Sunday, November 28, 2010


Mixed Metaphors

The lead weight of love’s double-edged sword
make fast the ties that bind
tugging at my heartstrings
paralyzing a lifelong desire for solitude
as deadening as nails in a coffin
suffocating the impulse
to drive on
down the outstretched
intoxicating never-ending
ribbon of road
leading to the paradise of nothingness
extending like an unfurled magic carpet
always before me.


© ACG
28 November 2010

Saturday, November 20, 2010


Sinking


The cold seeps in,
the gray dankness
of Winter’s first breath
fogs my world.


From within I feel
the same chill coming.


© ACG
20 November 2010

Tuesday, November 16, 2010


Pallas and Phoebus

Those two eternal siblings,
strong and bright
through the ages ~
complementing and conflicting;
one with stoic wisdom flashing,
leading ever forward,
her beauty disarms;
one with magnetism gleaming,
impetuosity tempered
by white-hot charms.

She sprang, fully-formed,
armed and absolute,
as if from me alone,
as if her shield read:
~ non requiritur pater ~
fiercely independent,
my green-eyed Aly,
a Palys golden-haired
goddess of wisdom and battle,
she glides with ease
and gentle step
~ her warrior’s heart ever alert ~
silently making her way
along her chosen path.

Sunlight bright, this boy
rises dynamic born,
righteous reflections
~ Just John ~
an undeniable enveloping,
irresistible grin
drawing you in,
with empathy renown,
he generously shines,
as Phoebus’ chariot
brought light and warmth
through the cold morning sky;
conquering darkness is his destiny.



© ACG
15 November 2010


Saturday, November 13, 2010


River

The force that endured,
that raged,
that cut through
and created
the Grand Canyon
is hard to visualize.

Her eyes were a river’s ribbon
of steely blue
raging
and cutting through
five hundred years
of brown-eyed Turkish domination,
somehow enduring
to flow into my veins.

“Luba” ~
the Macedonian word
for love ~
in any language:
complicated.

I loved her sweet smile,
her crocheted treasures,
Christmas cookies
like no others,
the twinkle in her eye;
yet never did she let me in,
her magic and her mystery
were her own,
I could see
that all her love and loyalty
rested only with her son
not her daughters
(one, my mother):
I did not like him.

Strange accent and strange beliefs;
her past distorted
and unknown to me,
her perspective
from another time and place,
my love was tinged by distance
that I could not cross;
never as close to her
as to my other grandmother,
whose sweet sad elegance
seemed more familiar.

Her complications conspired
to preserve the reserve
from which she saw the world;
it rarely cracked.
I could not see
her protective wall
for what it was;
her strength escaped me,
only later would I see it,
could I know it,
long after she was gone,
and my own steely-eyed children
chose their middle names
Luba and Alexander ~
their homage
to a Macedonian past,
and her.

I can see her reserve
in their eyes;
I know now,
finally
what she saw,
understanding
what lay behind
her laughter ~
it had its own accent,
an echo down through time,
that mirrored the twinkle
in her ice-blue eyes ~
like a river,
raging,
cutting,
like a secret flash,
enduring wisdom,
a knowing unshared
like the never-revealed
ingredient in a recipe ~
her secret,
she alone
knew the punchline.

I survived.”



© ACG
13 November 2010

Tuesday, November 09, 2010


The Wall

She stands alone;
she feels weak,
a coward with her back
against a wall;

pushed there time and again
by the demands of others
and her own fierce loyalty
to those she loves.

What she cannot see
is that the wall
shelters and protects
all of us,

and without her,
we crumble:

her back
holds up
the wall.


© ACG
08 November 2010
~ for my mother