Category: My Poems

My Poetry: The Quandary of Motherhood

As with all my poetry, this is written to be read ALOUD, slowly.

Motherhood is not simply a connection

from womb to life.  It is that, and

a bond created by choice.

In the choosing, it is the care of another that ties you in a life giving way.

It cannot be fully understood, only carried out.


Many a day I am incomplete.

I question how I could be the one

doing the loving, the providing, the choosing of another.

Ah, then I realize, again and again,

motherhood isn’t perfection

nor accomplishment.

But it is in the choosing, daily.

Choosing to be the advocate, the provider, the buffer

between the world and this one child that I love.


As I sit on the floor with her.

As she sobs the sorrow of a thousand broken hearts.

As I think “who can I hurt” for causing this anguish?

As I consider the quiet relief that I want to confer,

likewise the pain I want to inflict on someone else;

As I think, I know the answer.

I am duty-bound to my child that I love

and to all children

to love.  Destined to listen, to bring solace.

To uphold all in my path.  And it is not glorious or praise-worthy.

It simply is a choice

of Motherhood.


Although it is not even possible to anticipate and prevent all pain

from this child, my child, any child;

I am beholden to all children,

to endure this quandary of motherhood.

Written by MHH, January 26, 2009

My Poetry: Solitude


solitude

Originally uploaded by M e l o d y

Solitude

Sometimes I sit in my car,

and just can’t move.

I glance at my neighbors’ home,

neighbors whom I love

and I just can’t move.

I can’t imagine ever moving again.

My car is warm.

And the world outside scares me.

I am frozen in my solitude.

My Poetry: Disquietude

disquietude

Sweeping across the pixels in my brain,
the dark fog of the terminally anxious.
Blood vessels, muscles, nerves each hold the weighty sand
of history and destiny.

I can’t breathe.

Confounded by its return.
I shake;
My heart somehow knowing
nothing.

By and by.
Peace, I call out for it!
Come euphoria!
A dreamland, I have yet to find.

1/7/09 Melody H. Hanson

Wishing you a Funky New Year


Wishing you a Funky New Year

Originally uploaded by M e l o d y

Goals for ’09

  1. I want to be more present in my life. Be present with and love my family & friends.
  2. I want to see others in ways I have not before; see who needs me.  See my kids, husband, mom, sisters, nieces and nephews, close friends.
  3. I want to pursue photography: exhibit some art, apply for freelance jobs, and tell a particular story.
  4. I want to date my husband.
  5. I want to paint my bedroom. (I have had the paint for months!) and to remove ugly wallpaper from the bathroom!
  6. I want to play the piano more often!
  7. I want to organize my garage, so that we can park our cars in it.
  8. I want to bury my dad; to research and write about him.
  9. I want to finish the book of poetry.  Save.  Print.
  10. I want to stay sober. ( July 24th, 2008)
  11. I want to have some fun! But on the cheap, because …
  12. We want to live on our budget this year.
  13. I want to get off sleep/anxiety medication.  Which means start exercising, going back to therapy, eating right, and heading toward, not away from my demons.
  14. I want to not be so hard on myself.  To embrace my strengths and weaknesses. Not use them as a crutch but to push myself to get healthy.
  15. I want to not think about what ifs and if onlys. Do or do not, but stop living in that ugly place.
  16. I want to study: one topic is forgiveness, the forgivers & the forgiven.  Biblical and historical stories and characters.

As of 1/3/09

I am Underground

1/12/09

I guess I’ll make my poetry public again.

12/18, 2008

My poetry has gone underground for a while.  I have said some things, and written some things, that have hurt people I love.  I don’t want to be culpable, but I am.  So it’s put away in a “drawer” for a season.

But here’s one called Hum, by Ann Lauterbach.

The days are beautiful

The days are beautiful.

I know what days are.

The other is weather.

I know what weather is.

The days are beautiful.

Things are incidental.

Someone is weeping.

I weep for the incidental.

The days are beautiful.

Where is tomorrow?

Everyone will weep.

Tomorrow was yesterday.

The days are beautiful.

Tomorrow was yesterday.

Today is weather.

The sound of the weather

Is everyone weeping.

Everyone is incidental.

Everyone weeps.

The tears of today

Will put out tomorrow.

The rain is ashes.

The days are beautiful.

The rain falls down.

The sound is falling.

The sky is a cloud.

The days are beautiful.

The sky is dust.

The weather is yesterday.

The weather is yesterday.

The sound is weeping.

What is this dust?

The weather is nothing.

The days are beautiful.

The towers are yesterday.

The towers are incidental.

What are these ashes?

Here is the hate

That does not travel.

Here is the robe

That smells of the night

Here are the words

Retired to their books

Here are the stones

Loosed from their settings

Here is the bridge

Over the water

Here is the place

Where the sun came up

Here is a season

Dry in the fireplace.

Here are the ashes.

The days are beautiful.

Ann Lauterbach is the author of five collections of poetry: If in Time: Selected Poems 1975-2000 (Penguin, 2001), On a Stair (1997), And for Example (1994), Clamor (1991), Before Recollection (1987), and Many Times, but Then
(1979). She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation,the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine C.
MacArthur Foundation. Since 1991 she has taught at Bard College, where she is David and Ruth Schwab III Professor of Language and Literature
and co-directs the Writing Division of the M.F.A. program.

Fragmented

It is not good to get in this mood.

I am dangerous.
I hurt others. I hurt myself.
I have no words, a heart full of gravel.
I will retreat,  for now.
I will search out the truth.
I have been called needy. Manipulative.
It is too much to face.
For now I will retreat. Reseal my heart, so that
I cannot hurt or be hurt.
I know this is fragmented truth, but for now
it is all I have.

