Category: My Poems

These eyes, …

The recent events in Egypt have struck me in a strange way.

I was driving along the road this week listening to NPR and I find I am reacting emotionally to the news of the dictator Mubarak — like I did to my father’s treatment growing up.

The fear and the almost frantic way in which the people of Egypt stayed in Freedom Square — the fear of a vicious dictator. I know that feeling.

This is something I wrote in 2007. I am so, so grateful that most of these emotions are not still with me today.

These eyes, …

What you see there in my eyes is pain.  All the things I try to push away in order to do — this — day.  Yes, I was yelled at, raged at almost daily growing up when he wasn’t working or traveling for more than eighteen years. Oh, she was so sad — always sinking into the pretext of being sick so that she wouldn’t have to face the fact that he was yelling, rebuking, bullying.  Making his children shrink into a ball of tears and fear.  Stunted, unable to process the world around.  Yes, she drank, and drank, until a week before he died; she was burying herself in a bottle of Vodka.  Yes, he died, his brain slowly crumbling around him.  Yes, that melancholy that has followed me — sometimes chased me — through my life.  It comes in and intends to stay.  Until I rise up and scream,  NOoooooooo!  You are not welcome!  These are the demons that come and sometimes I can’t make them go away.  I just crawl up into a ball and let the waves of pain wash over me.

I did that.  But today these eyes, which have been trying to tell the world what he did and how it feels, today these eyes are saying it hurts, but I am strong.

I am not going to repeat history. 

I am going to be someone who can stop the rage, listen to my fears, process my pain, and I will NOT, above all, take it out on my beautiful husband and children.

These eyes are saying, I am strong.

A Poem: Shame Falls Heavily

Shame Falls Heavily

I first noticed them arrive
as the two women settled their kids and husbands in two rows
in front of us in the stands.
Then the men were gone.

I saw how they laughed playfully, sitting close.
One touching the back of her friend.  Whispering
to one another.  This was intimate familiar territory.
I thought it seemed to be an attraction
which was clearly more than friends.

Suddenly her husband appeared and she turned her back,
Completely forgetting the friend, to fall asleep
on his shoulder.
The game began.

After a long while the boy, her son, looked
back questioningly, eyebrows raised.
Then both children look again
at her and at the man. Not asking with words, but clearly wondering
what’s wrong?  They needed to know what’s going on.

He shrugs again. And then again, when they glance back later.
His shrug is slow and heavy
as if to say: he doesn’t know why she’s asleep.
But he knows.
I don’t know. Not yet.  At first, it seemed innocent, even to me.

The game was Hockey and I have to admit it held little interest.  So
my curiosity with this hauntingly familiar scene grew. I couldn’t help
Staring.  Wondering.  A nagging sense of foreboding as the woman slept on.
And the kids are cheering. Knowing
but not wanting to know.

Startled I see that she has thrown up into her hand.
All over herself, and him.  As he tries to comfort her,
and then to clean her up without anyone noticing she begins to weep.
He was so gentle as he whispered into her sticky hair
all the things I knew he didn’t believe.
It’s going to be alright.  HUSH… It will be okay.

Shame
Falls
Heavily
like a wool blanket
on her shoulders as she continues to weep
quietly into his shoulder.  Wiping her own mouth again and again.

The smell of alcohol and the stench of puke finally reaches me.  Then
without thinking I unwind my gray scarf from my neck to help.
Hesitantly at first. I thought
against it.  These thoughts almost made me sit back again, as
I re-twisted my scarf back around my neck.

What would I have wanted?
How do you love like He would in a moment like this?
So, unwinding quickly I tap softly on his shoulder to hand to him the gray rayon scarf. Wordless
for there are no words. He knows.

The moment s l o w s in time when he won’t let go of my hand.
The hockey game fades.
I don’t hear the screaming fans or feel the cold air in the stadium.
All I feel is his warm hand on mine.

And his panic.
He does not know what to do.
It flows into me, his fear, his sorrow because this isn’t the first time.
His tears, welling deeply inside.

As he presses down on my hand it all flowed into me.
In that second, a moment of passing so briefly, I know again
the shame which falls so heavily.
As I remember my own.

