An Ancestor’s Goodbye – a poem

AN ANCESTOR’S GOODBYE

You came in through the door with the wind, manifesting on a sunbeam. Leaves that didn’t exist to the eye rustled in the ear. The dog barked; the blackbird flew. You lingered quietly in a corner. Then sometime during the night, you were gone with a squeak from the door.

Wanda Paryla 2019

Burden Me, Okay

BURDEN ME, OKAY

I wallow with the burden
A choice I made one day
While the wicked party and play

Fine for me is this burden
The choice I chose to keep
And our fruits each we shall reap

Party and play with deaf ears
Gabriel will announce the sadness
While the wicked party and play

After the final act
They shall fall upon their swords
‘Cuz while the uncaring played, I bore the burden of a life decaying

Through sleepless nights
And fruitless days
I’m leader through the lighted path

I carried it all
So do not dare ask any questions of me
If there are some, look in the mirror for answers or, my God, hit your knees

I wallow with the burden
A choice I made one day
While the wicked party and play

Burden me, okay

Copyright 2018 Wanda Paryla

Where Fires Glow (a poem)

WHERE FIRES GLOW

I was swinging to and fro
Hair flying
Laughing out loud
Barbaric is my memory

Devil’s on the playground
Here to erase my afflictions
God turned his back on me a long time ago
Now I live where the fires glow

Back and forth my memory rages
I struggle to keep my eyes shut
I need to stay where the fires glow
Let me rest in peaceful flame

Bottomless and salty
Protection from truths
Is the pit of the damned
Where the fires glow

Some voices, they urge me
Face your slave masters
But the fires beg me
Cover your eyes for sanity

Devil holds me
Gently in his arms
God’s gone, sweet child
So stay here where the fires glow

The fires
Avengers of my ravaged goodness
I know that I’m safe nowhere
But where the fires glow

Copyright 2018 Wanda S. Paryla

The Crime of a Life Sentence (another excerpt)

*Currently untitled poem*

 

I was swinging

Hair flying

Laughing to myself

Memory running wild

 

Devil’s on the playground

Here to erase my woes

God turned his back on me

Now I live where the fires glow

 

Back and forth

My memory goes

I struggle to keep my eyes shut

I need to live where the fires glow

 

Let me stay in peaceful dream

Bottomless and salty

The pitt of the damned

Where the fires glow

 

Some voices, they urge me

Face your slave master

But the fires beg me

Cover your eyes for sanity

 

Devil, he holds me

Gently in his arms

God’s gone, sweet child

So stay here, where the fires glow

 

The fires

Avengers of my goodness and dignity

I’m safe nowhere

Where the fires don’t glow

 

Wanda S. Paryla Copyright 2016

 

 

 

The Crime of a Life Sentence (excerpt)

Hello there!

Please enjoy this excerpt from my book-in-progress of original poetry, tentatively titled The Crime of a Life Sentence. As mentioned in my previous blog, the publication dates of this work as well as the sequel to Someday Always Comes – The Devil Plays Dice – have been pushed into 2017. I am expecting to publish this particular book April 2017.

The poems in this book have been written over many, many years and when I post an excerpt some will have the original copyright dates.

(Please find the link to my previous blog below this post – I’ve inserted one and there’s the link back under this post if my link doesn’t work.)

 

CRYING AT MIDDAY

Crying at midday
I cannot find the right words to say
What I feel is lost

Staring into space
I recall another time with grace
What I feel is lost

My heart breaks in two
Heart bounded by the tragedy of you
What I feel is lost

I strive to not see
Myself and you surrounded by defeat
What I feel is lost

Copyright 2015 Wanda S. Paryla

 

FALLTIDE

Mysterious sounds creeping
While ravens call weeping
And wait on bare branch swaying

Triangle-eyed, round pumpkins smile wide
Cats use shadows to hide
Orange light seeping out bright

And crackling fires warm the eve
While crisp, crackles the leaves
Fall’s arrived; Winter’s nearby

Copyright 2013 Wanda S. Paryla

 

 

The Devil Plays Dice – excerpt

 

The Devil Plays Dice – Excerpt (and other work)

Greetings! Thanks for reading.

This is a Chapter One excerpt of The Devil Plays Dice – the sequel to Someday Always Comes. This is totally raw and unedited, so beware of crazy wording, long winded-ness, and odd grammar.  😉

The targeted publication date for this sequel was originally September 2016, however, I am embarking on a mid-life career change and moving from Illinois to Texas this coming summer, 2016. So I’ve had to push back the target date to Spring 2017 simply due to editing and cover graphic processes and expenses. But I want my readers, blog visitors, and friends to know that I am writing and working to bring them the best work that I can.

I have my eye set on 2017 for the self-publication of The Devil Plays Dice as well as a book of original poetry currently titled The Crime of a Life Sentence. There is another project I have in the works but I’m not sure where on the wheel of the year that will fall, if in 2017 at all.

I’ll add  excerpts from other chapters, as well as poetry from The Crime of a Life Sentence, and I’ll add information as I go along over the next months and try to keep everyone up to date on the process.

Happy Reading! And thank you for your patience.

 

THE DEVIL PLAYS DICE

 

Our house was in total bedlam with cops and emergency personnel buzzing all around. Hypnotizing red, white and blue lights swirled around the neighborhood like disco balls possessed, ricocheting off buildings, cars, trees; the driveway. It was Spring Break, 2010, but for me it was more like Independence Day, as the strobe lights pierced the twilight like the rainbow colors of sky rockets on the Fourth of July.

 
It was déjà vu, and despite the iron fencing and the fact that our home was far from the street with a driveway two city blocks long separating the road from us, I knew the neighbors and the press had their faces smashed against the vertical bars of the front gates.

