UNFINISHED the written and spoken word versions

Unfinished

When I, in lonely silent waves

Of sound, surround myself with you

Your face imprinted on my mind,

Your eyes like candles, shining

I hold you there with terror'd fingers

Reaching through dark rain filled clouds

To find the sun of suns.

Upon the night wind in my soul,

You fly to me like driven angels 

Breathing my name in and out

A mantra without end

So far away, the sight of you

Yet near enough to taste

I reach for you, I yearn for you, my hungry heart to hold.

If I could dream, I'd dream you here

Within my empty arms

Your love, a fountain I'd pour out

Upon my barren fields

And I, in turn, like unborn flowers

Would bloom for you forever

Instead, I wither needlessly like a crushed rose on the road.

I met you on a friendless sea

When there was naught before us

But sand and sky and unvoiced hope

And furtive fevered sighs

And then we turned and walked beyond

Where trembling hands might touch

Looking back and looking back and walking ever on.

There is a song my soul would write

And you, it's sweet refrain

Relentless in it's melody

And tears to my eyes, bring

If God should bring you towards me now

I'd run on broken glass

And never turn and never turn but keep my eyes on you.

This void, this chasm, in me now

With each day, wider grows

I can't be whole, I know that now

Because I saw your face

It may never be that you find me

And that sun may never rise

And my life will end, an unfinished song, because I don't have you.

© by Voo

April 16, 20011

1:24 a.m.

                                           my video of me reading this poem
                                                       UNFINISHED

HUSH-A-BYE LULLABY FOR THE BOY THAT I LOVE

 Hush-a-bye Lullaby 
                  For The Boy That I Love

Rock-a-bye baby on the wings of a dove

Hush-a-bye sweetheart in the soft arms of love

Rush now to Dreamland on the breath of the night

Mama will see you in the morning's first light.

Sweet little baby, sweet little one

Gentle and tender with your life just begun

Running all day in discovery's joy

God's love all wrapped up in the form of a boy.

Dream now, my darling, dream of the day

Coming tomorrow and the pleasure of play

Spontaneous kisses and hugs given free

Your face such a treasure from Heaven to me.

Sleep, little angel, in pure innocence

Renew your engine, your energy's spent

So much to look at and so much to learn

Jump up and fall down and do and discern.

Your journey's beginning and mine has begun

To see life anew in the spirit of fun

Childhood is precious and too soon is gone

But the memories will hold me when I'm all alone.

Promise me, precious, you won't grow up too fast

I'll slow down the clocks and I'll make this time last

I'll fly you forever on the wings of a dove

I'll rock you to sleep in the soft arms of love.

©by Voo

Aug 30, 07

9 p.m.

WARRIOR WOMEN

Loreena McKennitt- Kecharitomene

Warrior Women

We are the warrior women

We, who conquer fears

Except the one that comes at night

That creeps in with our tears.

The fear that quietly says to us

“You’ll never know a man

Who’ll love you like you need to be

Who’ll fit the master plan.”

That fear that does not talk to us

In daylight, morn or noon

But waits to torment us with night

In silent streams of moon.

Our days are filled with woman’s work

With care, concern and chore

We take care of the ones we love

And cry inside for more.

We feed and clothe and garden

We shop and sew and mend

We wait for love to pass us by

And notice us again.

We drive and file and organize

We wash and iron and fold

We open windows to the warmth

And bar them from the cold.

We cook and bake and regulate

We pay unending bills

We kiss away the little hurts

And nurse away the ills.

We fall in tired and weary beds

With day just hours away

Escape to dreams made out of hopes

That waking tongues can’t say.

Warriors, all we, in this world

Fierce and bold and strong

Women, soft and sad and wise

Who see the right and wrong.

We slay the daily dragons

Protect the innocent

Stand up to the unjust ones

From whom our woes are sent.

There isn’t much that we can’t do

If we are forced to do it

We grit our teeth, roll up our sleeves

And then we just get to it.

Warrior women, young and old

And black and white and brown

Yellow, tan and all between

They cannot keep us down.

Except at night, when shadows walk

And heartache makes it’s call

It’s then we let our hearts run loose

It's then, sometimes we fall.

It’s not that we cannot exist

Without a man to hold

But life without love’s tender touch

Soon withers and dies old.

Warrior women, without love

Stand strong against the world

Keeping order with stoic face

That conceals the little girl.

We need some shoulders to lean on

And loving, seeing eyes

That know it’s time to hold us close

When the warrior in us cries.

We are the warrior women

We overcome the pain

But the little girls in us need love

Until we’re strong again.

by Voo

Aug 19, 2010

9:44 p.m.

                                            Warrior Women

THE HUNTER AND THE HUNTED a write that means a lot to me...................

The Hunter and The Hunted



My skin is different from yours                                               
It glows in moonlight
And burns in noon day brightness;
And yours is brown and burnished and beautiful
(Even to the eyes of the vanquished.)

How many moons I have been enslaved,
I do not know
I am a servant here with gold pierced ears
And I never learned to read the scrolls
Not written on men’s hearts.

Your people take joy
In hunting the proud and free,
Of which I am a daughter
Though underneath the pinpoint of your stare,
I clinch my fists and keep my face downcast.

But in my soul,
I know you know
That I am running free beyond this desert,
Climbing mountains and wading streams
And fleeing from your dark and hungry eyes.

Silken veils and chains of silver,
They cannot make me cower at your feet
The voices of my fathers call out in my dreaming
Warn me of the darkness 
Of your rivers and desires.