Finally, pulling my hand away, I sat
through that game as if I were that woman, again.
The children mine.  The friends and husband
all — unsure.   Afraid.  Watchful.  Not knowing what to do.

This morning, I am grateful for my sobriety.
And wonder, of all the thousands of people in the stands last night, why did this woman sit in front of me?
I saw what it was like to be the sober ones. And hope I never forget
the frightened doe-like eyes of her children.

I will add this to my frayed two and a half year old,
yellow, 3 x 5 card of reasons I am gratefully sober today.
Shame
Falls
Heavily
But I am no longer the Woman.

—————————————

Some of the things I have written about my alcoholism:

I am not Ashamed
The Slow Crawl Of Healing
What Can I Say About Two Years of Sobriety?
Choose Joy
For Everything There is A Season.
Eulogy to Life.
Letting Go.  Thoughts on Being An Alcoholic
ReThink Everything
My First AA Meeting
My Crooked Heart
It’s Lonely Here on the Wagon
The Place of Nowhere
A New Way to be Human
Eulogy to Life
Winter Comes
Splintered Truth
This Epic Grief
No Dignity
I Need a Filling
Addict

A Poem: No Vacancy

The summer I was eighteen

I wanted one thing — a boy named Tommy LaRue.
He was my first boyfriend.  My first kiss.
I learned three things from him.
What is a French kiss? To drink cheap Champagne. That I was expendable.
In those days, I knew nothing of myself.  How to be with people.
Life mystified me.  What was its purpose?
I had no aspirations.  I didn’t know what I was meant to do.
And that scared him.  My dad
who wanted more for me. More than
whatever it was that I wanted.  That I hadn’t figured out.

The summer that I was nineteen

After sleeping through my first year of university he told me

“You will go there.  You will do that.”
You will find more than whatever it was that you think you want.
I didn’t know that I had the power to say no.  Or the power

to think or want anything.  And so, I went.  I did
As I was told.
And slept

through two more years of university.  Literally.
Mostly.  Not. There.  Not really anywhere.

My junior year I was told

to choose.
“What is it that you want?” they said. “Why are you here?”
I want nothing.  I have no aspirations.  I have no
Hopes, dreams or desires.  Life mystifies me.

This coma that was my life became clear
Twenty years later.  It was a slow awakening.
Thawed by unconditional love, I found
Safety.  No one was telling me
Where to go.  What to do.  Who could have known, that I needed
S p a c e to figure it all out, whatever it is that I wanted.
For I did want
More.

Ever since I can remember, I have
spun words.  They were flying out of my mouth
Faster than I could think them.  These words, the flying kind,
Cut flesh.  They hurt the people I loved over the years.
And all because I was too afraid
To say anything to him.
And so
I stopped.  Speaking
in that manner.  I gave up
my voice. That was easier than saying
anything.

When he died it began.  The trance was over and it was a
Dreamy awakening.  A discovery.
Almost trembling I came to understand.  No longer
Could he tell me — anything.
And for a while, with no one telling
Me anything, I was lost.
And then though I was afraid
Of hurting, and afraid of his ghost that watches
And lingers even now. I began
to unearth my voice again. No longer
Is this a vacant place inside me.
I have dreams.
I have words.
And I use my words to heal.  Yes, I have found my purpose.
This moment, here. These words.
Now. There is no vacancy.

ALL MY OLD POETRY

I just realized that most of my older poems are not on my blog.  Rather than transport them, I will offer a  link here to more than fifty poems & photographs offered on my flickr site under the set “My Words.”  They can be found here.

What I wrote a few years ago about this group of work:

These poems are a reflection of my life’s journey which includes many things including faith or lack of it, love given and received, acceptance of myself and others, and those uncomfortable feelings toward people you rub up against in life. 

I have the utmost regard for my parents and so while acknowledging that they did their ‘best’ with what they were given, I can only hope that I somehow do ‘better’ for my children.

This journey is mine, I share it so that others who battle with self-loathing, doubt, depression, anger, even suicide can move to a place of acceptance and renewal.  As a person of faith, there is also an element of hope in the written word.  A declaration of the past as well as a statement of hope in the future.

