Tag: Mother

Opposite Sides of the Same Pain

On By Dennis McHaleIn Motivational, Poetry, Relationships, Speaking, Uncategorized, War, Writing3 Comments

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A Sunni mother silently watches:
overhead, a gathering of scavenging ravens
paints the dusky sky above
the broken bodies of her three children.
Bewilderment mixed with horror and beauty,
accented by the pebbles beneath her feet,
polished smooth by a flood of tears.
An acrid wind swirls
with scattered hope and broken dreams;
confetti raining on freshly scorched earth.
Another womb is rent in unbearable grief
at the loss of its precious fruit.

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In that very moment, across the sea,
a Haitian waif reflects:
A flock of seagulls angrily position
above the ghetto garbage heap
next to a crumbling shanty
where her newborn triplets scream with hunger.
Bewilderment mixed
with horror and beauty,
the waste beneath her feet glistens
with the flood of her tears.
The stench of rotting wind swirls
with scattered hope and broken dreams;
flies rising up from quaked earth.
Another womb is rent in unbearable grief
at the bounty of its damnable fruit.

 

We Write What We Know

On By Dennis McHaleIn Motivational, Photgraphy, Poetry, Relationships, Speaking, Uncategorized, War, Writing8 Comments

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I had lived one life with my face turned from the sun,
breathing icy winds and my father’s sin.
He is gone now but his fingerprints
remain a stain upon my broken bones.
My sister traded his midnight hugs for an opium exit;
her ashes instead of his lashes.

I took my refuge in dark shadows and withered.

I told…once.
Was rewarded with a year sabbatical in a red brick asylum,
bought and paid for with my mother’s silence.
She collected her ransom daily/offered up her womb’s fruit
to feed him like grapes to Caesar’s gaping maw.
She furnished her home with lost innocence
and found comfort in our cries.

She is buried now and I am robbed of my mourning.

Unearth me when tomorrow comes.
Set my broken feet upon polished stones;
let ascending steps carry me home.
My screams no longer echo from the mountaintops

My dreams no longer tether my pain.
I am not healed, but I feel, and my words
anoint my open wounds.

My Slow Descent

On By Dennis McHaleIn Motivational, Photgraphy, Poetry, Relationships, Speaking, Uncategorized, Writing1 Comment

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Pressed beneath the broken rhythms of solitude
Stumbling drunk within intoxicated wavy parallels
Of self-derision and unbridled rage against lost time
A shattered vessel of my mother’s dreams
Absent when the arch of forgiveness bends mercifully
Over purpose-broken and diminished men
My unwinding days a gentle push toward the grave
With nothing left to secure my grasp
Pulled asunder by the wrath of fallen angels
When the shadows of my sins, like a burial shroud
Wraps me tightly, a corpse descending
Into the darkened void of eternal sleep.
This, then is my slow descent; tossed upon a funeral pyre
Engulfed within damnation’s perpetual flame
Condemned for lack of conviction as the cold winds
Of judgment kick up and scatter my weightless ashes

 

Father’s Day

On By Dennis McHaleIn Motivational, Poetry, Relationships, Speaking, Uncategorized, Writing4 Comments

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He pillaged the title the day I was born
and like most thieves, he took for granted that which he stole.
Being a “father” meant no more to him than taking the trash out
the only difference being, he preferred to bring the trash in.
Each night, drunk and puffed full of false bravado, he would
return home from the bar twenty minutes after closing
with some strange woman who was half his age
who still managed to look twice as old as he was.
They all smoked and smelled of cheap perfume and beer,
and as he pushed by my mother with
with a violence that seemed to rattle her bones,
he would look at me, a frightened five year old
with no understanding of what this all meant,
and flip me the finger.

Every day was “father’s day”..
his to do with as he willed.
They took their sins into
my mother’s bedroom and slammed the door behind them.
I feared my father, but hated my mother
for not taking us out of this broken house and into
the world where somewhere, someone could love us.
That’s all I wanted…love. What I got was limitless contempt
for complicating their lives.
She just sat in the living room before the television, defeated
and sipping her gin, counting the years down until she might
find the courage to cut her wrists,
leaving us to…him.

