A Hodgepodge of Poems from the Heart

A Medley of Poetry

While wrestling today with what to write for Susannah Conway’s Blogging from the Heart assignment, the idea to write poetry pounced on me. So I pulled out some old poetry and spiffed it up, and scribbled down some new. And then, as is my wont, I edited and reedited, and now I hope it’s up to snuff. Would you please let me know what you like or don’t like about my medley?

I woke up this morning with this poem about my magnificent significant other, Barry, swimming through my mind.

Beneficent Barry

Barry bares his kind heart

This healer, this hunk

Of a bad ass, of a good guy

My love for him high

As the sapphire sky

 

He makes my lows less low

Less scraping the ground

My world better all around

And brighter and lighter

Look up at the sky, angels flying

Like me, taking themselves lightly

 

I love the Haiku form. Last night’s restlessness was the impetus:

Night Haiku

Night but I can’t sleep

Though peace lies thick as midnight

Ghosts walk in my mind

 

Watching an Oceanfest competition on TV where gymnast couples and a dad with his small son surfed in tandem inspired me to write this poem:

Surfing Tandem

Blue-green tiers of waves

Feathering in the Oceanfest

Gymnast couples like balls on boards

Balance, bowl over

Papa surfs in tandem, small son teeters

Dad slings boy

Over steady shoulder

A boulder on a board

Gliding to shore

 

This poem was inspired by the memory of heartache when I was an unwitting and unwilling side of a man-and-two-women triangle:

Let Me Pretend

This time he’ll stop and he will see me

Really see me, and he’ll wonder

Why he tears my heart asunder

Question why he could not see

The love that grows in him for me

He’ll beg me not to let us end.

Let me pretend.

 

This time I’ll say, “Why must you lie?

If you love her, let me go,

If you love me, tell her so

I don’t believe your alibis

Every time she calls, I die.

I’m strong enough to see us end.”

Let me pretend.

4 Comments

  1. Gail M Baugniet on September 14, 2016 at 3:25 am

    Excellent poems, Lizbeth. I love everyone of them. I am partial to Haiku but am learning more about prose poetry and verse poetry this week. Great timing for you to post these. Hunk of a bad-ass? good humor! The last poem suggests you could write some deep-reaching linking poems. Thanks for sharing.



    • Lizbeth Hartz on September 14, 2016 at 5:24 am

      Thanks for commenting, Gail! What a coincidence, I was just reading your book of poetry, getting ideas for linking poems. Someone on Facebook suggested I just post one poem at a time and talk about how I came to write it, and that made me think of your book 70 Poems for 70 Days. I guess synchronicity lives!



  2. Pratibha Eastwood on September 14, 2016 at 7:37 am

    So varied and creative, Thanks for sharing
    P



    • Lizbeth Hartz on September 14, 2016 at 7:50 am

      Thank you so much, Pratibha, for your kind words:) I’m glad you liked the poems!!