A Poem: love in the shadows




.love in the shadows.

Originally uploaded by M e l o d y

Said it before, but I am thankful for my home which is a peaceful haven and for the love I experience there.

Love in The Shadows

What do you see
in the shadows?
What are you searching for?
I see you wanting;
hoping for more.
Can you hear the music,
the song lingering here?
Shelter, comfort, home;
fragrant with his scent and sound.
What is the color of
the shadows,
the songs,
the scent
of love?
Tranquility,
it has no color, sound,
or smell,
but it is abundant.

by Melody Hanson, 2007

A Poem: good dad, bad dad




good dad, bad dad

Originally uploaded by M e l o d y

My Dad’s death stirred up so much turmoil for my sisters and me. Processing that, I wrote this poem.

Good Dad. Bad Dad.

I shed no tears today
for the warrior who has fallen.
Taken down by Cancer’s sword.
My heart is full of memories,
good and bad.

Good Dad. Bad Dad.
Constant worry.
Constant change.
Who could have foreseen
the Cancer overtaking his mind;
that became my liberation
in five short months.

The danger —
of loving too much;
needing tenderness,
and all the things Daddy’s are supposed to be.

PAIN. FEAR.
Emotions jangling around me
like some kind of white noise;
pushing their way into my conscious thoughts.
Invaders, threatening to undo
the weak hold I’ve found on a Good Life.
So many memories
good and bad,
bad and good.

Who was he? Why was he MY dad?
MY tormentor.
MY warrior;
Finally broken,
beaten by the cancer
that was to become my friend.

Betrayal,
these thoughts which plague me.
Broken;
the unspoken promise
to keep our secrets to the end.
How do I remember?
How do I stay true and honest,
when the Truth causes an ache
too strong to feel,
to face,
to bear.

Good Dad. Bad Dad.
Who was he in the end?
A demon? A saint?
Now simply a Muse —
remembered, but no longer feared.
Thought of
in furtive,
anxious moments.

Good Dad. Bad Dad.
Who is he to me now?
A man driven to despair
Living a chaotic, frantic life.

Not the Good Life I choose,
Not the legacy I will repeat.

Good Girl. Bad Girl.
Who will I listen to?
Who will I believe?
I am the woman I choose to become
today,
tomorrow.
These are the Good Days
that I can change.
Yesterday is Dead.
Burned in the funeral pyre.
Vapors
Mist
Dust settling around me.

Good Girl. Bad Girl.

Good.

Bad.

Good.

by Melody Hanson, 2004

Aging, Legacies and more Time with our Family

my parents did as well as they could

I often wonder if I am too hard on the memory of my father.  As the years go by the memories fade good and bad ones.   A couple of things happened this weekend that made me think of my father.  He died in his early sixties.  He should have had another thirty years.

92-year old Billy Graham was interviewed recently.   He has come to the time of his life when he spends a lot of time alone, requiring the care of others.  I suppose that stage of things makes one reflective.

When asked to give advice to those who are aging he said “Accept it!  And thank God every day for the gift of that day.”

I do dread getting old.  And yet I have this idea that I will just sort of live on in perpetuity with my body and mind falling apart.  I have joked that I want to be euthanized to save everyone the misery of my madness gone out of control.

My father wouldn’t accept that he was sick or was going to die, so much so that he refused to talk about when he was gone.   Even when he was diagnosed with brain tumors in regions of his brain that would leave him without speech and would impact his ability to sort out emotion.  And yet as he slowly left us, his body breaking down from the chemotherapy and his mind  slowly slipping away from us, he became meaner. And more confused about reality.  And eventually he couldn’t form words.  One or two here and there in the week that he died were like small gifts to those who received them.

His very last words to me, when I told him I loved him, were “I love you more.”

When he was still cognizant and before the surgery he did to his credit want to clear the air. Those last conversations differed for each of us daughters.  In mine, I spoke more than he did.  Fearful, I told him his anger and disappointment with me over the years had shaped my life.  He listened and accepted.  He spoke the words of apology.  It would have been miraculous and life changing had he not then gone on to spend an hour with my sister berating and criticizing her for how she managed money.  He wanted some money my parents had loaned her.

