right breast
is another scar
a tinier but deeper scar
you may not have noticed
but it’s there
a reminder to me
of a misdiagnosis
and an inept hand
and here along my back
of a nonsurgical nature
is a hidden spot
a depression
due to a slight curvature
of the spine
that s. once said
is the softest area
of my body
but i don’t think so
for the softest spot
strong and frail at once
that s. and so many others
have failed to excise
or mar in any lasting way
is that organ that lies
just below the chest
that for all i know keeps beating
solely because of you