Poetry

Childish beliefs in fairy tales
Deaf ears and blind eyes;
Courted by a fraud:
Carried away by his lies.

Naïve trust of rogue
Who became so profane:
So cruel in pursuit of pleasure
A harbinger of pain.

Headlong into disaster
The foolish maid is lain.
The “happily ever after”
A sorrowful refrain.

Purity and trust betrayed
By the fists of rage:
Love turned to ashes
Only a stain of blood remains.

—Kathleen Ellis Faulkner

Life is only a moment
In the span of eternity
A blink of an eye
So short a time to live
To enjoy our planet earth
To find the right person
With whom to share it
To be one with them
To watch the sun set
To have children
And each day
Live the life to its fullest
For in a blink of an eye
It will be gone, forever

—Kelsie Gates

Dark shadows enclose the wall of bricks at 5055 Canal Street, New Orleans, Louisiana.
A place of old spindly trees, fallen tombs and scattered bricks moistened green with moss,
We seek for a remnant of a grandfather who died young and his memory lost:
Entombed at Odd Fellows Rest Cemetery and forgotten for almost a century.
Maybe one fallen brick, linear and final,
Will engrave his name in the red masonry:

John Ellis, our progenitor, as we were told:
“Was an Irishman, linked to the Viking race:
A singing voice that would soothe the soul.
Blue eyed, a muscular stature, broad shoulders, a trim waist,
With an unquenchable thirst and a hearty taste.”

The wrought iron gate is rusted shut
From our generation anew:
It seems strange to think we exist
By only the dice that Fate threw.

—Kathleen Ellis Faulkner

After

an hour of staring into space,

a cup of coffee that would have been better

shared with you,

wondering what you said,

wondering what you really said,

after

conflicting emotions wrestle within,

after

the numbness,

after

the struggle

to put the experience into words

and concede that I am unable,

the tears arrive.

There is nothing to say.

—Virginia Bush

There was only darkness, a quiet darkness
And in the quiet there was a spark
That ignited the quiet
Which grew into a vast expanding explosion
And the universe was born

And there was no one to see

And time went by for eons and eons
And a planet was formed
A barren earth of mountains and valleys

And there was no one to see

And all was dark
Until a bright and blinding light lit the sky
Creating heat and cold
And the winds came with great force
And clouds formed covering its surface
For days and days it rained
When the rain stopped
There were lakes and rivers and oceans

And there was no one to see

One day after much time
The oceans gave birth to life
Which filled it from shore to shore

And there was no one to see

One day the oceans could hold no more
And it cast upon the shore
With waves breaking mightily
Some of the life it had borne
And the life grew and adapted to the land
And propagated itself over centuries
Into a thinking animal

And there was no one to see

Then came man, men of many colors
They all looked different, but all were the same
Some got along and some didn’t
And they multiplied by the millions

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And there were many to see

The earth was teeming with life
But no one was happy
Everyone hated their neighbors
There were murders, robberies and rapes
The guilty went free
And the innocent were condemned

And everyone saw

And then the wars came
Some were quick
And some took years
And there were no winners
And then the Great War came, Armageddon

And some saw, and some did not

It was hot, without a breath of air
And the cities lay dead and burning
Nothing stirred or moved
Not a soul to be found

And there was no one to see

For months and months and months
Smoke and ash covered the land
The cities were melted
And where sound had once prevailed
Only silence remained

And there was no one to see

And then it came without warning
Softly at first and then more swiftly
It fell to the earth
The rains had come
And it did rain for days and days
It cleansed the air
It washed the cities and the earth
And everything was washed back into the sea
From whence it had come

And there was no one to see

—Kelsie Gates