I felt responsible for that.  My conversation had been unexpectedly positive and though a lifetime of experiences told her not to she trusted him and met with him.  He crushed her as he had each of us so many times over the years.

That’s what he left us.  He left no letters for us.  He left without any parting advice or even the last word.  Ironically, the man who always had the last word in life refused to believe he was going to die.  He was going to get back out there to continue God’s work.  He believed he had time.

When asked of his regrets Graham said “he would spend more time at home with his family, study more and preach less.”  Wow! I think every MK and PK alive today longs to hear those words from their parents.  He wished he had spent more time with his family.  My dad prayed for healing to get back out there, not a few more months of life so that he could treasure his family and say his goodbyes.  He wanted to get back out there and reach our world for Christ. (At that time it was his work in China.)

Graham continued:

“God has a reason for keeping us here (even if we don’t always understand it), and we need to recover the Bible’s understanding of life and longevity as gifts from God—and therefore as something good. Several times the Bible mentions people who died “at a good old age”—an interesting phrase (emphasis added). So part of my advice is to learn to be content, and that only comes as we accept each day as a gift from God and commit it into his hands. Paul’s words are true at every stage of life, but especially as we grow older: “Godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Tim. 6:6).

I miss my dad.  He was never content.  And I’ve concluded that he had to die for the rest of us to live.  I know those are harsh thoughts.  Do I really believe that God “took him” or did his life finally just end?  I will never know and it doesn’t really matter does it?  What I do know is the result of his death.  I could not break free from the chains of my experiences with him and my mother.  I did not have the strength or the knowledge of how to do that.   In the end, he left and I became free.

Could I have experienced the growth of the last eight years with him still alive?  Not so quickly.  Or intentionally.  Or in the same way.  He was such a force.  He was IRON in my life, but as iron sharpens iron, iron on something weak shapes it in the ways it wants.

So why so much talk of legacy and more time and regrets?  Because it is a bittersweet thing to lose a parent when they were a coercive fury in your life.  Choking.  Compelling.  And yet all that you knew of love.

Yeah, it’s mixed up.

MH

PK: Preacher’s Kid and MK: Missionary’s Kid

Good Dad, Bad Dad (A poem I wrote in 2004)

My Gospel

c. 1632
Image via Wikipedia

Certain

that I don’t deserve this gift that you gave me.
Though I haven’t e a r n e d  a n y t h i n g.

Knowing

that I am broken.  This heart inside of me is corrupt.

Aware

that my flesh is stronger than my will.

Flawed

I live with a certainty that I will choose the things that dishonor you.

You came to die.
You came to love.

You alone are God.  And I am your beloved child.

Of course

it is no longer about me.  I must ask

How can I die?
Who must I love?

January 17, 2011


“The Christian gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself nor less of myself. Instead, I think of myself less.” — Tim Keller, The Reason For God

A Ten and a One

[draft work in progress]

A Ten and a One

It was eleven dollars.  Two lives

Sentenced

To end over a ten and a one.

Two lives.  Life sentences

For their misdemeanor crime.

Do we believe that this has nothing to do with the color of their skin? 

Now, color them

White.  And the story would have been much different.  Pay up

The fine and do your time

In a county jail, perhaps a year,

If you’re White.

But it was

Two Black girls in Mississippi.

And they were poor, but perhaps that doesn’t need to be said.

They were.

Two lives.  Life sentences

For their misdemeanor crime.

Do we believe that this has nothing to do with the color of their skin?

They are freed

From those life sentences.  Yet, the sisters,

Gladys and Jamie

Scott did their time.  Sixteen years

In prison for petty theft.

Since 1994.  Two lifetimes.

Lost.

Over.

Eleven dollars.  The price of a movie

But Justice Was Served!

Or was it?

Charges were suspended, yes they’re free.  Hold on,

There’s one little condition.  Never matter

She was already going to save her sister’s life.

Dignity, they have to take that away too. 

