NORMA M. FREEMAN

POEMS

All are original works by Norma M. Freeman

Copyright:  First Canadian English Rights

For New Poems visit my Blog:  http://normafreeman.blogspot.ca/

Faceless New World

Of online friendships

How do they resemble their photos?

When one is his dog, another her cat

A third a painting they signed

Even the ones with photos

May be from years past

We stumble in conversation

Hurting from words

Written in haste

Because body language

And facial expression are void

Some feel absolved of the humanity

We adopt face to face

Like drivers in cars

Unleashing their road rage

Dropping the patterns of civilized behavior

In this faceless abyss

Yet I found a group

With a common interest

And I enjoy the rapport

The snappy one-liners

The secrets told only to strangers

As we share a passion

While our stories emerge over time

       ©Feb.2015, by Norma M. Freeman

HURRICANE

Rain, rain, hurricane  

Wild wicked winds insane

Breaking boards above the floors

Cellar dank, cellar dark

Oppressive air; fear so stark

Splashing, crashing, trashing tide

Too close, too close outside

Calm water once a mile away

Rose and claimed this tortured day

Now smashing at the cabin door

A cabin now just studs and floor

I know I can no longer stay

Climb free of rubble; run and run away

Find a shelter from the storm

With others fled from their homes

All are silent as a heart attack

Eyes shocked and sorrowed looking back

We are all statistics now

Wish normal to return somehow

Where will so many homeless go

I don’t know; I don’t know

Throughout the years that wicked wind

Will find me in my dreams again

While the crashing of an ocean tide

Will stoke the latent fear inside

But a gift as sharp and pointed as a knife

Is preserved for me -- my precious life ***

BAD, BAD BOYS

I've reformed my life and live

With goodness, grace and light

Instead of taking, now I give

Past shadows out of sight

I know that I've been given

A second chance at living well

My heart and mind are driven

To choose heaven over hell

But a piece inside me still rebells

I recall illicit, exciting joys

Memory stalks where perfidy dwells

And I miss those bad, bad boys

Oh, those bad, bad boys

With their leathers and their guns

Oh those bad, bad boys

Ignore, intimidate everyone

Flinty, flirty a little bit dirty

Checking women up and down

Five o'clock shadows, somewhat shady

Strutting arrogantly all through town

My life is nice, my life is pure

No guilt and nothing to fear

But the wicked past has its own allure

Nostalgia sweet as golden beer

With their muscle shirts and faded jeans

I miss those bad, bad boys

Roaring around with muscle machines

Courting dangers they enjoy

Exciting, charming, mysterious, disarming

Those sexy bad, bad boys

My senses reeling, reactions allarming

How I loved those bad, bad boys

Now they only exist in my field of dreams

Where consequences hold no import

No need to dread their lies and schemes

No transgressions to conceal or report

But in the dark of night I still delight

In recalling those bad, bad boys

It may be wrong, it isn't right

But I miss those bad, bad boys

Bad, bad boys... sexy, flirty, a little bit dirty...

I miss those bad, bad boys

EARTH AND WATER

I am earth and you are water You wear me down, you wear me down

You washed away my fantasies And the loving I had found

If I knew what went wrong I would turn it all around

But we’re over and my tears Make the only sacred sound

Splashing oh, so gently splashing On the ground, on the ground

If I knew what went wrong I would turn it all around

For I am earth and you are water You’ve shaped the very ground

That I walk on through the day Holds me safe when I lie down

There can never be another That affects me so profound

As the washing of your waves Upon the loving I had found

Now you're the water of my tears They run hot; they run cold

When I first met you, you were flawless My man of gold, my man of gold

I believed we’d be together Until we both were bent and old

But you took your love to auction Where it ultimately sold

Now I’m left with tracts of desert And a spirit not so bold

If I ever love again It will be with wind or fire

Because I can’t forget your tides Or alter my intense desire

And I can’t wrap ‘round my mind That as a lover you’re a liar

Yet I still dream of diving deep And playfully splashing in the shallows

Even though I’ve washed ashore My heart hanging from the gallows

I am earth and you are water You’ve carved experience in my face

Altered the canyons of my heart While I haven’t left a trace

Of myself on your rivers Or your lakes or even streams

All you’ve done is changed your course Carrying away my silt and dreams

As the crashing of your rapids Drown my sorrow and my screams

I am earth and you are water You wear me down, you wear me down

You washed away my fantasies And the loving I had found

If I knew what went wrong I would turn it all around

But we’re over; and my tears Make the only sacred sound

My gently, sadly splashing tears The only sound, the only sound

∞ by Norma M. Freeman 2013 © First Canadian English Rights

BETRAYAL

(Entered April 7/2014)

Betrayal is the sharpest blade

Cutting flesh and bone

It hollows out the heart of hearts

Where anger finds a home

When young we have family

And others that we trust

When trust breaks and burns

Empathy becomes dust

So we build a wall around and up

Thick and strong and tall

And never climb the parapet

To risk that we might fall

There's method to this strategy

It keeps the traitors out

But it's lonely there inside those walls

Emptiness leads to doubt

Some will try to fill that void

With vengence, war and hate

Before they find it doesn't work

They're dead and it's too late

Others claim that they forgive

But forgiving's not a choice

It can't be decided by the mind

The heart/soul must join force

I have been betrayer

And I have been betrayed

I have sealed my heart from you

Because I am afraid

But your love has gone from warm to hot

It's melted brick and stone

You've slipped past my barricades

And now I'm not alone

Betrayal is the sharpest blade

Cutting flesh and bone

But love is stronger than that blade

It brings the heart back home

Love is stronger than the blade

It brings the heart back home

WAITING FOR THE PRESENT

(from the book: Words Without Music: Poems with Rhythm and Rhyme)

Living in the future

Remembering the past

Waiting for the present 

Impossible to last

Some say it is forever

The only place you are

I say it is illusion

A flash of shooting star

No one knows your secrets

Or your silent agony

But I still want to promise

You can lose yourself in me

I feel you with my aura

Before I turn around

Everything and everybody

Sliding off the ground

Until it's only you I'm seeing

In my now and here

The rest has slipped and blurred

Into smoky atmosphere

And while we're together

The moment is the all

Until our passion's sated

And we both begin to fall

Back into the world

With intruding light and sound

Where the present slips and shatters

On shifting mirrored ground

It casts its strange reflections

And ghostly holograms

Where light and shadow travel

In traps and trains and trams

Schmaltzy self-help wisdom

Proclaims living in "the now"

But I think that is misleading

Oversimplified somehow

For I am not a puppy

Or a cat stretched in the sun

I have a yearning spirit

And somewhere I want to run

And you don't disappear

Just because you walk away

You are in my gifted present

As fantasy and memory each day

HOME

A light that's warm

Upon a body broken

A crack, a fissure in the heart

Filled with feeling

Beyond feeling

Recognizing the dwelling place

Of all

Of the best of who we are

Not here, not this, not now

But eternity

DRIFT

Everyone has their window

Their magic cupboard door

Where wonder dwells

Where we step into eternity

Forget the tug of present

The demands of everyday

Lay down your sheilds and arms

Rest your weary head

Drift slowly on a water leaf

Through tunnels dripped with dew

Down to the ancient waters

Where you will find

Forever