11-26-2008

…

11-19-2008

Recently, I wrote a poem about what it feels like to be an alcoholic. — How quitting has impacted some of my friendships, basically what it feels like to me. In retrospect, I realize that I have caused pain to those people that I care deeply about. I regret that more than anything. It’s the tension in creative expression. Mine is always visceral and a bit viral. But if one ‘watches their words’ can they create? I guess I’ll live with the tension today and sit here a feel my extreme sadness over the pain I have caused.

Life Long Yearning

dead
Image by M e l o d y via Flickr

The galactic hole in my heart

makes me tired of holding all the pieces together.

Tired of doubting.

Tired of needing.  Wishing.  Hurting.

Crying out in all the ways that speak of your neglect.

All my life, Daddy, learning

that I am incomplete.

So I gorge on all the things that don’t fill.

Wishing for love that never came.

All my life, yearning for the hurt to stop.

That I would not billow in space without

an anchor.

I want more. I need more.

I wish.  I hurt

and long

and cry

for love and finally, I find it at the Cross.

At peace I lay down my life long yearning.

I am home.

updated March 2, 2010

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It’s Lonely Here on the Wagon

So I quit drinking a while ago.
It was the right decision, for me.
I am addicted. I am
an alcoholic.
I never expected it to be easy; or for life to remain static.
As I see it, I am more present; I am more awake
than I have been in years.
Don’t get me wrong
I — have — hard — days;
Days when stress makes my brain, heart, and thirst buds scream.
I have days when I want to make it all go away!
This is sometimes why
I drank in the first place.
But the more difficult thing, surprisingly,
has been — from — time –  to –  time
I am lonely. And I face,
my old friends are gone
because I drank too much.
And my new friends are gone
because I don’t.
I wasn’t a happy drunk
nor was I particularly sad.
I was sometimes quiet.
I know people who got really loud,
and others overtly friendly, even one
who used to cry.
But now I see drinking, apparently,
didn’t make me ‘fun’ (enough.)
Those people that I gathered with, who seemed
to accept me as one of them;
It must have been that I just didn’t get
in the way.
I was accepted,
because I was a hard drinker, amongst
h a r d  d r i n k e r s.  And now,
I am s o b e r and I feel alone.

Nothing rings louder than a s i l e n t phone;
an empty email box or when one remembers an annual party, uninvited.
We could throw the party, I could make the call, but I’ve tried over time,
and now I’m thinking, they wouldn’t come.

Today it’s an aching heart I deal with;
A feeling which once, ironically,
I would have drowned out with a friendly glass

(or two, or five) of Merlot; anything to forget
this
f e e l i n g.
I have to face it, I am alone in my choices. Alone,
with my memories,
of people I thought were friends.
I am a lot more interesting sober; but I guess not
more fun.

My drinking friendships seemed to have disappeared.
Though I would never have said they were
d r i n k i n g friends.
I thought they were …
Well,
to be honest I thought they were
just f r i e n d s.
You know that phrase that is said when an alcoholic starts drinking again?
She’s “fallen off the wagon.”
Well, all I can say is it’s awfully lonely,
here

on the wagon.

Melody Harrison Hanson
October 31, 2008

This is incomplete as a poem, but full of real issues and emotions.

I Am Destruction

I wake with the familiar headache.
Deeply tired.  My bones in protest.
Emotions already chafing; dazzling, fluorescent, raw. Ablaze.
Coffee the first panacea of the day.
Sip by sip, its power over me if not to heal, then to awaken.

Slowly flooded by familiar disappointment.
Weary, I begin to See myself.
I am Destruction.
I am Broken Promises wielding their power.
The surge of rage,  justified.
It hurts.
My body adjusting to an awareness
of this old enemy within.
Destruction’s impact yet unknown.
Fury toward the innocent who contribute to the chaos
of my life and toward, the hell inside.

10/27/08
by Melody Harrison Hanson

My father was addicted to his rage – he admitted that to me at the end of his life. He wielded it over our family in pathological ways that nearly destroyed my Mother, and at times I feel it in me to either consume me or destroy me. I fear, more than anything, the legacy of that rage in my life.  More than alcoholism, more than depression or even debilitating insecurity. Rage is the ultimate nemesis. The curse he left for the next generation; for me.

Going Quietly Sane

How hard can it be? Some days, too hard.

As you crawl back into bed, pleading with the universe,

To make it all disappear.

You can’t drink away your fear and so,

You choose sleep. It’s the only option,

When you must make your mind stop.

Furtive thoughts, disbelieving truths, you are

Just plain scared. And of what?

Your heart races from thinking too much.

Hands shaky. Breathing in, out. Counting down, 100, 99, …

To slow down your heart,

Your head whispers lies.

You lay there for an unknowable amount of time,

Moments lost forever.

Irretrievable.

Just Gone. And at a certain point you realize that

The panic that quietly stole your day — the lies

From the pit of your heart are untrue.

After incalculable hours lost, never to be retrieved

You get up. You paint your face,

Coif your hair.

You put on pink, the happy color,

The disguise. Just imagine yourself strong.

10/23/08 MHH

My Mother’s Love

My Mother’s love is like no other.
It affirms; its power is profound.
In my mother’s arms
the child in me feels safe.

My Mother’s love is like no other.
It wounds; its hold like a vice;
The power my Mother holds,
wounds the girl in me,
and strangles
the woman I will become.

My Mother’s love
holds the child in me
in a place I want to escape.
I am safe and yet
caught,
strangled by ancient, overgrown vines.

Who am I?
My
Mother’s
Love.

by Melody Hanson, 2004