She Smiles

 

Shared with Public     BLOGGED APR 3, 2023

She smiles in the kitchen
H. W. Bryce
She smiles as she dances in the kitchen
From ice box to sink to counter to stove,
Humming as she goes, happy as a lark.
But is she? Some melancholy cloud
Hangs…Hark!
What strange passings haunt her mind?
What secret tragedies hang as clouds?
There is something about her movements,
Some strange, inexplicable terror awaits…
Exposure to ruin the patina of happiness,
What spoiler of contentment? Something.
Not yet explainable, too painful to talk
About, too dangerous to expose. Something…
She thinks of her sister, back there…
She smiles in her kitchen, now that they are gone,
Like half of the roof and two of the walls. They
Had come, they had bombed, they had raped and they
Had left. And she was hanging on to the tatters
Of her self respect, carryig on, duty bound, still
Filled with the love for her wee daughter, resting
Behind the rubble, hidden from the raid and the raiders.
She had started a small fire with smashed furniture
Pieces, salvaged an iron frying pan, and scrounged
Three eggs from a hen nesting on a broken couch.
Yet she sings, in her happy place, her refuge, her
Place of celebration and former happiness. She sings
In her kitchen, her now open-air kitchen, pining,
Pining for her fighting husband defender. She sings for
Her wee babe, to give her courage, to remind her
Of love. Night will soon be coming into this night
Of the empty shirt. She will hold her daughter
So close to her, and she will sing songs of hope.
Pray for the day that things are set right…
— —
And still the war goes on;
And still Ukrania stands.
— —
Image:
What has this got to do with Humanity?
— Photo taken from televison news.
(no copyright infringement intended. Used through fair use practice,
for promotion of literature and promotion of humanitarianism.)
May be an image of text
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Θερμές ευχαριστίες στον αγαπητό φίλο εκδοτη Μιχάλη Γωνιωτακη για τή στήριξη του στον πολιτισμό εντός και εκτός Ελλάδος
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Poems by H. W. Bryce - Polis Magazino
POLISMAGAZINO.GR
Poems by H. W. Bryce – Polis Magazino
Pic by Deborah Klein-deJong Photos Επιμέλεια: Εύα Πετροπούλου Λιανού BIOGRAPHY: H. W. Bryce is author of Chasing a Butterfly: A journey in poems of love and loss to Acceptance. He is a former judge with Rabindranath Tagore International English competition. Published int…
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Monetizing

 

Monetizing - Herb scowl 1 - pic

MONETIZING

H. W.  Bryce

 

Thanks for monetizing free services, people.

Always happy to contribute to greed and

Gouging.

Always a pleasure to help a friend

Turn on us.

Such excitement. Never a dull moment

Crashing through courtesy and respect.

 

Speaking of respect, I just love the

Mansion you have built. I have to respect

Your initiation and your drive.

 

And oh yes, profteering. Good one. How

To make a furtune in troubled time. Gotta love

That. I know, thanks to the pandemic, when

Our heads were turned. Admirable tactic.

Good play.

 

And I love the way you snuck in that extra

Fee, hidden away in a pseudonym. Clever

Stuff. I should have such a business tactic.

 

Congratulations, BTW, for pricing hundreds

Of the poorer among us from your formerly

Free services. Who needs them, anyway, right?

It’s been nice doing business with you.

 

Posted in A Voice in the Wilderness, Advocacy, author site, Caring, Fooled You, Hard time, Humor, Irony, Justice, Mocking, Poem, Satire | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Let’s Pretend

 

Let's Pretend pic

LET’S PRETEND

H. W. Bryce

Let’s pretend that we are all grown up

And wise to the world,

That today’s dollar buys more than our

1945 dollar.

That all is fair in today’s overblown

Economy, that

Our 1945 dollar is not our chump change today.

Let’s pretend

That the news today is right,

That all is well in our country,

That migrant workers have it good,*

That housing is more than adequate,

That there are no insidious bugs, of

either sort, or rodents running around,

That migrant workers doing necessary

Jobs that we don’t fill are not sleeping

On the floor, a drafty floor where the

Ambient temperature can plunge ten

To fifteen degrees overnight. That

The people-runners pay them on a

Fair wage policy…

Remember the eighties…
History repeating…

Nothing changes…

Let’s pretend

Because

We don’t know these things

Until they break out like measles

In the news,

About our town,

Where we live, oblivious,

Bound by our own self borders,

Thinking mainly of ourselves

And our kin, struggling,

Struggling in an ever-changing

Always confusing world…

 

Fair play?

Where do we find that?

Where does the migrant?

Where does fair play live?

Let’s pretend that we know.
Lest we become hypocrite…
— —

Photo by Mark Stebnicki: https://www.pexels.com/photo/farmers-harvesting-crops-9798966/

Posted in A Voice in the Wilderness, Advocacy, Discrimination, Dreams, Fatigue, Fear, Immigrant, Lonely, Long Distance, Outrageous, Poem | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Let’s Pretend

Broken Body, Broken Spirit

 

Broken Body, Broken Spirit picture

Painting by Eilie Brown

–Jly 3, 2022

 

BROKEN BODY, BROKEN SPIRIT

Or so I appear. But deep down inside

Dwells my fighting spirit, and I have

The resolve to rise above the whips

And slurs of unfair bullies, for I am

Strong. I have the owl of wisdom

With me at night, on my shoulder,

And the owl with the power of the

Knight on the other. And I shall

Prevail. Break my body if you will,

But my will is my own, given by the

Spirit of Life, that eternal spark

That nourishes the body, the ember

that carries and sustains through fire

and ice and meets raging storms with

equal force. And I shall triumph through

Hell, high water, and I shall break your

Evil spirit before ever you break mine.

