Abbreviated

Abbreviated

by the cancer raging through

she transforms and wilts

Rozanna Landavazo

copyright 2015

picture by www.empowerdmastery.com

Grace

Unknowingly the

brain traps itself quietly

"Escape" whispers God

Rozanna Landavazo

copyright 1/2015

Knolls

As the sun dips red

a jellyfish sticks to sand

transparent death knoll

Rozanna Landavazo

copyright 1/2015

Release

  

Sometimes our broken

wings fold in prayer

deep inside somewhere

refusing to fly

even though

they healed long ago

 

they ache

until our soul

yawns

and releases

them into flight

over and

over and

over.......

 

 

Rozanna Landavazo

copywrite 2015



Great Egret

On one of my many walks at a dike, I happened upon a Great Egret who was wading in the shallow water and stabbing the water for food.  I watched it for a long time, its neck elongating, it's hunger, its hunting prowess.

                                    suesbirdphotos.co.uk

 

 

Great Egret



I will stab my prey

My white plumes will deceive you

Then I will swallow

 

Copyright 2013 Rozanna Landavazo

 

 



Drift

Ba.Atoll Goidhoo 2010 Maldives

 

Memories shimmer like heat waves

from the perspective

the angle

the position

of the witness

 

A heart view

a mind view

a spirit view

a view of unmanifested desires

 

It was this way

No that way

That never happened

You made that up

 

Let it go

let it drift

into the waste of the desert

let it blow like sand

undulating and curving

 

But remember

the wind, the heat

Save the inward smile

and kiss the air....

 

 

Copyright 2013 Rozanna Landavazo

 

 

 

 

 





It Comes Down

 

Like rain drops

from the sky

we sometimes hit

the pavement....hard

and disappear

 

Sometimes

a witness observes

but soon forgets

or is mesmerized

and drops

a poem...

 

 

 

Rozanna Landavazo copyright January 2013

Water Horse

Glass tipped sea foam waves

Centuries of galloping

Snorting, spraying me

Rozanna Landavazo copyright May 2012







Quit

dustandwanderlust.wordpress.com

Sometimes friends leave

while still here

their shadows flicker

A distinct undoing

of the seam

things fall out

or they don't

The intimacy

once focused and

zoomed in

blurs

Covers are pulled

over memories

that vanish to

another time

A page turns

the book given away

thrown away

or placed on a shelf

We dissipate

 Faceless prayer flags

lost in space

Finally
recognizing

You never did like
my poetry...

Rozanna Landavazo copyright April 2012

Windfall

photo by Jeremy Trumble

There is a certain kind of rejuvenation that takes place in the soul when all you can hear is the wind blowing hard.  It blusters itself in and out making low gravely buzzing sounds that groan and moan and penetrate your senses, your boundaries.  It can touch places inside of you where no one goes, not even yourself  but you know it's in when you feel something.


The corn stalk sentries stand in rows collecting leaves and debris in their tassels until the wind shakes out their long tangled hair.


This wind, this power leaves me bending, bowing, and yielding.  Residue is wiped off and I am left clean with the aftermath of rearranged thinking and transformation.


I obey the power of natural phenomena.  I have no choice but to love it.  The winds knock me down, the ocean sucks me under, hard rain blinds me, extreme cold freezes me, and lightening threatens me.  I can't argue, negotiate, or manipulate this kind of power.   I could crawl in a cave and avoid it all but then I would be dead.


I hope to live this life waiting for the wind to take me down as I stand in its way.  


We all transform whether we are willing participants or not, with or without love.  We will change as we experience.  Living, like the wind, shifts and move us and then spits us out for inspection. 


I love the wind; I love what I am not in the wind.  I am not a profession, a title, a wife, a daughter, a mother, a friend etc.  I am the bare bone of me, getting stripped down and forgetting what I think I know.  I feel the exhilaration of peace and quiet as my world blows away.


Shadorma Poem version:
Corn tassels
Silken reminders
Tangled now
Wind language
Stripping body trunk smoothly
Rejuvenated



Haiku Poem version:
Corn tassels whip hard
In response to the wind blow
A new day




Copyright 2012 Rozanna Landavazo

Return

When we return to our poetry

we can feel again

music filters into us

rhythms forgotten

vibrate in our hearts

mist drizzles out of our eyes

our skin; we become damp

we can smell our scent again

we touch others

we allow others to touch us

we listen

Is that you God, Goddess, Buddha, Great Spirit

that whispers

that guides

that breathes in and through us

that leads me to you

you to me

for a moment

before we change

into a mystery

at the end of our poem.....?

Rozanna Landavazo copyright November 2011

Adrift

flickr.com/photos

Shadorma is a poetic form from Spain. It is a 6-line syllabic poem of 3/5/3/3/7/5 syllable lines respectively. I have been working with this form lately and came up with this.

In a dream

floating on my back

in a pond

lily pads
blanket my body snuggly

drifting to nowhere

Rozanna Landavazo copyright 7/2011



Groovin'

Barbara Meuers: Mississippi River Chronicles Blog

Brown bosomy gurls

in they yellow frilly skirts

jus' groovin'

Rozanna Landavazo copyright 8/2011

Bruce's Petals

Bruce and Dana

Bruce and Dana were gunned down across the street from us April 11, just a little after midnight.  As Ernie and I were going to bed, I heard his mother screaming in the street so we quickly ran out the door. We took Grandpa and the rest of the family into our home that night because everyone had to be interviewed by the police.  They had no where to go except into the street, into the coldest night of their lives.
The family gave Ernie and I a huge bouquet of white roses and thank you notes signed "we love you." That night was the first time we had met some of them but the rudimentary feelings of love and kindness were flowing from my husband and I that night and my sister said "you were their angels doing God's work" which is so humbling. And still I grieve and cry.



Bruce's Petals

Too soon cut from the stock
A once fresh bouquet
of white roses
surrounded by baby's breath
now
standing still in a vase
reverently
wilting, 
browning,
falling

And the rain drops
the next morning
fell like the tears
of your family
that night
only more slowly
glistening, clinging
to branches, the
droplets sparkled in
the sheerness of the air
the sun glared
painfully into this
heavy feeling that
could not rise
to greet this show of
beauty

For he executed you
and your lady
He emptied 15
rounds into 
both of you
starkly
bluntly
brutally

Your family
flowed into our home
a river of agony
as the rain
misted them
dampening them further

we don't leave
our neighbors
in the rain

A yellow ribbon
went around
the house, the vehicles

a home an hour ago

the police
the detectives
the chaplain
we spent the
night together
we shared
your shock
your horror
your excruciating disbelief
for you were all
bludgeoned with no hope

"Bruce was murdered
Bruce was killed
Someone killed my son"

His mother, his sister, his father
his uncles, aunts, cousins, his grandpa,
his in-laws paced in and out
suffocated by pain
needing air

The killer turned himself in
that night, her ex-husband
of 5 years after following her
to Grandpa and Bruce's home
talked to
them about cheating then
shot them dead

The killer's children numbly suffer
The killed mother's children suffer
All who loved them suffer
All who liked them suffer
All who cared, served, knew, worked with,
laughed with, played with
suffer

Bruce's petals are drying
in a bowl
in the sun
along with
our petals
that fell down
that night........



Copyright Rozanna Landavazo 2011

Origins

rulramirez.com/objetos

Poetry comes out of me
Not like from:
Not like to:
Not like a gift tag
but like sweat
from heat
that surges in
arteries, veins
gushing to
the heart
pumped to
the brain
bursting from storage into
a sprinkling of
runes on paper
coerced to
orderly print from
neatly tucked emotions
autographed by
ethnic flavors
perfected, proofed
conditioned like wild hair
clipped literary tendrils
recorded, preserved
exposed, criticized
loved, hated, misunderstood
respected, ignored, forgotten,
from me

to you......


Rozanna Landavazo copyright 2011

No Lunch

the sun.co.uk

Predator sees nest

Screaming seagull sentry dives

Protected this time



Rozanna Landavazo copyright 2011

Spoonin'

by Dea

I just finished reading "Black Water" last night, by Joyce Carol Oates. The book is a fictionalized truth accounting of the 1969 Chappaquiddick incident from the point of view of Mary Jo Kopechne, the 28 year old woman who died in the car Senator Ted Kennedy drove into the pond. I could not put the book down and read until 2 a.m. The book is incredible because Joyce Carol Oates has a way of writing that puts you right there with the character as she weaves the details of the events that lead to the accident and how Ted Kennedy (R.I.P.) left the scene of the accident and did not report what happened until the next morning. The young woman managed to live for 2-3 hours after he walked away. The story takes place in her mind as she is dying. She was sure he had gone for help and she was waiting for an ambulance. She was pinned in and "the black water filled her lungs, and she died".

Anyway, the story shook me up, horrified me, made me sad, made me mad and I had all sorts of emotions sticking out all over the place in the middle of the night. I tried having some milk, a little peanut butter but all I got was cold feet from prowling around the house grubbing for food.

So there I was staring into our dark bedroom trying to shift my mood. My husband was sleeping soundly, the cat was head butting me, purring very loudly and trying to plant her butt on my face and I am trying to extract myself from the sensation of being in that car.

Yes, I know I should not read these types of books at night but I am on a Joyce Carol Oates trip these days and also finished "Little Bird of Heaven" and am now onto "Gravediggers Daughter". I can only imagine what she must go through writing these books. She writes like Picasso painted.

Then I look at HIM, my warm snuggly, peaceful husband and he looks like my salvation, my hero, my buddy, my unsuspecting warm friend who has no idea his wife is freaked out and on the prowl for comfort. I think I will go for a snuggle. Not so simple.

He is a Viet Nam Veteran and I have learned to approach him with a sneaky kind of stealth. I have learned through the years that if I just wrap my arms around him, he'll throw me off, kick at me or recoil. Like a walleye fish that sneaks up to the bait on a fishing line and tap tap taps the bait and then takes off with it, leaving you to think it was just a current in the water you felt.

Well, that's what I do, I sneak up on him and just barely start the spooning position by keeping a quarter of an inch between him and me and then very carefully I put my great toe out and touch his foot and if he doesn't pull back, I do it again. Oooo la la, it is victory when he rubs my leg with his nice warm foot because somewhere in his sleep conscious he has figured out it is me or the cat.

Ah ha, the gate is open, there I go, full spooning throttle ahead and I wrap around him like an Anaconda (only I can't constrict on this big lug of a guy) (why would I want to) (never know, women can be that way sometimes) (putting on some lipstick, looking harmless one minute and wham knock ya up side the head with a look). (just because). I AM IN. He accepts me and now with his warm cushy butt against my stomach, I get centered and I am not in that car upside down in a pond waiting for someone to save me.
So today we are going for a walk and I told him about my dilemna last night and how I went "snuggle hunting" and how grateful I was that his cushy butt was better than any type of meditation I have ever tried to calm me down. And of course I was rewarded by his response of "geez, geez".

It's good to be married.

Hmmmm.

He's working tonight.

Think I'll read a magazine.

Unseen

John Huggins 1990

Sometimes
there's something there
You don't want to see
the dimple in the chin
where the mean hides
or the pain glinting
from the orbs of the eyes
or the promises in the
sweet pungent odor
of freshly rained on pine trees

You try to swerve
seeing
You struggle with
your brain tightening
airbags become myths
and you are not saved
You end up in a ditch
or you crash

You make up stories
directions
Turn right, turn left
go east,  go west
You create an angle
with a blind spot
until you comfortably
can't see

You peek at the
shadow slinking away
a blur
a might have
a could of
You pretend doubt
you never knew
never allowed
never to return to.....


Rozanna Landavazo copyright 2011



Should I

Image by Daniel Austin Hoherd


Should I go into you
your waves
your tide
your ship wrecks
your grit

or
Should I sit on the beach
in a comfortable chair
and pretend
I'v been there

Should I be a tourist
cover my breasts
with shells and
buy trinkets
that emmulate you

or
Should I go into your cold
wear your foam
scrape your salt
off of me
when you evaporate

Will I become
flooded,
soggy,
awashed,

Will I be
drenched
saturated
baptized
renewed

or
Will I dissolve
and drown
and atomize
the ethers

Should I .....


copyright Rozanna Landavazo 2011

Sand III

I headed down a path
but when I turned around
it was gone
So I looked ahead and
kept walking
like a new bride going
down her aisle
A virgin going
into the ocean
into heaven
into hell
into nothing

Fear shells crumble
as the ocean pulverizes them
Crab thoughts skitter
as birds peck their flesh
the seaweed
tangles in heaps of
dreams gone awry

The tide does not discriminate
It will take me out
or the quick of the sand
if I remain too long

Seagull veils
scream their train chant
attached to my back
but I can not understand
their language, their messages

I just keep going
toward
leaving my disappearing
footsteps behind.....


2010 Rozanna Landavazo