Love of My Life Poem and Blog For Today

Here is a photo I took just to remind myself of simpler times.

Well, this is the life of a writer.  Get a little ahead, learn a few things, put some real effort into something, and really feel good about yourself, and then a week later wonder why you don’t phone up the local mental hospital to see if they have a bed for you.  Well, to be honest it isn’t that bad.  I find it hard sometimes, especially at this time of the year where there is little work in the Stage Hand business (my day job) and not much to do.  I have been writing quite a bit and I sort of feel like I am growing as a writer, but still there are difficult times now and then.  Today I worked on a poem in Iambic Pentameter, and I don’t know if I completely screwed it up or not.  I also did a bit of investing on some marketing for my book, “Inching Back to Sane” which I hope is going to pay off, though there is no way really to tell.  I think the only thing I can count on is that I have to look at the long term, how things go after years.  I always had the idea of getting rich quick, with little effort.  Now though, I am starting to see that perhaps yes, one day I will have more money than I need, but I may be 78 at the time and on my last lung.  I’m hoping it won’t be that bad, but I don’t think I will be able to live the life of leisure I once thought would be available to me.  I have had times when I have had sums of money, even made a lot and still had a lot coming in, but it ran through my fingers like sand.  Cars, motorcycles, satellite dishes, CB radios, Satellite radio for my car, video games.  The list didn’t seem to end.  Lately I have been reading “Don Quixote” on the recommendation of my cousin’s wife, and I have never gotten so much enjoyment out of something that cost me nothing.  I still have to blow all kinds of cash on all kinds of crap, but for one or two hours a day I am lost in this imaginary world of the Knight of the Rueful figure.  The novel is absolutely brilliant, and I plan to read more extremely long books when I am done it.  I have my eye on an Ayn Rand novel that I want to get through next, I really enjoy her work, though some of my activist friends might take exception to that.  Anyhow, once again, today’s poem is below.  If you enjoy it at all, please let me know, I really enjoy getting feedback from my readers.

 

                                      Here is the skyline of Edmonton, my beautiful home city

 

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS

 

 

I want to learn of all the things you knew

Because I still don’t think that it was true

That you could love a simple guy like me

I want to see what inside me you see

 

You can’t just go and say that I was yours

And never let me pass through all those doors

The ones your father built for you with cash

Before he knew we kept our own small stash

 

Control for him was what it was all about

It never was our love that was in doubt

I may not have been rich like other guys

But I worked hard, loved you and had blue eyes

 

I worked as hard as any guy you knew

There was no question if my love was true

Together we could have made it alone

We could have had a happy little home

 

Then things went bad and I ran away

I did come back but had no words to say

Why I left someone beautiful as you

Whose smile was such an awesome thing to view

 

The truth was that I scared even myself

And life was like the inner ring of hell

I was insane, no other way to say

Why I left you on that last awful day

 

And now I spend each day and night alone

Money can buy a house but not a home

How I dreamed of us having our own son

Loving you and our child us three as one

 

But we make our choices take our chances

That is the way that human romance is

I wish you all the best life has to give

With you or not I will learn to live on

 

 

Leif Gregersen

A Poem About Family and the New Year Plus Blog

Gekko From The Big Island of Hawaii

Good day dear readers!  Much to talk about, much to say.  I have been doing a fair bit of work lately, I have been looking into the field of comic and graphic novel publishing and I am thinking I would like to publish a comic from a script I wrote about mental illness to help educate the teens and young students I will be meeting when I start my new job as a public speaker for the Schizophrenia Society.  It is all really exciting, I have also gotten an offer to set up a writing workshop or two that will actually pay.  I don’t know what concept most of my readers have of writing, but it is a very rare occasion that you make money on anything.  There are postings for people as writers in residence and other things, but I lack the education for such a posting.  I do make a small amount of money on book sales, but when you figure in time and effort and publishing and shipping costs plus all the copies I end up giving out for free, I would be very surprised if I end up breaking even, which really isn’t that bad to be honest.  I love to write, and I love it when others read what I write and give me favourable feedback.  I don’t even mind when people give me negative feedback.  A person the other day wrote to me on this blog about how my belief in God was like believing in Santa Claus and I actually greatly welcomed his comment because it is allowing me to open a dialogue about the whole theology question, which I not only have a lot of experience studying, but a lot of experience arguing about.

