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Category: Life

Life is a strange thing: we’ve all been thrust into it without having much say, and sometimes events seem to be whirling around so quickly we hardly have time to breathe. The same as you, I’ve been around for a while now—and at times the happenings around me have compelled me to put them down upon paper, and whatever this digital ‘paper’ is.

Snowflakes on your lashes (2)

Published by Ondrej on July 14, 2022

When there were snowflakes on your lashes
I saw the future disappear and fade far away
I hesitate not, I would not relive that day
Despite the moment and the memories it catches

But later we boarded the rollercoaster of life
And are planning a future so bright
It shuns all darkness—what a sight
Of hopes and dreams and excitement rife

Looks like there’ll be more rollercoasters
And many more snowflakes on your lashes
And we’ll laugh and talk about the time
When you first became mine;
And we’ll smile and grin about the moment
We became each other’s constant.

Somethingness

Published by Ondrej on June 24, 2022

Seeing your softened face
day and night for the last while
as your loving smile
fades and leaves a trace
a life-changing trail
of love, emotions and tenderness
makes me frail
to stand up to life’s somethingness.

Snug

Published by Ondrej on March 18, 2022

The taste of rice cakes on your lips
and the sea in your hair
whips your locks here and there
coupled with your hand snugly in mine, it grips
the edges of my soul and yours
as we walk on the edge of the water,
its salty smell on our tongues, even better
as your touch heals all my sores.

Respect (2)

Published by Ondrej on March 13, 2022

Respect
A song by Aretha Franklin,
A good song at that,
The youths would call it “a banger”
But it’s a rather nebulous term

What does respect feel like?
It’s not like hunger, that’s fairly clear
(Actually I’m pretty hungry now)
Or thirst, or bodily desires, they’ll all easy to pin down
Put a pin in, pin on the noticeboard, easy to spot

True respect is many things,
It’s love, it’s knowing when and how to love
It’s the pause before an utterance
It’s people’s liberal stance’
It fits your heart like a glove
Snug and warm inside,
Wanting to put it on again
Most of all, it’s mutual understanding
It’s why we’re both still standing

It’s mature like good vintage cheddar
Although I can’t say I’ve tried to eat respect
It would be good to include it in society’s diet.

For the first poem entitled ‘Respect’, see this link.
These poems are not related, although as others have said, “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes”.

Life’s theatre

Published by Ondrej on March 13, 2022

Life is like a play: from whose perspective are you looking?
From whose perspective are you being played?
The omniscient writers with their secret agendas
Or the actors, pawns on a chessboard
Beyond any dimension

It’s you, it’s her, it’s all of us
So many chessboards, so many theatres
All here flowing towards the Eternal Question

In the end, there will be music

Published by Ondrej on March 11, 2022

The rhythmic pat of the drum
and the soft touch of the piano keys
is all that’s truly stable
in a world that is abominable.

So much ill and suffering
has happened since I came here last
at least I have reassuring sound of jazz
as others elsewhere are called to heavenly mass

I wish she was here
to understand and to share my sorrow
together we’d gaze into the skies and see the moon
while breathing to the pangs of Clair de lune

Indeed, all that is stable in this world
is the sound of the piano, of kindness, of love
even if others strive for it to be smothered
human generosity and truth will prevail
All will be good in the end, they say
All that’s left for us to do is help and pray.

Grandmother’s tulip patch

Published by Ondrej on January 23, 2022

January’s fog as thick as hot milk
Shrouds, bleaches, suffocates the landscape
Only the lone farm’s lights twinkle through the glaze
Setting the milk a bold yellow ablaze

From the window, a young lady watches
Only the candlelight’s shadows move
She can smell the dust, the memories, the toil of long ago
Looking where her grandmother’s tulips used to grow.

Her grandmother was a hard-working woman, never fazed
by any menial tasks or obstacles
Her back bent, as she weeded the tulip patch
Before the thorns and thistles snatch.

She would tell her “don’t you step on that precious soil!”
As the baby girl made her first steps
Almost trampling where the tulips would be in the spring
Her grandmother would swoop and home safely bring

Now the baby girl is a young lady
Watching the fog creeping over where Granny stood
it spills across the earth mound
surrounds the house round and round

The memories of all the years
With grandmother by her side
Now it’s the granddaughter’s turn
To preen the tulips before the summer sun’s burn.

After reflecting on this poem that I wrote, I was reminded of Seamus Heaney’s Digging, It’s an excellent (and very famous) poem covering a somewhat similar theme to this one here.

Old friends

Published by Ondrej on January 23, 2022

Going back into nature is like returning to an old friend
You can talk for hours and sit in silence
Bask in the silent understanding
While both your hearts mend.

Both sides now

Published by Ondrej on December 25, 2021

I want to write a poem about Christmas
About love, and the tender caresses
of good, home-cooked food,
of the shadows of a love
and of last year’s shadows.

How this is the last Christmas I’ll be spending here
A new house, a new home coming near
This one will retire to memory;
as I suppose we shall all one day
one day, it’ll be me and you
memories of us—
reduced to spiritual dust.

But I fail to do that:
I can’t write of Mary
and the way I wished she’d travel
through our souls, our bodies
but maybe I should write of Mary and Joseph
after all, their lad’s had a birthday.
Neither of us will be doing any travelling:
my Mary, well, she was very clear
and the famous lad, well,
he’s a bit on the pale side
(to put it very mildly)
and Santa’s monopolised the market.

In the last minutes of Anglo-Saxon Christmas Day,
writing this in bed, and as proud as a sticky sun ray
with Joni Mitchell lodged nearby:
I’ve yet to see life from both sides
and I’m bloody well looking forward to it
to find out where peace, love and all that waffle resides
maybe on the other side of December 31st
maybe Mary will show me one day.

Then I’ll discover what life’s both sides are
by then I hope to have refreshed my repertoire
and replenished hope’s anguished reservoir.

Cranial banter

Published by Ondrej on December 18, 2021

You, sitting over there with your AirPods in
or you, with those funky glasses
and those trousers retrieved from a dustbin

What are you thinking? How are you doing?
What did you do today?
Yes, the wind was blowing
but weather’s so damn blasé
about the whole thing.

I often wonder what we all go through
John, are you also wondering about life
or maybe your investments failing to accrue
What’s Maria wondering? The same as Sophia?
Yes, he was cute but he’s got a girlfriend
and maybe we should talk about local politics
No, let’s not

What are you listening to, you with your AirPods in?
I hope it’s as nice as as Chopin or Purcell
they didn’t really have auto-tune (it’s a bloody sin)
Or Springsteen, he’s pretty good
when you’re in the right mood

I’ll never know anyway
maybe it doesn’t matter
It’s fun to think, though,
of our collective cranial banter