Generosity, stolen

by the glaring limelight of the time.

“I was going to give it to her anyway (even) if I had to give it to her in prison. Didn’t nobody

had to release me, because if they would have let me give it to her when her kidney first failed,

I would have gave it to her without a shadow of a doubt. I love my sister.”

Where is their justice? 

Two lives.  Life sentences

For their misdemeanor crime.

Do we believe that this has nothing to do with the color of their skin?

Good people what was their crime? 

To be poor and black in Mississippi

and steal

A ten and a One?

——————————————————-

Life in Prison: No one, offenders included, expects prison to be a pleasant place. But there is a considerable incongruity between the physical or mental maturity of young prisoners and the kind of experiences and people prison forces them to confront.

The vast majority of youth serving life without parole have had violent experiences in prison. Many child offenders get into fights with other inmates in order to defend themselves from physical violence, including rape.

Human Rights Watch received more than 300 letters from child offenders currently serving life without parole sentences, here are five examples.

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50 Years for Better or Worse

"MARRIAGE AND PISTOL LICENSE" office...
Excuse my perverse sense of humor. Image via Wikipedia

My in-laws celebrate fifty years of marriage this year and each family member was asked to write something to them.

December, 2010

Dear Bonnie & Terry, 

I must say how much I have been blessed by a marriage that is relatively easy — For Tom and me, it was a joining of two people’s lives that made complete and total sense.  Growing up, my parent’s marriage seemed so hard, which I now know was as much a reflection on the people than the institution of marriage.

I am so grateful for the man that Tom is, the man you raised him to be and for his life experiences that have shaped him into the person he is today. But I know that much of his character was formed as child in your home and I am so grateful to you and to God for allowing him to grow up in a healthy home with Christian parents who loved one another!

When I think of you two, I feel I feel more than a little awe.  Your partnership seems to work so well.  You two don’t talk a lot about your marriage — whether it has been easy or difficult.  There is so much I would like to know.  Your marriage seems to have a quiet strength.   I suppose the best testimony is the 50 years you have been together.  Yours has shown the test of time.  CS Lewis described that kind of love as not only a feeling but a deep unity, that must “be maintained by choice and will, and deliberately strengthened by habit, reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both parties ask, and receive, from God.”  It is clear that you made a choice a long time ago and you work daily to support and reinforce it.  “This quieter love enables people to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.” (Mere Christianity)

When I think of you two, I think of that deep unity and the quiet love that Lewis speaks of and I know that it must have been a daily choice to make it this long!  But more than simply choosing because it is the right thing to do, you both seem to be happy in your marriage.  My parents certainly loved each other, but they had a strange relationship.  It was a puzzle to me why they stuck it out when they often seemed so miserable.  But you all have been together for more than fifty years and you seem to enjoy your life!  That’s a great example to us and to our kids.

Recently I read an article that said in a committed relationship roughly two-thirds of the problems are unresolvable.  That’s daunting when you think of it, but especially in a coventant of marriage where you plan to stay together until death parts you. 

You two seem to be quite different and yet you have made a good life together.   Whatever it is that you have found, it works and it is a joy to see you share your lives together happily.  Although we cannot hope to resolve every problem, being committed to a person and to the life that you want to build together, seems to be the key.

May your lives continue to be an example to us and to your grandchildren for many, many years to come.

I love and admire you both.

 Melody

I Don’t Know (A poem)

And from my eleven year old son, Dylan:

Happy anniversary Grandma and Grandpa. 

I hope you have had a wonderful 50 years together. And that you have many more years. I think you are nice and generous people. Thank you for being my grandparents.  

Love, Dylan

From my nine year old, Jacob (with a little help from his parents.)

 Dear Grandma and Grandpa — Thank you for coming to Wisconsin in the middle of he winter and for all the trips you have made here from warm Florida.  You are fun and kind.  I love you.  Thank you for loving me.  Thank you for coming to stay with us and taking care of us when my parents go on trips!  You do a good job.  I am glad that you are my dad’s parents!  Love- Jacob

 

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this life-long fast [*a poem*]

This Life-Long Fast

Just saw a headline
in the Huffington Post.
Winter Cocktails Gone Wild.
And I am choked
by my longing.  I can’t explain it
easily, but I’ll try. I still crave alcohol.  Not
in the way
you might think.  Infrequently.  And not when
or where you might expect.
I go to church in a bar, but that only reminds me
of my gratitude
and drives deeper into God.  My
humiliation is my heartfelt cry
There, my worship. Inside, every Sunday
I am on my knees.