It has also been a pretty great week partially because people have been so kind and generous with me in regards to presents, but I am even happier because my sister and my niece are here and I love them both very dearly.  My niece is a joy to be around, I am so amazed at how smart she is.  It is weird that this little girl who I once held in my arms and fed a bottle to can say things like, “Hey dude-watch out!” and all kinds of gems like that.  It really does fill my heart with joy just watching her play.  I think one of the most amazing things about kids is that they really do love people unconditionally.  Nothing can make them stop loving you, except possibly puberty.  It reminds me a lot of when I was a kid and I had this Uncle in Drumheller who was an amazing guy.  I loved him so much, he was a hero to me, he worked as a heavy duty mechanic and heavy equipment operator and he was John freeking Wayne to me.  He was such a dear man and did things like one time my brother and I found a baseball glove, bat and mitt and we were going to share them and my Uncle took my brother’s share of them away from him and gave them to me.  I kept the bat for a very long time and I fear sometimes that my brother still resents that incident.  It did make me feel special though, something that didn’t happen a lot being the youngest although I suppose we all got our measure of love from family, just in different ingredients and measurements.  Anyhow, this is all getting a bit drippy.  I wanted to write a bit about the New Year before I leave you for today’s poem.  It is interesting that the symbol of New Year’s is a new baby who replaces and old man.  It is a metaphor, a symbol of new life, like my niece who is the subject of today’s poem.  I look at her and think of new hope for our family, the idea that we will have this wonderful little human being to represent us after we are gone.  Anyhow dear readers, please give me as much feedback as you can, I hope you enjoy today’s poem which will be below the below photo.  Cheers!!

 

 

Edmonton Art Gallery

Children

 

As mankind approaches a brand new year

And we consider all of our hopes and fears

I think most of those that I hold dear

Some things in my mind become so clear

 

Close friends I lost that once meant so much

Lost lovers who I will never once more touch

Memories and mementos and such and such

Make me wonder if my past is just a crutch

 

My sister tries to come here in this season

I’m glad she comes for a special reason

My dear wonderful niece whose looks are pleasing

Comes along for happy hugs and teasing

 

My sister’s child who I love so dear

The only person for whom I can still shed a tear

Brings me new hope as innocent as a newborn deer

And reminds me that my goal is clear

 

It is a simple goal, I will tell it to you

To be a hero, always be good and true

It’s not fantastic, not anything new

It’s just what I always wished that I could do

 

My brother Kris was that person for me

My hero, my champion who worked to be

A person I could look up to and see

What it meant to be brave, strong and free

 

I suppose soon now that my niece is ten

I will have to look back on these days and remember when

I called her up every now and then

And she inspired me to pick up my pen

 

I want to paint in words her innocent smile

Her happy spirit, pluck and guile

Keep that in my head for a long long while

Pack the words away in a special file

 

She’s growing up so fast, it seems just days ago

Her little mind was eager to soak up all it didn’t know

At ten she is beginning to lose that glow

But we still laugh sometimes and play in the snow

 

I think often it would have been so nice to have my own child

But being a dad seems to just not be my style

And so I will cherish what I have for a while

A sweet niece for whom I will always go the extra mile

 

I look at my little niece and think about how she is so sweet

And how her soft appealing looks can not be beat

She dances and sings and runs me off my feet

Before I say goodbye and into my own space retreat

 

The love for my flesh and blood is so real

I just wish I knew a little more about how it feels

To be the only little one around your family’s heels

And not have an adults more firm ideals

 

I love her so much it hurts to think of the coming day

When she will change and feel a different way

I wish I had the words to help her, to say

That this world is hers in which to laugh and play

 

But the sad thing that I must realize

If I can ever be thought of as wise

No matter how much a family member tries

Each one of us on Earth has a time to live and a time when he or she dies

 

My little one will have to learn through work and play

And not even listen to what her Uncle has to say

Because truly at the end of each new dawning day

We must own our own choices, own the path we take

 

Leif Gregersen

December 29, 2014