And yet, sometimes,
When moonlight falls,
And midnight breezes play their songs,
The harshness of the desert fades
And this cool oasis bids me stay.

But my heart is hard of hearing
And though it sways me,
I will not bend or break my vows
And so I serve you and I curse you
Through many watches of the sun and stars.

You walk alone tonight beside the river
Behind the rushes, I watch you go
Into the trees with their black blankets
You’re just a man, I see, without your armor
How tall, yet small and lonely you seem to me.

Running now with feet of fire,
I hide in shadow as I pursue your presence
Stalking you as you walk in night shade, unaware
Seeking what my soul seeks
With cold, unfeeling steel clutched in my hand.

Hunting you,
I think how good it feels to run,
How sweet the night tastes on my homesick tongue,
How the tyranny of your beautiful people
Has spoiled the ancient purity of mine.

I will show no mercy (for none have you shown me)
Even as I danced for you in firelight,
Fed you from my fingertips in starlight
Toiled for you a thousand dawns of daylight
And never knew the tender touch of love.

Rising with the midnight moon,
A cry of anguish, startling as a storm
Keens and wails and stops me in my tracks,
Shakes me to the core in heart confusion,
Drops me to my knees upon the ground.

You lift your hands to Deity I know not
In a language I have not yet mastered,
And barely understand
Beyond the no’s and yes’s of my slave’s commandments
(For obedience cares not if you comprehend).

In breathless wonderment, we listen,
The Deity, the silent sky and I
To mournful pleas to be released from torment,
From longings of a heart, broken and torn
More puzzling still: My name upon your lips.

I can wait no longer, this I reckon
For soon your weakness will pass
And the man be gone and the tyrant arise
And I will be his slave forever
If freedom is my fortune, I will find it in your death.

Your head turns as I rush at you,
The silver blade gleaming, and a heart that pounds
With blood and fury and a thing so strange
That it trembles my upraised and uncertain hand
Glowing in moonlight as it falls upon your face.

You do not move, I do not move
And time stands still between us
A cry issues from a mouth and I swear I know not whose
The hunter and the hunted, caught in traps that they have laid,
I stand a victor looking down


Into your brown and hopeful eyes.

©by Voo
March 23, 09
2:20 a.m. © 2009
face by Mark

By The Rivers Dark by Leonard Cohen

 the song that inspired this poem............

THE GREEN HILLS

The Green Hills



The green, green hills of Tennessee
Were tall and full of glory
As they always were and ever will be
To a barefoot child who ran there.

The skies were bright blue,
Filled with clouds of white cotton
Floating along lazily in the azure expanse,
In the wrath of a gold, blazing sun.

It was an involuntary journey,
Going back into the past
That had molded and made me
Who I was, who I am.

I didn’t want to be there, like that
A stranger, a visitor coming home from the world
One that had run from those wild, wandering hills
As fast as my young legs could take me.

I didn’t know what to do, where to look
I didn’t know how to feel, how to act
It was as if I walked in a long dreamless dream
Where everything was familiar but foreign.

There was family there
Some that I barely knew,
People who wanted to know and love me
But really, had no idea how.

It was strange
And beyond strange
In that pastoral setting
Such a postcard of a place that never quite was.

It was where I learned about life
And how not to live it
Where I learned how to die
And how to avoid it.

My hometown,
A scene that seems never to change,
Those hills rising high in the mists of the morning
Like castles in a little girl’s mind.

It was there I created a world
That would never be mine
Lying in meadows, fishing in creeks,
Praying into blue skies with my eyes full of tears.

Looking for answers
To a heart full of questions
Wondering how, why and when that the answers would come
Listening for whispers that I’d never hear.

That beautiful place
Was my prison, my dungeon
Jailed in that Eden by the need to control,
The need to suppress and the need to possess.

I was my father’s daughter
But he was hardly "my Daddy"
Just the despot of paradise
And a cloud blocking the sun.

Now,
He still lives where the hills make a hollow
Crippled and bitter, with a heart slowly dying,
Failing from disuse, still congested with scorn.

We buried my brother beneath that green earth,
Buried someone so gentle
And someone who was good
In the place of a man who could never show love.

There was a peace there
In the arms of the forests
It crept in with the terror
And the fear of the unknown.

It tried to comfort me, tried to hold me
But I couldn’t see it through my tears
Now, maybe I can feel it’s touch
Now that I’m far away.

I laid my brother’s funeral rose
Against my mother’s tombstone
Her sisters sang, (the two that’s left)
Old hymns from yesterday.

It was surreal, like life and death
And sadly bittersweet
Like a photograph you have to take
But you never want to see.

What is it about going home
That makes you feel so old?
Makes you remember your every thought
And relive your every dream?

There were some mysteries solved
But I left with different questions
So many scars were opened up
That I thought had long been healed.

How can ugliness live in a place of such beauty?
Innocence die, in the face of disdain?
I do not understand, Lord, I do not understand!
Shouldn’t there be answers now, shouldn’t there be love?

I feel like such a child again
A new-born child sent back in time
To the place that formed this wounded woman,
Birthed poems of joy and dark despair.

I don’t know how to write of this
Mere words somehow cannot convey
The pictures painted on my mind,
The flood that’s raging through my soul.

Those green, green hills of Tennessee
My hell, my heaven, my childhood home
Faded now with sunset in the rear view mirror
And I’ve never felt so all alone.

©By Voo Shining Stone
August 28, 2011
the occasion of my
brother Mike's death