[Dare I say
lest I tempt fate]  I am not tempted
to break this life-long fast I have taken.  Yes.
I can say that and mean it.  I do not feel
like I need alcohol but it still
charms me. I think I want it.  Especially if I linger
with the thoughts that whisper to me.
Drinking is about
the moments, about intimacy
and good conversation. The idea
of being cultured,
intellectual and refined.  All those remembered
or imagined
moments swirl in my mind.
The Liar brandishes his greatest weapon, uttering:

“That is what you’re missing.”

And I find myself thinking

If Only!

Then immediately — I don’t even
have to force it, the list of reasons come for
why I will

not ever = never

drink again.
They come.  The list my counselor made me
so painstakingly write on a 3×5 card
(so that I would never forget.) Oh, I won’t
forget.

Memory brings it
and I remember
the vomit,
the disappointment,
the regrets (so many),
the fear,
the sink hole of depression and anxiety,
the danger.

No I don’t easily forget

that.
Alcohol, that sweet elixir
was my personal hell.  Oh no, the truth

is so fresh and real as if

I quit yesterday.
And soberly and gingerly, I consider

how far I have come.

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it’s 4:59 am, and you disintegrated slowly [A Poem]

Daddy, I miss you. I really do!  I try not to,
because I think I am still mad at you.
I’ve got a nice fat file at the UW Department of Psychiatry to prove it.

I glanced at the back of the room and saw you
sitting there.  With your grin,
how I lived to see that grin of pleasure.
It made the whole world feel r i g h t.
A belly laugh, so unexpected.
As if you were filled
with nothing but pleasure,
oh how I loved your laugh.
There is still so much goodness in you Dad
To be remembered — Passion.  Faith.  Hope.
I glanced over and saw you sitting there.

I want to remember you Dad, before I forget.
When the alarm tweeted at 4:59am,
and you disintegrated slowly,
as I woke and was left
full of longing; I am overwhelmed
by how much I miss you.

In life, I mostly felt your disappointment and my lack.
Perhaps it was your distractions, so important, God’s work
… coupled with a fear that you had.
You didn’t measure up

either.

Oh, in a crisis, if life was falling apart,
of course you were there
and would have honestly and truly,
if you could have, moved mountains to help.  But if not,
if life were NOT falling apart, you were busy doing the “Lord’s Work.”
This should have been okay, could have even been healthy,
if — the damage wasn’t already done.

I want to be lifted from the mire of that gloomy, infested death hole.
I want to be living not impulsively and with my FEAR overcoming EACH AND EVERY WORD.
Not assuming others only tolerate me.
Not speaking with a mute’s stutter.
Not breathing in constant fear.
Not stifling a scream.
I want to live healed, anointed.
I want to believe that you loved me
and are still hoping for me to have
the fullest,
the most joyful and gut-busting,

irrationally ecstatic, good LIFE.

You are no longer here.  And yet you linger in my dreams.
What are you dreaming
for me?

MH 12-9-2010

My father, Dan Harrison, died of brain cancer about eight years ago.  He joined my dream last night in a strange way.  Just sitting there, in the back of a room full of people.  As he often did.  He glanced up and I found myself saying to my sisters “Dad’s not gone.  He’s right over there.” Sometimes I do wonder if people linger in between this world and the next — hoping, wishing, praying even nudging.  I have no theology for this but I do wonder.

My father had a profound effect on me.  There are times when I believe that I did not truly begin living until he died.  At the least I experienced a new life after he died.  There are pages of this story here on my blog.  Many many poems and other thoughts, insights, lessons found here.  It is not completely a story of a broken person, because I found in a true way Christ’s love and that overcame all my sorrows.  I work for and pray for Shalom.

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