Poem – Winning a War With Time

Published May 28, 2023 by Nan Mykel

NAN

87

And time’s short

She might not remember

Today, tomorrow, or a minute from now

Something important for the next generation

A central tremor waves the lines of each written letter

But she’ll never surrender

Just hold down the fort

condo 1004A

Stockpile the ammo!

Half a dozen pens and pencils

Between the bed sheets

Notebooks and tissues

Magazines and books afloat the waves of the unmade bed

A trail of trailmix down the hallway

fiery passion

And a zest

Words of wisdom are held captive on the page

Waiting to be released

As each one of them is read

And that’s how you win a war with time

While sitting in bed.

Shared with permission of Nan’s friend Carrie Carson

Felix’s Poem

Published May 24, 2023 by Nan Mykel

BIRTHDAY BLUES VS.BIRTHDAY BLESSINGS

I’m an octogenarian of 85.

My antiquity astonishes me.

I’ve got three types of cancer.

I don’t see, hear, or walk well.

I’m a medical dumpster fire,

a near senile, geriatric elder,

doddering, decrepit, obsolete,

out-of-date, far past my prime.

Still I embrace my life’s remnants.

Never has time been more valued,

nature’s splendor more precious,

loved ones more deeply cherished.

I now take life day by day,

savoring each dawn as a gift.

Living is intensely relished.

I intend to try lingering longer.

Felix Gagliano, May 2023

Look at Me

Published April 6, 2023 by Nan Mykel

I am a bear.

But am I really?

My identity is caught

mid-stream.

Can you help me out?

When you look in my eyes

what do you see?

Do you see you or

do you see me?

No longer a living tree,

what have they done to me?

Cast into the scuzzy borders

of someone else’s reality (yours).

Caught in the net of your own

imagination, fake firefly in a jar.

Who am I to you? Who are you to me?

Shells, washed up on imaginary

beaches, carry life forms, sometimes

not. Look in your mirror and see

is it you or me caught in transit?

Nan

A Little Poem

Published March 31, 2022 by Nan Mykel

WANTING TO BELIEVE

On the farm, at five, I remember

both realising and regretting

that no one else could share

my experience, that each of us

is separate. I still regret it.

As a youth, at bedtime, I would

sometimes hold one arm up

in the air for minutes. Any

involuntary movement of my arm

might be by God.

One day while in college I

had a flash, a “knowing” that we

are all together in our dreams.

Hungry for connection, I still hope

for something to be true.

Nan March 2022

KEEPIN’ ON

Published March 1, 2022 by Nan Mykel

Image: Pixabay

KEEPIN’ ON

Don’t say why, say how.

Why presupposes an

unattainable degree

of reason, as in truth.

Happiness happened

in graduate school, with

wonder and growing edges

always in process,

Connecting in the same

tongue searching for the

how, puzzled by all the

unsolved mysteries

All the learning not

yet used! The flying bishop,

prophetic dreams, who,

what when where how

The tip of the plow

still unearthing that

which might be now

or in the future.

Could quantum mechanics,

going with the flow, free us

to occupy a niche in

our haunted cave?

I’m still curious and

not willing to leave my

lust for understanding

back with my bones.

Should that occur, I shall

go out hollering and hope

to transition into someone

else’s Muse.

COVID REVERIE

Published January 29, 2022 by Nan Mykel

Photo by Nan

COVID REVERIE

Snow is on the ground

I am snug in bed

What will I feel

When I am dead?

The child’s stark cry

Of where did she go?

Still puzzles me

I just don’t know

Gone in a second

Quick as a blink

I won’t have words

With which to think

Go with the flow

I can’t tell me

What’s the good of

A college degree?

Ha! don’t I wish that…

Memory was gone

Bad things said and

bad things done.

Bad is a word and

I won’t have those

But tears are wet

As everyone knows

What am I made of

Not sugar and spice

Maybe crawdads and

Poo and not a thing nice

But bereft of a heart

I can still feel. Yes I can

And sense old friends

In La La Land

Lacking ears to hear

Or heart to pound

I can still make out the

Celestial sound

We lost a lot

When words came to stay

And nibble away knowing

The old fashioned way.

Dead, I am mycelium

A piece of the whole

No lungs but I breathe

An old old soul

Dead to the world

I live with old friends

Who welcome me back

Again and again.

Nan January 29, 2022

AN Oldie — At Heaven’s Gate

Published December 5, 2021 by Nan Mykel

AT HEAVEN’S GATE

What do you really hope for

after death pulls the shade

on you? To remember?

How we value our consciousness,

our me-ness!

Perhaps we re-emerge with the womb.

Would that be progress?

Who said anything about progress?

Was it AmWay?

Were we meant to always

be separate?

What does meant mean, anyway?

I wouldn’t opt for hell, but not to

be disrespectful I don’t want to be

dandled on another father’s knee

forever, either. (What a mouthful, “forever.”)

Do I really want to be alone forever?

(Just not with some people, I guess.)

While I don’t want Groundhog Day

every lifetime, is it all downhill

after this? Back to an atom after

Beethoven?

I won’t care any more. They say I’d better

“let go” or stay on as a ghost.

Dust to dust. Hey! I’m in here!

Like sleeping, they say. But no dreaming?

What do you want to dream about forever?

The past? The future? The eternal now?

Maybe we’ll lightly settle on a higher plain.

(Higher than what? Lower than what?)

A small voice inside says, “Hey.

I want outta here.” But not really.

If I really had my druthers

I would like to be welcomed back by

those many lives who have shared my

soul in ages past, to embrace and

melt into a reunion, at long last

home again, for now.

Nan Mykel 2015

They Cost You Nothing; They Have No Value

Published September 5, 2021 by Nan Mykel

While re-organizing, I came across the following poem by a member of our Poetry group, and have graciously been permitted to share it with you. It is by Patricia L.H. Black, written in 2/2018. An earlier poem of hers can be found on my Flash Fiction and Poe/try Page, titled “What’s Wrong With This Picture?”