Supriya

On By Dennis McHaleIn Motivational, Poetry, Relationships, Speaking, Uncategorized, Writing7 Comments

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I think a while of Supriya, and while I think,
She’s the reason I write poems with India ink
To make permanent my words, my thoughts, my love
For this beautiful vision sent from heaven above
“Greatly Beloved” is what her name means
Angels whisper her name, or so it seems
She’s the setting of the sun and the rising of the moon
Her grace floods my heart like a summer monsoon
Her poetic heart understands my desire
Her songs and poems do my muse inspire
For she is that link between heaven and earth
She’s the reason for my laughter, my joy, and my mirth
I don’t know from where she draws such beauty and grace
I only know she hides behind a beautiful face
In my heart, in my soul, to the center of my core
And all that I ask is a few minutes more
To have and to hold her in my faraway arms
To protect and to love her and keep her from harm.
She’s the reason I write such words on this day
For she’s entered my life and carried me away.
For if the truth were known, Love cannot speak
But only thinks and does and continually seeks
To lift up my spirit past the stars up above,
Supriya my friend, my hope, and my love.

 

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The Trinity and Me

On By Dennis McHaleIn PoetryLeave a comment

tombstones

 

First They took my father,
and then consumed my mother
Without the slightest hesitance,
They came and took another
My sister left in tender years,
They left me naught but pouring tears
We’re promised today and not the other,
so They came again and claimed my brother

I prayed They’d come for me one day,
but here I stand with feet of clay
And this belies my ardent fear,
They’ll not return for many years
Leaving me with nothing more
than dreams of how it was before
How cruel and painful can They get,
my day will come, but not just yet

And so I stand here all alone,
with a wounded heart and an empty home.
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost;
which of these I hate the most?
The Trinity it’s plain to see,
for it’s all for One and none for me.

 

Opposite Sides of the Same Pain

On By Dennis McHaleIn Poetry, UncategorizedLeave a comment

A Sunni mother silently watches:
overhead, a gathering of scavenging ravens
paints the dusky sky
above the broken bodies of her three children.
Bewilderment mixed with horror and beauty,
accented by the pebbles beneath her feet,
polished smooth by a flood of tears.
An acrid wind swirls
with scattered hope and broken dreams;
confetti raining on freshly scorched earth.
Another womb is rent in unbearable grief
at the loss of its precious fruit.

In that very moment, across the sea,
a Haitian waif reflects:
a flock of seagulls angrily position
above the ghetto garbage heap,
next to crumbling shanty
where her newborn triplets scream with hunger.
Bewilderment mixed with horror and beauty,
the waste beneath her feet glistens
with the flood of her tears.
The stench of rotting wind swirls
with scattered hope and broken dreams;
flies rising up from quaked earth.
Another womb is rent in unbearable grief
at the bounty of its damnable fruit.

The Sacrificial Child

On By Dennis McHaleIn Uncategorized3 Comments


Let not secrets fall outside these walls;
Ignore this child’s anguished call –
Don’t trouble me none, with your tellin’ tongue,
May a silenced voice save us all.

Oh, sweet child of mine, now is not the time
to be breakin’ down in tears.
Your father’s touch didn’ hurt you much,
and he’s gettin’ on in years.

I’m your mother son, and it troubles me some,
this fear you’ve seem to got.
I may turn away when ya’ll come to say,
“oh, Momma, make him stop”

Yes it grieves me some, that you’ve come undone,
jus’ keep it in your chest!
I know how you feel, just give it time to heal
And we’ll put it all to rest.

Got a call, my boy, from your school, my joy,
sayin’ you broke down in tears.
Don’t you know, my love, that come push to shove,
I’ll deny your tender fears.

You took your life my sweet, now the secret sleeps,
Let death now set you free.
Find your peace, my love, in the stars above,
and say a prayer for me.

I’ve five more to raise, and a thousand ways,
to keep it’ all within.
Please don’t blame me, sweetness, for my incompleteness,
And my part in this sin.