New Year’s Eve, 2020

Photo by Tairon Fernandez on Pexels.com

It’s December 31, 2020:
Christmas is back in its box,
And I’m ready to cheer
For the end of this year
Full of tragedy, heartbreak and shocks.

I’m not sure next year will be better
After all, it’s only tomorrow,
And if people don’t care
For how other folk fare,
We could be in for more sorrow.

Still, as this horrid year closes,
I’m hoping for a reprieve:
A little more joy,
A lot more hope—
That’s my prayer this New Years Eve.

ⓒ2020 Joanne Van Leerdam

New Year’s Eve, 2020
#NewYearsEve #newyearseve2020 #PoetsTwitter

Tweet

Final Notice.

Listen,
Now that you’ve made it clear
That I don’t matter to you,
I need you to return my things:

The time you were always asking for,
Countless borrowed hands,
The respect you mistook for deference,
The love you took for granted,
My confidence,
My dignity,
And everything else you took
When I wasn’t looking.

©2018 Joanne Van Leerdam

Beloved.

This poem is perfect to share for Valentine’s Day- and every other day!

Photo by Gustavo Fring on Pexels.com

You, my love, are beautiful:
Although form and face may change,
The light of your soul
Burns with inexorable passion,
Tempered with undying love:
In that, my darling, you are
Unequalled by any other.
You are without blemish
Not for any god-like failure to err,
But that in my eyes there is no flaw
That could cause me to love you less.
My beloved, you alone
Are the desire of my heart,
My now, my forever, my destiny.

Dearest heart, do not believe
The world or your own insecurities:
They lie.
Instead, I beg of you, believe me,
For I understand your worth
In a way that you may never do.

ⓒ2017 Joanne Van Leerdam

Shares are welcomed and appreciated.

1.37am

I’m crying when I should be sleeping

And I’m not even sure of what’s wrong,

But sadness whispers it’s cruelest lies

When I’m alone in the dark for too long.

The blackness is filled with aching

And misery heavier than air,

Velvet blankets of darkness enfold me

As I drown in the waves of despair.

I wish that my mind would stop churning,

Let my body and soul find some peace;

But the pain and the fear keep returning,

Denying me any release.

If the coldest, darkest hour,

Is the one that comes just before dawn,

This darkness must give up its power

When the first hint of morning is born.

Oh please, let the first light come quickly

And replenish my heart with its fire

Let the daylight drive out the darkness

And bring me the peace I desire.

©2016 Joanne Van Leerdam

This poem is one of 43 that appear in the collection titled Leaf.

The Artist

Pictures splash furiously onto each page,

Images shaped with both light and shade,

Memories and thoughts, things she wished she had said,

Emotions and fears that had never been shared.

Some pages were dark, some filled with desire,

Yet others glowed with heaven’s own fire;

Some scenes that exposed the true hearts of men,

Were blotched by tears she had shed over them.

Some pictures were smudged, some faded with time,

Others vivid with colour, rhythm and rhyme.

Some portraits brought pleasure, some caused her pain

That she had hoped she might never feel again.

And the truth looked directly back into her eyes,

Its gaze unashamed, its candour undisguised,

For what she had thought had been fiction’s domain

Was staring at her and speaking her name.

The shock of enlightenment jolted her soul –

Each page revealed truths that had never been told;

Every fiction created as part of her art

Had been drawn from the depths of her world-weary heart.

©2016 Joanne Van Leerdam

The Artist is one of my favourite poems from ‘Leaf’.

I was inspired to write it by my friend Nicky, who is an incredibly gifted

artist. On looking at one of her paintings, I commented that I wished I could do what she did.
She said, “You do. You just do it with words.”

 

Leaf is available in your favourite digital bookstore or in paperback.

Late Fall.

Given that ‘New Horizons’ just won first place for Short Story in the Summer Indie Book Awards,  I thought I would share a story from that book this week. 

I hope you enjoy it! 

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she lied.

So he left, not worried at all.

And she stayed, as she always had.

She had always wished he would touch her face gently, or hold her hand, and say he’d be back as soon as he could be. She longed to hear him tell her that there was nowhere else he would rather be than with her. She wanted him to hold her close when the nights were long and lonely. She craved for him to love her the way he had promised to, all those years ago.

But her hopes had faded with her memories of their happiness. For all she remembered of those times, it could have been someone else in the faded pictures in the album that she knew by heart, but could no longer bear to open.

A wedding dress. A baby’s first steps. A smiling couple in front of a small house in the suburbs. A schoolboy. A graduation. Another wedding dress.

The only thing that mattered anymore was the baby, and he was long gone, a grown man living on the other side of the country, pursuing his own hopes and dreams.

Probably for the best, she thought. No point in him knowing what my life has become. Just let him be happy.

What she wanted now was to be somewhere – someone – else.  It almost didn’t matter where, or who. Those things are not so important to someone who has almost entirely forgotten who she used to be.

She gazed at the leaves falling in the yard, flurries of colour falling to the ground, skittering playfully in the breeze.

So free. So beautiful. I wonder how they know when it’s time to fall.

Then she realised: they just do. It just happens.

She  turned away from the window and went to the closet. She took out a suitcase and began to fill it with her things. She was preparing to leap from her tree and fly to another place.

She was afraid of falling; she was afraid of the wind.

But she was more afraid of staying where she was and ceasing to exist at all.

©2016 Joanne Van Leerdam

 

‘Late Fall’ appears in New Horizons.
Find out more at www.jvlpoet.com/books

 

One Less Star.

©

Tonight
Through the tears
That sprang from your pain
And fell from my eyes,
I looked into the sky
Where there was one less star shining,
And I wept for the world
Where life carries on
Just that bit darker
Than before
You left.

©2017 Joanne Van Leerdam

.

.

This poem and fifty others are now published in a new collection: The Passing Of The Night.

Still Here.

Before you read this poem, there is something I would like you to know.

This poem is absolutely, 100% true. It is personal, it is painfully honest, and it tells of my own experience, not anyone else’s.  And you may find it quite confronting.

Despite its darkness, it is written to be positive, not negative. 

It was not written to win sympathy or make anyone feel guilt: it was written so that people might understand what’s in my head, and what I’ve been feeling, and why I’ve made the choices I have.

To answer your concerns: I have chosen to stay here and to defy all impulses that tempt me otherwise. I don’t always feel okay, I’m not always okay, but I will be okay. 

For anyone in a similar position: hold on. Stay here. You matter more than you know. 

For a moment-
One fleeting, isolated point in time-
Or maybe two,
I thought about it.

I had the means.
God knows, I had motive.
But I couldn’t do it to you.

I know you would have understood.
But I know, too, how you would have mourned.
The grief.
The anger.
The questions.
I would have destroyed much more than myself.

So I resisted,
Summoning strength I didn’t have,
Holding on desperately
To everything that matters-
To everything I know that I love-
Even when I couldn’t feel it anymore.

I am thankful to still be here,
Despite my fragile state of mind,
For I know too well what it is like
To be one of the left behind.

©2017 Joanne Van Leerdam

This poem and fifty others are published in a collection: titled ‘The Passing Of The Night’