Poems, Rainbows On The Page
Intro to Rainbow Post (second time around)
One of the worst feelings is to lose something you have just written, and especially if you loved the way it read. And then with a mistaken key stroke, poof, it is all gone. That just happened, and I should have known better than to write it in the blog post itself. Never, never, never, again. Thankfully, it was just the introduction.
I wanted to encourage you to write something. A poem if you could summon the courage. It may have been a thousand years (for me, anyway, until recently) since you wrote a poem. Maybe you wrote something in your yearbook, one of those “roses are red, violets are blue…” type rhymes. Or maybe you once wrote a love poem.
If not a poem write sentences, a paragraph, a story. Anything. And, then, in what I just lost, I addressed all the reasons, all the questions you would pose to me. We will start with, “why”. NO, let’s start with Who. Who are we writing to.
It could be yourself, but I had in mind your loved one who is closest to you. Share something you have inside you that wants to come out. Oops, I am slipping into What already. Stick with Who. (Careful I could start an Abbott and Costello routine here.)
A loved one, a friend, a family member, the person with cancer, the caregiver, anyone you wish you could tell something you want to express. Even yourself. And you can read it to them, or have them read it, or you can tell them to save it for a certain time, or a certain date, it is your call.
By the way, you have choices and discretion with this whole thing. Okay, next is Why. Because expressing things you have inside that you for one reason or another have not expressed sometimes has beautiful consequences. Yes, I did say you had discretion here, so this is a positive venture.
Share your love, hope, fear, sadness, joy, pain, laughter, visions, whatever you want to let out of you, let it out. Sorry I am slipping into What.
This is another place where you get to use the artists palette. It is a metaphor, you don’t have to be an artist. When you write something, you leave a legacy. You leave something behind, something a loved one can keep and treasure, something you can keep and treasure if given to you. It is something tangible. And, it is your words.
The What is infinite. Again, you have the palette to choose what you write about and I think I cheated and covered What already. I will give an example. A friend wrote two lines to me, something like this. “The sun shone in the perfect blue sky. I don’t see rainbows anymore”. I got a feeling from reading that, and took off into never never land. Here is my rambling.
See what you come up with for yourself, and share it with someone you love, please. Time is now, as is love. The struggle to live, and to continue to live can be brutal. Think of a poem as a flower in the midst, of all that should not be, and raise your hope, real or imagined.
And, no, this is not as good as the first writing. Sometimes it gets better the second time, usually when looking at the first draft. In this case, starting from scratch, sighhhhhh…it is what it is.
LESSON IN POETRY FOR …RAINBOWS IN THE SKY
in the perfect blue sky floats the brilliant sun
angels please open my heart
I ask for only one.
one rainbow one rainbow
do I long to see,
please paint me your magic colors
paint one rainbow just for me
NmK
RAINBOWS ON THE PAGE
now there are a hundred variations,
a hundred maybe more,
and you can mix and jumble,
and invert sentences galore,
and sometimes when you can’t seem
to get it right and true,
just let it all sit on the page,
until it comes to you.
now you should start to talk in rhyme
just like dr seuss,
it really is a free ticket here
to twist language and confuse.
so I think …maybe consider it, just for a brief brief time
before you know it you will start to do everything in rhyme
you might even start to have some fun with words
dancing the newest rage
remember you do not have to rhyme
to put rainbows on the page
NmK
RAINBOW SANS RHYME (Rainbows without Rhyme)
in the perfect blue sky
floats the brilliant sun.
my heart aches,
aches for the rainbows
I used to see.
rainbows give me hope,
rainbows make me smile,
they strum sweet chords
on the strings of my heart.
Angels, can I request
you stroke the heavens with your brush,
paint away and please my heart?
I ask for only one.
one rainbow
for these sore eyes
you know I am beyond weary.
Please, open them again,
so I can see
a rainbow in the sky.
NmK
Please share your thoughts or images or reactions. Good luck with the adventure. Let me know. This last one still hits my soft spot. Just me?
Neal Klein
Life After Emilee, on the loss of my wife to pancreatic cancer. I’m not accepting comments right now but please feel free to get in touch via my Contact page.