Smile

Smile
...a poem for the sycophants

Smile at me,
lips upturned with vague
intentions
denying
your fervor, loyalty, love.
Your mask is slipping.

Copyright 2011 JO Janoski

On a Spring Morning

Across emerald lawns

sunshine stutters through

fan dancing leaves

making music ...

while the birds sing

in perfect harmony,

and it's all so gentle

it makes my heart leap

in sublime appreciation

for something so rare.

 

Copyright 2011 JO Janoski

For the Fallen Soldier

For the Fallen Soldier

Like day falls, your eyes
glistened like an evening star,
illuminating
why we're here and why we stay
and most of all why we go.

Copyright 2011 JO Janoski

Any Port

Three girls, giggling and immersed in conversation, strolled along wide and appropriately named Maple Street. Trees lined the avenue splattering pockets of shade like patchwork, with limbs outstretched in an elegant ballet. The leafy ceiling shielded the friends' raucous conversation, submerging their laughter in a gentle blanket of coolness. The teens moved, stopped to giggle, then walked again in repeated steps making their way down the street.

Meg, the tallest, boasted sunshine eyes that never wavered. And Pat, the grounded one, pushed brown-rimmed spectacles on her nose and glanced to the third girl, Josie. Josie always looked rustled and discontent.

"Josie, do you believe what Meg said!"

Josie looked back, perplexed. She hadn't been listening. She rarely did, being the odd one in the group and always off base with her surroundings. Normally, she found their conversations silly, but the other two made good company, or at least it was better than being alone. It got her out of the house, that asylum house. She ran trembling fingers through her Medusa hair and looked to Pat with large, dark eyes that hovered over her tenuous lips.

"What did she say?"

"Josie, do you ever pay attention? This idiot just said she's asking Butch Hartley out? Do you believe that?"

"Who is Butch whatever?"

Pat threw her arms up in exasperation. "I'm a genius between two morons!"

They reached the intersection and stopped. On the opposite corner the town "character/nut job"--known simply as "Daniel" hovered, muttering and shaking one fist in the air, engrossed in earnest conversation with an imaginary foe. If he did it only this one day, he might not have built a reputation on it. But Daniel spent every afternoon in the same manner, cussing and hopping around on that corner in a rage. Constantly disheveled, hair spiked, his haunted, red eyes looked to a curious world of demons. Close up, where you could taste the effluvia of his nightmare, he presented a frightening spectacle. But from a distance his antics remained harmless, even comical.

The vacant corner of Maple and First was his regular haunt. One would think, assuming he was drunk, he'd want to be near a bar; unless you were one of the people who knew he actually didn't drink, that Daniel was simply crazy.

Josie knew. He was her brother. But not many people were aware of it, certainly not her girl friends. She kept it secret. To let it fly out and be announced would humiliate, blacken, destroy her. People would match her up with him like they belonged together, like they were both crazy. 

"Oh God!  There’s Daniel!" Meg declared. "Don't cross the street! Let's get out of here!"

Josie's mind blasted into a thousand pieces as she tried to slow her thoughts and find her bearings. Her burning cheeks!  Would her red face give away her secret? It felt like her face must be apple red.

"I wouldn't want to interrupt that lively conversation he's having with himself!" Pat added, a wry smile passing her lips.

Josie caught her breath. They didn’t know, did they? That Daniel was her brother? He seemed bad today, obviously off his meds. She never knew what he'd be like, minute to minute.

"Josie, are you coming?"

The other two stood importantly, hands on hips. Josie's mind raced. Those girls' biggest problem was who to ask for a date. So easily they could dismiss the fellow on the corner!  The dull thumping in her head eased and the burning in her cheeks cooled. 

"I'm coming!" she said. The sooner, the better. Besides, didn't they say any port in a storm? Any port. A hell of a storm. She’d just keep walking with them...keep walking. They didn’t know. She was safe. Get out of here. Any port.

Copyright 2011 JO Janoski

Waiting

Translucent

lily pad thoughts float

aimlessly,

gurgling by

on restless waters humming,

waiting to begin.

Photo & Poem Copyright JO Janoski 2011

Lost at Sea

Lately I skim along time's glass surface.

Indecision, confusion fill my days

as I wonder what is my life's purpose.

I slip, I slide. My mind is in a daze.

My feet walk on ground with no real design.

My being boasts no guidance through life's maze.

My fate is clear. To wander I resign.

Anchors away! I'm truly lost at sea.

I'll splash. I'll flounder til the end of time.

Is this it? Is this the essential me?

But wait! Do I sense your dear presence near?

Remembrances! Of how we used to be.

In a flicker, in a light, one so dear,

spinning dreams in rainbow-sparkled starlight,

My soul ignites as clarity appears.

Dear one, you come when darkest is the night,

to light the way to my illusive soul,

where necessary wisdom knows what's right.

Copyright 2011 JO Janoski

To Linger

Your voice, a hymn

sprinkling yellow daffodils

on a brown, ugly world.

Your tone is hushed

like soft winds,

brushing treetops

left scraggly 

by December's cold whip.

You try to smooth the edges

with the sound of your voice.

But recalcitrant winds persist

snapping willy-nilly

at the landscape at night.

You awaken and find

the daffodils have died.

But you are Spring

and you linger,

knowing time is on your side.

Copyright 2011 JO Janoski

 

 

That Great Unknown

Loneliness

defines my spirit

as I walk That Great Unknown

wondering where I am to go now,

to settle on life's purpose.

Is this all there is

or will be?

In these times

I sense your shadow

but know I'll never see you.

On sunny days I foolishly think

you're walking with me, smiling.

I should know better.

You are blind.

Why should I

not have your secrets

to explain uncertainty?

I want to know all explanations,

and ascertain all reasons,

life with no riddles.

To see all.

Will you walk

with me and whisper

secrets of That Great Unknown,

fill my mind with knowledge eternal?

Alas, I knew you would not.

My only chance is

to have faith.

Copyright 2011 JO Janoski

Meeting by Chance

Lingering
like a full moon glares
steady and implacable
your eyes, fireworks, hang in mid air
portent, heavy, dripping stars
to meet my glimmer
in return. 

Copyright 2011  JO Janoski

Inspired

Snow and ice has worn my world
down to grass flattened
by the weight of my very shoes.
Trees are chopped, truncated, blunt
like that crazy brainstorming
I used to do,
now deafened.
All is bleak until I clear my head
and note the translucence of melting snow
and ponder how white is white
if you can see through it
like an icy waterfall of doubt.
My eyes detect a movement
of grasses blowing
like a thousand hands clapping.
In this frozen abyss they prosper
taking center stage on a field of white
making noise with their movement
like fans cheering or monks gyrating
in praise to the Lord.
They call to me and whisper,
"Encore!"
Back to real life, inspired.

Photo and Poem, Copyright 2011 JO Janoski

Ice

I feel a rush
iconoclastic
and out of place
in this winter-soft paradise.
The air, it balloons with whispers
moist, they sparkle
and drip into my very fiber
wet and expectedly quiet.
The sun pushes rays
across purified snow
like red sleds gliding
producing a line of power strokes,
orange hot yet misleading
when one is surrounded by ice.
I'm not sure whether to feel
ambivalent or blessed.

Copyright 2011 JO Janoski

Snow

Satin streaks reaching
across snowy fields
like hymns hovering
above still white ground.
Can you hear voices,
angels too humble
to show their faces
or murmur their names,
ringing out sweet songs
in adulation
of all magical.

Photo & Poem Copyright 2011 JO Janoski

Minute by Minute

Her voice startles me in the somber quiet of the waiting room.

"What is that thing?" she asks.

I look over in surprise and then explain it is a Sony pocket ereader. It holds books and news.