For I shall be unbound.

—By H. W. bryce

— for an incredibly compassionate, indomitable woman

Eilie Brown

–Painting by Eilie Brown (with permission)

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Burn and Burn Alike

 

Burn and burn alike picture

BURN AND BURN ALIKE

H. W. Bryce

 

Time flies as fast as a runaway train.

 

There I was, at the top of the mountain,

The city lights below twinkling up like

Christmas. ‘The glitter of the colour’

Under the moonlight and stars lit my

Dream of future adventures, career

Was building, the city was set. Plans were

In order, I had paid all of my debts.

 

And still the Amazon burns.

 

But time is relentless, time races ahead.

Time leaves us behind; time travels

At the speed of a blur, and time has bled.

 

And Australia burns.

 

Yes, time travels as fast as a runaway

Train, like the fog of memory as my train

Of life hurtled through careers and cities

And countries and personal train wrecks…

 

And BC and California burn.

 

Sometimes I feel like the train that blew up a city

In the night. That train in Lac-Megantic.

Seventy-three crude oil filled tankers,

Forty-seven persons dead. Like my career

at the Madison-Avenue-like branch plant.

The boss brought a young chic from Outland

To Here and Put her to work in our Ad Sales

Department. The guys all thought it was an affair.

The guys kept phoning her on the office phone and

Stared at her bust and laughed as she stood

By her work station, talking. After all was

Said and done, the Boss got fired. An ordinary

Guy was set up to replace him. The wrong guy.

Sometimes I lose faith.

 

And now, Ukraine is burning up.

 

And I lost all respect for our bosses, even
for world leaders as the Ukaine burns and the

World stands aside the schoolyard watching, as

It does, as my world did when my career

Blew up in my face, too, like a toxic train wreck

When my disgust flared up and I spoke with

Flaming tongue, and I got fired too.

 

And still the Amazon burns.

 

And now a train blows up with deadly chemicals

Aboard and burns, and burns and burns and burns…

That train in Ohio. A heritage of thick, black smoke

Hanging, hanging in the air, folks fleeing,

Fleeing, finding it hard to breathe

As the chemicals                     they burn…

And the people flee by the hundreds, no

Specific place to be, overtaken by

Fleeing time and speeding train.

Not their fault.

 

And lungs begin to burn.

 

And still I toil away, working at my craft,

Now down off that mountain top,

And time still flying past,

Like life’s events, all in a blur,

And the fires still are burning,

For things to do, and in regret.

 

And still, the Amazon burns.

— —

You may well think it is a leap too far to go from the individual case to the multiple. Not logical. A trick. But please, do not underestimate the power of emotion, on either level.

The poet writes of and from the heart. Asking, How can you help when you are so far away? How do you stitch together a life? Their lives?

 

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

Pixabay License

Free to use under the Pixabay license
No attribution required

Posted in A Voice in the Wilderness, Author, Grief, Helpless, Irony, Moments, Overwhelmed, Poem, Train, Trauma | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Silhouette

 

Silhouette illustration

Silhouette

 

H. W. Bryce

 

Prpl mini Dec 29,22 – Feb 2, 23

 

Standing slouched, a silhouette of dejection,

Head bowed, unmoving, for hours,

Her sack of meager belonging dangling at her feet.

The door is locked, the window’s dark,

No one comes. How sad she looks, how stark.

 

Night after night she comes, she knocks on the door,

She checks the darkened window. No one comes.

 

She picks up her bag each time and trudges,

Methodically, robotically, dejectedly

Into the darkening night, nowhere to go.

 

Next week, same day, though she doesn’t know

What day it is, she’s there, sad little girl,

A silhouette on the doorstep, same dejected

Silhouette slump. But this time, police

respond. They gain entry.

 

A grizzled old man growls, Go away. I don’t

Need you. I don’t want you here. I don’t

Need no help.

 

He tries to rise like a grizzly bear raging

On his hind feet. But he is bedridden,

As helpless as is wee silhouette.

 

Silhouette sings softly There there

My little one, time to dry your tears,

Mommy’s here, love is everywhere,

And a bright tomorrow nears.

 

Three weeks later, no longer just a silhouette,

The young lady helps the grizzled

Old man into the apartment in his wheelchair,

And she proves herself a natural caregiver.

 

So, orphaned girl and her granddad

Live happily on.

.– —

I like happy endings. We don’t always get them,

But I can always write one.
I wrote this one for that homeless girl

Across the lane because I can’t stand

The idea of being homeless.

I believe that in every homeless

Person, there is a secret good.

 

(If the self righteous ones turned their energies to housing for the poor, the disadvantaged, the addicted, with actual prospects of gainful .emplyment and self respect, we would go a long way to actual democracy and the spoken belief that we are all equal. Silhouette haunts me, a shadow in the night.)

 

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Posted in A Voice in the Wilderness, Advocate, Life, Lonely, Lost, Memory, Missing, Moments, Poem, Trauma, Wanderers | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment