Missing Felicia...

 

Author	Date Entered/Modified	Views
Daniel A. Stafford	8/10/2000 5:46:09 AM 9/28/2022 4:19:38 AM	871

Missing Felicia

Aunt Felicia, friend and confidant,
Raven hair, tall slender good looks,
What more could you want?
Nephew who listens to your ideas, not books.

Teenage years, so uncertain who to be.

There were things you told me then,
No, I'll never forget when,
I always listened, to your voice,
Because I trusted in that choice.

Could you sing Rose Garden for me again?

You friend Carol my not-so-secret crush,
And the things you blatantly said made a freshman blush,
Moonlight bike ride along the beach,
Certainty just a bit out of reach.

Where, oh where could you be?

Those younger days haunt me now,
Because it's clear that I don't know how,
To find you or to come near,
You're hiding in the pictures and the voices that you hear.

Tiffiny looks so like you I can hardly believe my own eyes.

I heard California is the place for you,
But since Grandma died, I wonder if that's so true.
Your daughter a young woman now,
It's been so many years,

But you are one of the voices, that I'll always hear.

I miss you.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C)08/10/2000

By: Daniel A. Stafford

Author's Comments

My Aunt Felicia. She was like a mix between teacher and confidant.
One year older than me, and we used to spend hours talking late
into the night one summer that she came to stay. We were riding my
bike down past the beach when a dog chased us, laughing home.
All I know now is that she succumbed to her battle with
schizophrenia and is in a home somewhere in California.
It's been since I was in high school that I last saw her. Her daughter
Tiffiny is now just a bit older than she was then and her mother's spitting
image, very near. (Update 2022: Aunt Felicia passed away several years ago. She will never be forgotten.)

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Author	Date Entered/Modified	Views
Daniel A. Stafford	8/10/2000 5:46:09 AM 9/28/2022 4:19:38 AM	871

The Weight Of Ghosts...

The Weight Of Ghosts...

Life is like an egg timer,
Or maybe an egg shell,
Or some other fragile damn cliche.

I know the richness of memories,
Times and places only a very few will know,
Less and less every year,
But I remember.

We're like cloud shapes in the sky,
Just visible for a blink or two,
But I have seen some seriously good ones.

It's comical,
When I talk to someone half my age,
The backdrop they're missing,
Utter cool evaporating on the wind.

Faces,
Places,
Times and sayings,
Hair and clothes and music,
But people,
People most of all.

The thought of no one knowing who they were,
That's crushing,
And I wonder if that's what truly ages us,
The sheer weight of ghosts.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 07/25/2018

The Shores of Forever...

Post by AquarianM on Feb 5, 2006 at 10:44pm

The Shores of Forever...



The winds and waves,
Only together make the sands,
You stand upon walking,
The shores of life are long,
May you together create,
Daily the love you stand upon,
The shores of forever to reach.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
©1/07/2006

Author's Comments:
For Dan & Ola.

Words are the mind's bridge - it's connection to the universe.
Love is the heart's bridge - it's connection to all other souls.
Loving words can work miracles.
---------------------------------------
All of my published poetry is at:
www.lulu.com/spotlight/coloringbookforallages

A Season Of Fire...

Post by AquarianM on Jan 9, 2010 at 7:07am

A Season Of Fire...

In the mist of distant memories you dance,
Twirling on a pedestal I know should be burned to the ground,
Bedazzling and life-like though you are more a china doll,
Though exquisite in detail not real,
The memory of my deepest blush,
Object of obsessive worship,
Where I fell to the darkest cold depths of frozen Hell,
In the aftermath of encountering the reality,
Of loving and living with you.

Despite the fire in eyes of cinnamon,
Despite your hair down,
Despite the platinum sweet of my tongue,
I couldn't satisfy your twisted fires,
I was a square peg - by nature not nurture,
There was no way I could learn what you needed me to be,
Because just knowing isn't enough.

I remember the Heaven of you in the soft crush of my arms,
Only for one Summer,
All my life I'll carry a torch I can't put out,
Giving my love honestly somewhere else,
Tormented and blessed,
By the memory of a season of fire.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 01/09/2010

Why Poets Poem And Painters Paint...

Post by AquarianM on Mar 12, 2010 at 1:31am

Why Poets Poem And Painters Paint...

It could be some wonder under the stars,
It could be some ancient goddess from story jars,
It could be a sentimental sin,
But then,
Again,
I think it's just the thief named Time,
That endless robber of yours and mine,
The one who takes the frightened rabbits away,
Which we all become someday,
And because places lose their magic all too soon,
When the people who were there fly over the Moon,
And youth is wasted when it's taken away,
And friends and lovers deserve a lot more days,
Just like mothers and fathers and grands,
Great and more they take their stand,
But the river of time sweeps us all off of our feet,
And no one knows how to swim.



For Aunt Felicia...

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 03/12/2010

Words are the mind's bridge - it's connection to the universe.
Love is the heart's bridge - it's connection to all other souls.
Loving words can work miracles.

Author's Note:

Aunt Felicia was my best friend and confidant when I was in high school, she's 11 months older than I am. In my sophomore year, she and my Grandmother moved away to Detroit. A year later, she was diagnosed with full-blown schizophrenia and institutionalized. My Grandmother refused to tell me for many years even WHERE she was at. She had a daughter that same year, who has grown up to be a wonderful woman with a stable family. She's really pulled herself up by her bootstraps. She also looks so much like her mother it's eerie sometimes. I haven't seen my Aunt since I was in high school. I've tried to call, but she hangs up the phone on anyone who calls there. Her daughter went to visit last year, she hadn't been near her mother since she was an infant. From what she tells me, it was as good a visit as one could have under the circumstances. Sometimes, especially now when her birthday is coming near, it really gets to me how tragic life can be.