She asks me in garbled language whether it goes online. At least I think that's what she means. It sounds as though she doesn't know much about computers to ask the question. I explain it does not, and that I have to upload books from the computer myself. She glazes over, and I turn away, back to my own business.

Three seats away, a fellow's iphone blurts out a sentence fragment--"Hello" in a big, sunny female voice that shatters the waiting room's silence like glass breaking. He stifles it and curls up into himself. I go back to my reading while particles of guilt pick at my brain's outer layers. The woman next to me. She only wanted someone to chat with. Her eyes when I look are restless, nervous. Pill bottles poke out of her hand bag. She's taken a seat too close to me. Only one empty chair separates us. That's bad form. The guy's iphone blurts out again, and once more his quick stifle.

Are we becoming a generation of isolationists? All of these electronic gizmos...with them, we can communicate in other ways instead of with those in the present. And for me, an old-fashioned book is easy to lay aside, but an electronic ereader demands respect. It is too important to lay aside. All shiny and trendy. It's not some paper book with bent corners and dirty, crinkled pages.

In the exam room, I wait some more. The doctor hurries in. He signs insurance papers for me while at the same time scans a monitor. I correct and add to some of what catches his eye. He helps me to the exam table and starts the required poking and prodding. All comes to a complete halt listening to my heart. He puts his hand on my chest and listens more. The silence in the room deafens me. He asks when I last had an EKG. He says he heard an extra heart beat. I've been without insurance for a while, so I tell him at least three years have gone by. He orders one and says he'll be back.

Later, after the test, he smiles and states my EKG is better than his. I'm released from the brief worry and switch back to regular mode, pondering as is my fashion, if the remark is from the doctor's box of standard words and phrases, like, "Take two aspirin and call me in the morning." It doesn't matter. Standard phrases mean life is normal. That's the main thing. Normal.

Copyright 2010 JO Janoski

Secret Santa

Joey felt his pulse quicken as he read the name on a crinkled piece of paper: Sarah Getty. Of all people, he got Sarah in the Christmas grab bag. Sarah, the most beautiful girl in creation with long red hair that cascaded and bounced in the sun like jewels. But a ready smile that illuminated even the darkest day was her finest feature. He crunched the paper in a sweaty palm and stuffed it in his shirt pocket. How in the heck could he buy her a gift when he couldn't even afford lunch money? And she deserved the most fabulous gift in the world.

After school he took a walk around town, just to look. The streets hummed with busy shoppers, pushing and shoving, rushing, their arms weary from dragging packages. He surveyed them and wondered how they had so much money to buy all that stuff. His fingers pushed around in empty pockets, except for a few coins and $5.00, a part of which was already spoken for to buy groceries for his mom. It was only the middle of December, so he had two weeks to go on his scrawny finances. His mom did her best to give him a few bucks. But being a single mother with four kids was a challenge. He had learned to grow up early, filling in where Dad used to be, helping around the house and taking care of his brother and sisters. Mom worked two jobs, so someone had to keep an eye on the kids, make them meals, help with their homework. Even now, he didn't have long to linger before he needed to get home before the younger ones got in from school.

He walked further, lost in thought, bemoaning his miseries, when to his surprise he walked right into a red kettle Santa, knocking the fellow off his feet and slamming to the pavement.

"HEY! What the heck!" the guy yelled.

Joey, red-faced, extended a hand to help him to his feet. "I'm sorry, Mister. I wasn't looking." He uttered the apology in breathless gasps. Santa was a portly fellow to lift.

Whimsical, button eyes peered back at him and a smile scampered across Santa's face. "No harm done, sonny! We're all busy. Ho, ho, ho!"

Joey chuckled. "You take your job seriously, I see. What with the ho, ho, ho and all."

"It's not a job. It's a calling."

Joey stepped back. "I see," he said, smiling. His eyes wandered to the red kettle where a twenty-dollar bill peeked out from the contents. What a great gift he could buy with that twenty dollars! What was he thinking? Ripping off Santa!

"It's a bad idea," Santa murmured.