 
I’d experienced such bedazzlement before. But this time it was all slow motion to me and came with a much higher price: the newspapers, magazines, and TV news stations to name a few. For heaven’s sake, what were we going to do? The usually reclusive lifestyle my family and I enjoyed was now busted to pieces.

 
God, how I hoped there would be a lesson for the public in this one. Otherwise, my daughter was just a murderer. Plain and simple.

 
My husband, Seth, tried to talk to me but I couldn’t really understand what he said. I stood leaning up against one of the pillars of our front porch. I slid down it landing on the top stair, head in hands, crying like a fool. Emotionally and physically drained, I just didn’t know what else to do. I thought this wouldn’t happen to me ever again. That it couldn’t happen.

 
And then there was Detective Ron Rosales. Yes, you read right. Rosales. He was there too. He was always there. Remember all those things I’d said about cops in the past? Well, Rosales turned out to be different. He kept up with me over the years for the most part. Always checking in on how I was and keeping up with the births of my kids. He and his wife, Anna, visited us now and then, and we them. Getting together for barbecues and such. Anna came to all my baby showers. They didn’t come to our wedding, of course, since we got married so far away and Rosales had to work. Crime doesn’t stop for a trip to the Virgin Islands.

 
Of course, I called him Ron ever after. When my kids were tots, they’d lovingly call him, Detective Ronny. He rushed to Wilmette from Chicago when he heard through the fast-and-furious police grapevine what had occurred at my house. But, I’m not sure if his being there made me feel any better. It did a bit, legally, but not really emotionally. Nothing made it better, despite that he understood me. I never saw this mess coming.

 
The half hour or so before the Wilmette cops showed up were the worst minutes of my life. Now I know what you’re thinking. You read Someday Always Comes, didn’t you? You’re saying, hell no! Something can be worse than some of the episodes in that story?

 
When I finally looked up, my eyes fell on my twelve-year-old daughter, Audra. She was perched on a stone bench in our front yard, poised like a warrior queen, looking at me pitifully as I cried like an idiot. My aunt, Kathy –formerly known as Kiki, sat by her side holding her hand. My lifelong friend, Brianna, stood nearby with her arms folded biting her lower lip, trying to hold back her tears as she nervously turned this way and that way looking for answers she’d never find.

 
Poor Audra. It should’ve been me by my kid’s side, not Kathy. But, I just couldn’t do it. My Audra was way too proud to take my love and coddling. She seems made of stone, that girl. I swear it. I have no idea where she gets that from.

 

No. I could not take care of her. I felt responsible for the whole thing. Seth and me, both. Then there was Kathy and Brianna. They were there too. Nothing we could have done would have change anything. We couldn’t protect the babies. We tried but there was just no way. There’s no way you can do anything when desperate, criminally insane men have their automatic weapons turned on your kids.

 
All our kids were there. Not just mine, but Brianna’s and Kathy’s too. We had no idea where Audra and Diana were when those terrible men busted into our home to terrorize us. But then, an infinite time later, came Audra out of nowhere from below, like a wizard. Like, Rambo.

 
For the first time in many years, terrible menace visited me once again and this time I had no idea how things would turn out. And now that my kid shot a monster, I had serious reservations about Audra’s future as the authorities carried away the body of a dead man-beast from our formerly peaceful abode, all zipped up in a vinyl bag. Yes, it was worse than ever before.

 
What could we do? Despite there were so many of us adults, we were in no position to tackle two madmen with guns and put the kids’ lives in jeopardy, or risk the children seeing one of us killed. I wanted to shield the children. I would’ve died for any of them. Mine, Brianna’s, Kathy’s; even my son, Bret’s, best friend, Donald. Jesus, there was another woman’s child in my house. And his mom wasn’t there. Don’t you people understand that? Another woman who expected me and Seth to guarantee the safety of her son; a woman we’ve known since Bret started kindergarten ten years earlier.

 
There stood Donald, all wide eyed and breathing heavy. Both scared and shocked, but yet I’d look at him and see the wheels turning. He was trying as hard as the rest of us to figure a way out of the mess.

 
And there we all were. All of us with our hands in the air…Seth and me, Brianna, Kathy; dare I say, even my twenty-year old son, Brandon. And we were helpless as one of the crazy monsters waved a gun at my two year old daughter, Abby, threatening me with her life as she cried and sucked on her fingers.

 
Well, there was only one chance…and once the intruders were distracted, Audra shot one of them and killed him. In an instant, instinctively Seth, Brandon, Bret and Donald jumped on the remaining man and nearly beat him to a pulp, wrestling the gun away, as Brianna and Kathy grabbed and ushered the other children out of harm’s way. We always taught our kids to face trouble head on, and Audra did that, despite she had to shoot the prick in the back.

 
Audra did it. She committed murder to save the rest of us. See, I know deep down it’s not about adults versus children. It’s who’s in the position to do the job right, and are they sharp enough, smart enough, steady enough to do what needs to be done if presented with the opportunity to try to put an end to a frightening, potentially deadly situation. And my Audra was, as any of my intelligent children might have been. God knows, they’re all smarter than their mom.

 
Really though, we never know how things will turn out until after we take a chance. Sometimes we are forced to do things we would not normally do for the people we care about; for those who mean the most to us. Sometimes, a bigger tragedy can be stopped by a smaller one, like taking the life of one man, er…fiend, to save the lives of several innocents. We can’t know how things will turn out when we set out with an idea or goal in mind. No matter how safe or scared you feel, no matter how much you plan or don’t plan, care or don’t care…doesn’t matter…just throw any scenario out there. You never know what’s going to happen during the means to an end.

 
Unfortunately for most of us, knowledge comes after the roll of the dice. And we still keep playing.

 

Copyright 2015 Wanda S. Paryla