A Sad Look

If I left

Would you feel

Quite bereft?

Would you know

Where I might

Choose to go?

Maybe you’ll

Think of me,

Wonder what

Came to be?

Ask the sky,

Where is he?

So far gone

You can’t see

Distant light?

Could he be

Lost at night?

Doesn’t sound

At all right.

Once so close,

Spirits tight,

Not so now,

Burning fright.

Moves quite deft

Flames burn bright

Hide the theft

Soon now, no

Chances left?

Author’s Note: Most of this popped into my head late one night when I was sick recently, I think the combination of being up late and being in a daze from medication brought several sad thoughts to the forefront of my mind and then onto a notepad. With a few extra lines and just a little polishing up, this is the result. The title refers to how some people get a look on their face when they’re feeling sad. As for the poem, it’s sort of an exploration of loneliness, with the character wondering whether it would be better to cut their losses and stay alone vice tough things out for another chance. It seems like they’re going to tough it out, since they seem to be very concerned about how much a certain person or persons might miss them.

As an aside, from a structure standpoint, I was inspired in some small part by the blink-182 song “Dammit.” The verses in that song consist of lines that are only 3 syllables long: the result is that a message is sent in fewer words than it might otherwise be, which to me makes that message feel more emotional. That’s sort of how this poem felt, a bunch of emotions hitting the page at a rapid pace.

Tidal Force

Getting better all the time,

Space between worlds increasing.

Quiet times, all on my own

Thoughts inexorably moved

Your direction, past memories

Unfulfilled plans, future dreams.

Invisible force pulls like

Moon pulls blue ocean waters,

Tranquility disturbed as

Waves crash up against the shore,

Waiting for change in the tides.

Author’s Note: This is meant to address how hard it can be, at times, to have friendships (or relationships) separated by large distances. The clash between the first two lines is intentional: sometimes it seems like there’s a bit of a paradox, where when you help your friend with a problem, or vice-versa, your connection is enhanced but then as the problem fades away, it seems like that connection may also fade away for a time. There might be less time to do whatever long-distance hangouts you had enjoyed, but many things remind you of past fun times and whatever additional things you had hoped to do together in the future. At times it can seem like some unreachable, unfeeling, invisible thing is pulling on you, perhaps even disrupting your regular situation. My science side took over here as I thought about how the moon’s gravity pulls on the earth’s oceans and creates tides; but there is no ocean on the moon to be pulled upon by the earth’s gravity. But in truth, both sides are affected or else they never would have been friends to begin with, and eventually some change may help them along.

Red Balloon

heart feels so heavy

pulling spirits down to earth

where’s my red balloon?

Author’s Note: This is a haiku I wrote when feeling down sometime back. I think the first line is kind of self-explanatory, like when you feel so sad it’s like you can’t even muster the energy to get up. At the time it also seemed like everything that might normally get my spirit rising was also getting held down with me. I once saw somewhere that one of the original aspects of haiku is the idea of having a juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated ideas, sort of an abrupt transition. The final line probably seems somewhat unrelated to the sadder feelings of the first two, although one might think a balloon could help (literally) lift someone’s spirits. In fact I had recently watched the Disney movie “Christopher Robin,” in which a red balloon was a rather important symbol. Both Christopher Robin’s childhood “friends” and his daughter held the balloon, which brought them such happiness and joy, but Christopher Robin was so mired in his unhappy life that he was completely unfazed by the balloon. Fortunately that changed in the end of the movie, so finding that metaphorical red balloon here would hopefully relieve the sadness expressed in the first two lines.

PS Apparently my notes on haiku are going to be much longer than the poems themselves!

Cloudburst

Step outside
Rain all around
Nowhere to hide
Storms surround

Water covers
Faces soak
Darkness hovers
Spirits broke

Lightning flash
Thunderous boom
Dreams smash
Fill with gloom

Clouds part
Rage through
Fresh start
Storms renew

Author note: This was inspired in part by watching one day as people at work struggled to get to their cars in the parking lot during a sudden, massive downpour. Some had some serious looks of dismay on their faces, probably that they had meetings to get to elsewhere on our compound and would now be showing up soaking wet. At the time I was also feeling kind of down, but as I jotted the first version of this down on a Post-It Note I remembered: a passing storm may seem violent, even destructive, to us but to nature it’s a form of a renewal.