*Update:Aunt Felicia passed away from cancer a few years ago. She is remembered with love by myself and her daughter Tiffiny to this day.

Dan

Modern posting: https://grymwyre.blogspot.com/2026/03/why-poets-poem-and-painters-paint-rudux.html

Artists’ Card Project – Ace Of Hearts

Working on a project with 54 other artists, mostly from the Madison, WI area, to create a deck of cards. I picked the Ace of Hearts as my card. Here’s the final artwork version.

Keep looking up,

Dan

Click to enlarge pic

He flashes through clouds and vapors,

Ducking birds on the wing,

Scarf whipping in the prop-wash,

A race with Cupid to be won,

For there in his sights lies the most tender target,

A beating lonely heart,

Wishing and hoping for just that one shot,

The one that ends it all,

In a flash of ever-after joy,

He tips the stick forward and dives for it,

Goggles gleamingly clear,

He pulls the trigger on love,

Raining it down from on high,

A bubble that can’t be burst,

Not even by the light of day.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

(C) 2014 Poetry & artwork.

​
Dan Stafford November 9, 2014

A Highly-Charged Particle...

A Highly-Charged Particle...

The stress of the pennies,
They don't rain from Heaven.

A bucket of marital bliss,
Wrapped in a dollar-sign bow.

The wires buzz and hum.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 07/08/2017

Rembrandt Sleeping, poem #24

Good Night Maine Coon...

Good Night Maine Coon...

Orange ball of purring,
Fuzzy good-night.

A heart the size of California,
My buddy Corona.

Who needs words,
When you can head-butt and purr?

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 07-06-2017

A Matter Of Focus...

A Matter Of Focus...

What I say,
What I see,
Large-looming things I water in the garden of my life.

It maters little if I despise them,
Not a whit if I wish to uproot,
Nor love and cherish,
The flowers or weeds I speak to will grow.

All the World should pay attention,
Give that payment to the flowers,
For the weeds grow so easily.

It's really all a matter of focus.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 06/19/2017

The Shadow Disaster...

The Shadow Disaster...

The latest and the greatest,
An ease of discomforted mind,
Convenience that beats the clock,
Perhaps the greatest disaster to afflict Humanity.

How many Grandmothers' recipes lost?
The skill of splitting wood,
Reading the habits of squirrel and wolf come Autumn,
How to cook ebelskives and forest mushrooms,
To know the breath of Winter and survive?

If the grid died,
Would we?

Will we ever know the glory of our ancestors' dishes,
Feel the breath of their spirits breathing the kindling of our hearts?

Thousands upon thousands of years these treasures took,
The stories and the marvels,
The handicrafts and the ken of seasons,
All to be oiled on a slide to oblivion,
For the sake of ease and comfort.

I wonder if I am the last,
To ever taste or feel the heart and soul of the past.

Winter comes,
But in a hundred years,
Who will know the meaning of cold,
Or white flight upon the winds?

Jack Frost may die,
So also millennia that ride His frozen back.

Come,
Ride the toboggan into nothing,
Eating the last taste of our ancestors' dust.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 11/20/2016

Inscribed In Stone...

Inscribed In Stone...

Words are everything.

Read it again;
Words are everything.

They make us.
They break us.
They echo us to the future,
Long after our dust is eaten by Earth.

When we are stars,
Shining in the depths of night,
Words give voice to our silent light.

See and remember,
See and hear,
If you can read the stars,
Inscribed in stone.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 10/20/2016

For our stars gone to the sky.

*Side note: We just had to put down our 19-year old cat. He was a very mellow and intelligent guy, and of course a total foodie. Indy, you get a star up there too, old man. 

The She-Devil Of Hanover Pit...

The She-Devil Of Hanover Pit...

I can't believe it!
She bought me a speedo one size too small,
Took me out to Hanover on a sunny week day.

This old gravel pit has a beautiful beach,
And a solid thirty-foot cliff to leap from,
And now it has her.

She caught me by the broken heart strings,
Near twin to my first love,
But love wasn't what she wanted to pull,
No - I wouldn't call it exactly that.

I was just over nineteen,
She maybe the same,
Only the two of us and her little sister,
The beach all to ourselves.

All hands and no modesty,
She wanted to show me off,
Took me past caring about being a trophy,
My only relief to dive in,
Too late for staring eyes.

Oh,
I could tell you stories about that one,
Oh,
I could indeed,
But I want you to live.

Nineteen hundred and eighty-two was an interesting year.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 10/07/2016

Author's note:
True story. Like any good story, there's a LOT more to it. I couldn't help it, Goldenmyst tossed my Muse right back into my personal gutter! Lol

She Speaks Yinglish, He Speaks Yanglish...

She Speaks Yinglish, He Speaks Yanglish...

A wise man once sang that love is all you need,
A lot of it indeed.

Did I ever tell you I worked for a communications company?

Twenty-one point five years in fact,
Connecting all corners of the globe,
Data and voice as far as Antarctica,
As near as down the street.

I wonder how many trillion words are spoken each year,
Trying to get across the great divide?

"Turn left, turn right, do the dishes tonight."

To quote the fabulous Joan Jett,
"Do you wanna touch,
Do you wanna touch,
Do you wanna touch me there,
Where,
There,
Yeah?"

Exactly where that center in the male/female brain is,
The one that gets the exact image and emotion I mean,
To be recognized and understood.

Twenty minutes is forever,
Only to find you've both said the same thing,
All unknowingly.

Thankfully we have a lotta love,
To make things turn out right.

"No, go left here!!"

AquarianM

(C) 09/28/2016
By: Daniel A. Stafford