Love, happiness and existence

Your sperm and her egg
Caused my existence,
A soul to associate with,
To create me, who I am,
What I am, and what has shaped me
To what I have become.

A moment in time
To last a life.

When you first saw me,
My first thoughts were groping
With new realities,
What were you thinking?

Joyous Sunday rides in the car,
All three of us kids packed in the back seat
The countryside flying by
A summer scenic spectacle
Colours, pastoral landscapes, cows, fields and trees
As you sang, “Oh what a beautiful morning”
And, of-course, the comic relief
Of the quickly passing cemetery.

“How many people are buried in that grave yard?”
You would ask,
A serious challenge to the three contestants
In the back box-seats for this performance.
Forty-five, one hundred, five hundred.
“All of them” you would reply
With a satisfied smile.

You were happy and
We were happy that
You were happy for it wouldn’t last.

With the birth of adolescence, raw emotions
From volcanic core,
Darkness, questions never before imagined
With no answers, for in that fiery chamber
A long unseen malaise, that had extinguished
Your love for her, left a despairing emptiness,
A hollowing out of happiness and hope,
For your marriage was our family.

The hunger for love becomes severe and fierce
For survival, twisted paths, relationships
Form distorted patterns of perception,
What’s right and wrong,
What’s best and for whom?

What was once hidden from children,
For too many years had been breeding
Like an unseen disease that
Lacks form, voice, name
Or any tangible evidence of it presence,
Shaping young psyches in disfigured fashion.
Emotional survival takes control
And transmutes itself in buried sadness.

In the end, after many years,
Arguing, ignoring the pain,
Rising from it all as
We all established our own families,
That primal spiritual love,
That created each of us,
Slowly at first our own families a new love,
Later our over-whelming pre-occupation,
Then, the actual moment un-recognizable,
All that there really is,
The love of our own children
Encompassed our parents,
Between us and in us,
Melted away past pain.

Family Christmases, birthdays,
Days at the cottage, and your lyric voice
Are such happy memories
And, of-course, those Sunday drives in the country.

How does one honour one’s creators?
Love and everlasting memories
Of happy times and infinite gratitude
For our existence.

©Jim Desson, 16 Jan 2008, All rights reserved.

Summer Breeze

As I looked out
through the eyes of our home,
I watched you, sitting on the back deck.
I marveled at your quiet beauty.
The sun shone brightly
on your slightly bent head
as you read a book,
occasionally looking up
at the wind swayed trees and flying birds,
and the busy squirrels in the yard.

I stood there for quite some time,
watching you, as visions
of the past and the future
blew through my head like a summer breeze.

The flowers in the garden, under your care
and bountiful rain, had blossomed with
a pleasant generosity.
Even the house had taken on a new coat of paint,
the floor, a new look,
and that, which was broken, was fixed.

© Jim Desson, August 21, 1996

Sunrise for Two

Sunrise painted yellow veneer
over our bedroom as we slept
igniting dreams of summer in our heads.

Spring wind followed in with a light reel
as it swirled about our room and in our heads.

Under warm covers, I became aware of your touch
as you slept and, upon opening my eyes, I gazed upon your face
to see such beauty as the light performed a jig about our heads.

The golden orb casts its warmth upon our bed
as I held you in my arms, we kissed, and love filled our heads.

Jim Desson © 2004 All rights reserved

Stalking the Halls

Is that your ghost
standing at the door of my heart,
a wisp of memory
now awakened after
a decade of sleep.

I thought you had disappeared
with the countless cleanings since then;

yet, there you are,
stalking the halls of my heart.

Jim Desson © 1982 All rights reserved

Pearl’s Store

Once past
well tended bushes, flowers,
floors and walls
so clean you can straighten you clothes
as you walk by,
steeply descend a red carpeted staircase
to a room where
only those with eyes do see
magic performed there.

Pearl is a magician.
she offers sweets -
books, calendars, delectable food, warm coffee,
couches for long legs and short legs,
writing paper, pencils and erasers,
wisdom from experience and
love from Calvin.

Pearl and Calvin’s wealth,
freely given away
down there,
was reaped from denial
and generosity,
a trick with no visible form.

When celestial sharing
comes to an end,
climb those stairs,
linger over halls and rooms above,
impeccable vestibule, stone front steps,
stand by as Pearl and Calvin
tell stories about their floral children.
With a whimsical regret, depart.