Joey looked back in surprise. His mind raced and the urge to steal was quickly replaced by humiliation and confusion, confusion as to how Santa knew what he was thinking. It was all more than he could handle. He turned on his heel and sped away.

On Christmas eve, Joey walked to school like an inmate heading to the chamber, head bowed, dragging his feet which shuffled as though in chains. He had no present for Sarah Getty for the grab bag. There was bound to be an awkward moment coming when no gift would be found with her name on it. Stunned silence would fill the room as everyone looked around in horror. Maybe he could stand up and give her whatever he got. He could step forward like a gallant fellow saying, "Who is the jerk that didn't buy you a gift? Here, take mine!" He would look like a hero and no one would suspect him as the creep who left Sarah empty-handed. Joey grunted. No way he could pull that off! He ached with guilt and a host of other unsettling emotions. His embarrassment would surely betray him.

As Mr. Findley, the teacher, picked up the final present, Joey fought back the urge to go screaming from the room. Sarah Getty sat expectantly, and he knew she thought that last package was hers. But it wouldn't be. He fingered the gloves he had been given by Jean Hardy. They were a nice gift, but he could hardly offer them to Sarah. What would she do with a man-sized pair of gloves? His heart rat-tat-tatted in his chest. If only he could disappear.

The teacher glanced at the gift tag and announced, Sarah Getty.

That girl rushed to the front to receive her gift. Joey watched, his blood freezing in his veins inch by inch as his panic lengthened. Who gave her a gift?

She tore into the tiny present, ripping off wrapping paper, tossing ribbon aside, finally to uncover a jewelry box. She opened the lid and smiled. Lifting a gold necklace for all to see, she read her Secret Santa's name, which prompted her to smile at Joey and toss him a kiss.

"Thank you, Joey! It is exactly what I've been wanting," she said.

Joey grinned like a lovesick sailor. And then the mystery hit him. Where did the gift come from? And why did the card say it was from him? But memories of that kiss took over his mind, and he walked home thinking of nothing else. As he passed the red kettle Santa, that portly fellow chuckled and murmured, "Ho, ho, ho!"

And people don't believe in Santa! Go figure! Ho, ho, ho!

Copyright 2010 JO Janoski

Christmas Bells

Silver resplendent

musical ribbons twirling

to wrap doubting hearts

in vision-warmed memories

of childhood wonders,

an inspiration unsought

while painting Christmas in thought. 

Copyright 2010 JO Janoski

Away

Skimming
slip-sliding through
skating gliding on by,
beware, speed demon, blurring life
away.

Copyright 2010 JO Janoski

Seeing You

Liquid rapture runs
like coffee hot and brewed strong.
Seeing you does that.
Sets my mind to percolate
tastes and smells inviolate.

Copyright 2010 JO Janoski

Night Walk

Beneath gray skies and nightly shimmers
I walk in the stillness of the night.
Silence whispers, a dull moon glimmers.
The world freezes in a blast of light.
I step between the moment's shimmers
in that space to see what is, what might.
Clarity speaks in wisdom grandiose
ensconced in whispers from nightly ghosts.

Copyright 2010 JO Janoski

Life Lesson

He m

aintained a position of ongoing inquiry, his face tilted, eyes laughing while a matching grin pasted to his face. But the man revealed this lofty persona only to a few ... that being his students, and only in their lessons.

In contrast to the playful expression, most times he walked plainly, hands at his side, feet dragging, a vision dull and nondescript, coasting up and down the hallways at school like a ghostly ship lost at sea. He moved now in this sluggish way to a student across the room, at a moment’s notice to animate and project those lively eyes in the boy’s face.

“And how would you define hatred, Master Peters?”

Young Jim Peters looked back in alarm. When the teacher, Professor Stein, used the prefix, “master” to address a student, he meant business.

“Professor, I don’t think it really exists as an actual thing, per se. I think hatred is simply a perception, a word we use to describe when disagreeing with someone...it indicates one’s frustration and disappointment with another person. It's a descriptor existing only in thin air.”

“Is that so?” Professor Stein turned on his heel and walked away. With his back turned to the class, he paused, head bowed, one hand stroking his chin. He turned to face them.

“How many of you agree...that hatred has no real substance and only exists in the mind of the beholder?”

Startled classmates glanced at one another before one scant girl in the front raised her hand.

“It’s...it’s not nice to hate. We wouldn’t want to give it that much importance. It is inconsequential. It is an annoying fault of human character ... meant to be ignored.” The skinny, little blond sat back as though waiting to be pounced upon for her remark.

“I see,” the professor replied, pacing across the room in obvious thought. He turned and walked back front and center again. “And so, you feel that hatred is this flighty, little annoyance that you can swat away like a fly when it bothers you?”

“You make it sound lame,” a fellow in the back stated.

“It’s not like that! Hatred is painful to feel. It eats you up inside,” another quipped.

“Yeah, don’t talk down to us!” one brave soul offered.

Professor Stein glared at his class. “Who has taught you this nonsense?” He asked this slowly and in the slightest of whispers.

The students once again looked perplexed, searching their ranks for answers.

Eyes blazing Professor Stein asked, “If feeling hatred is so hard on the purveyor, then don’t you think the one on whom it is lashed must suffer a million times as much?”

Silence.

He continued. “So, you are surprised to hear that the hatred you feel can cause pain to another. It is not simply all about you and your ‘discomfort.’”

He waited.

“Even just a hateful stare can slice through the heart of another,” Professor Stein continued. “And when your hate is trivialized by you, pushed aside like an unwelcome visitor, it will not stand for that. It eats you up inside, building a voice, getting stronger. It demands that all can see and feel it. It demands recognition.”

The lights in his eyes went out, and that dull professor returned. With a shaky hand, he rolled up his sleeve. He took short, nervous breaths as he did so. Pulling back the cloth, a smudge on his left forearm glared out at the students. Closer observation revealed a triangle with three numbers, 6-6-9, tattooed on the skin. The lines were drawn in scrawny animation, angular and irregular, racing across weathered flesh. The numbers screamed out the horrors of decades past, a time these students could only read about in books.

“I got this in a Nazi concentration camp in 1942. This is what happens when hatred is left unacknowledged and unchecked to run free.”

Like leaves rustling in the wind, a stunned reaction blew up and down the rows of students. The professor didn’t notice. He was a man alone.

“It hurt when they punched the needles into my arm, but even more the tool sliced into my soul and sucked it out. They took it from me.

“I was excrement to them. They reduced me to nothing, no humanity, no soul, a cattle to call, branded like an animal. My dignity, my life, my family, my friends, all gone. They spat on me, and they kicked me, and left me to lie in my own filth.” He turned his back to the class.

“You can’t treat it so lightly. You must learn to acknowledge hatred’s power over you and dig it out -- find the roots and dig it out, to fight it with the only force strong enough to win against it. For God’s sake, counter it with all the love the angels can inspire. 

"For me, this is a daily struggle. I wake up and my first thought is I have another day of hate emerging, kicking and scratching to be set free -- memories haunt me ... memories of them watching me, their eyes burning; but in my next breath, I ask my heart to listen. I offer it love to conquer the hate. Each day my blackened heart tires more of my pacifist ramblings. It shudders and makes room to let a little more love in, a little more of me back ... someday, God willing, I'll be purified and emerge whole again. Would that my enemies would have tried each morning to find love in themselves instead of hate for me.”

He realized he’d said too much, and shaking himself from the nightmare, he walked back to stand behind his desk. He stood tall.

“Class dismissed,” he said. 

A life lesson had been given, from he who lived it.

Copyright 2010 JO Janoski

Night Sounds

Night Sounds

Winds are moaning

like an old man 

straddling a cane.

And rain rushes,

reminding me of the sound 

of trains speeding by  

on lonely nights...

like this one.

Copyright 2010 JO Janoski