Jim Desson © 2002 All rights reserved

Now Mat He Sat

Now Mat, he sat
On a long white mat
And said,
Oh what a beautiful day.

The sun is high
On a big blue sky
And said,
Oh where are my friends today.

Jim Desson ©2005

Morning Sun and My Love

Morning sun,
through sheer curtains,
immersed our bed in warm reflection,
timeless moment,
vague memory,
calm satisfaction, generous ease,
place without measure.

Benign begild,
filtered by curtains and trees,
a ballet across my walls,
dresser, chair with clothes,
spilling across the floor to my bed,
a sun pool
where-in my love and I did swim.

Jim Desson © 2004 All rights reserved

Morning Sun

As I lay
morning sun,
through shear curtains,
bathed my bed in warm refection
some long ago timeless moment
now a vague memory
calm satisfaction, of generous ease.

Refusing to look at my watch,
my repose seemed a place without measure.
The pale yellow,
filtered by curtains and trees,
performed a ballet across my walls,
dresser, chair with clothes and
ran down along the floor to my bed,
golden dancing bedspread.

Jim Desson ©Jan. 16, 2005

Chuck is a Poet

Chuck is a wizard
Chromatic lizard
He conjures up places
And people and verses

His head has a door
For many a lore
With a flick of a switch
And Shostakovich

Like a magician
Secret Tactician
When he mumbles a spell
Maurice Joseph Ravel

So Chuck if you will
I’m keen to be still
To hear just one more poem
Then my heart can fly home.

Jim Desson ©Jan. 16, 2005

Thirty-One Is Perfect Timing

With fair warning
By my lover and friend
Of the mechanical replication
Of your official announcement
Your approaching return
To again impinge on
My life.

Before I returned your call
Many intense moments
In our bonded lives
Streamed through me
Sending bolts of emotions
Packets of sharp memories.

Standing before the large framed glass
View of your tiny swaddled self
I became, in a microsecond,
Complete love from the core
Of my soul
A love beyond measure and time.

Unaware of time and surroundings
I must have stood there for a long time
Because the attending nurses began
To giggle as they watched me
I left, I didn’t want
To call attention to our intimacy.

Other times were too painful too long
To think about.

I wondered, if we were to meet again,
Would your presence be surrounded
In smoke
A camouflage
For yor silent suffering.

The message on the machine
Sounded youthful (your Mom I thought).

Your voice on the line
What now

When I spotted your lean
Sharp face
I embraced you
Attempting warmth and acceptance

A distraction,
This stranger next to you
Wrinkled smiling face
Hints of hard life
Was staring at me

In half seconds
She looked familiar
Like your grandmother.

I walked around
Effecting a casual affect
And greeted your mom with
A smile and a handshake
And it all began.

Your Laurlee of four years
Hand and arm in yours
Said you had changed
These past few years
That you wanted to see
Your father often.

I said I would have
Waited ‘til you were sixty-five
So 31 is perfect timing.

Jim Desson © 2004 All rights reserved

Here are some of my poems

The following posts, one per poem, are some of the peoms that I have written over the years. I am not a particularly good poet, but here they are-for all to read. I am better at prose. I have written several short stories over the years and an incomplete novel.
I hope , fellower reader, you enjoy these peoms.
Let me know that you think and feel about them.

29 March 2005: As my arrival plane descended through the clouds, a beautiful vista of blue-green ocean spread out before me. It was awe inspiring. Other people around me seemed nonchalant about it but I was so excited, the adrenaline wiped any fatigue from an hour and a half of sleep. I was excited about flying over the ocean (‘been there, done that’) but to embark on this marvellous adventure to visit the Bahá’ís and other citizens of Bermuda.
The plane settled down on this paradise isle bordered by palm trees and spring weather.
After going through customs, I was greeted by Larry, this warm, jocular Bahá’í with a relaxed persona whose camouflage and style is ‘a regular guy’ that covers a very socially perception intelligence and one very smart person. I stayed with Larry for a week. While there I visited the old historic site of St. George Village and met many people. Bermudians are very courteous and polite. One is expected to greet most people with a polite “Good morning” etc., which I keenly reciprocated. The houses are all, and I really mean ‘all, built of cement and painted in beautiful pastel colours outlined in brilliant white. I easily spoke to people in the parks, at bus stops and on the bus.

Jim Desson 

Jim Desson's blog

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