POEM: Journey of Faith

A grain of sand in an hourglass finds a second
To sit quietly proclaiming no errors abound..
Floats in the space between paradise and a mountain...
Finding assurance in touching the ground...

Experience greeting with a wave of the hand
The sun's laughter heralds a new day
Such is the conversation between one and God
A private road, a sure path, and lit way

As minutes round about a new second
And detours interrupt daily routine
A parade of the mundane and adventure
Pays tribute to the serene and in between

Faith enduring the uncharted journeys
Recording discoveries from the course
Mapping the way for those who follow the song
Compelled and inspired to find the source

Trails bending with the choices declared
Views intensified by the dark and the light
A song notated upon a soul
Led by love and not by sight

Faithful soul claim this second
The eternity of paradise created for you
Putting aside all illusion of division
The song you hear is real and true

The song you hear is I and You
The song you hear is I love You.

Copyright ©2005 J. R. Hollyday

POEM: The Dragon in the Garden

To the garden came the dragon
Spying through flower, fauna and tree.
Found the door to the lost kingdom
And opened it with a stolen key.

Won by the fire of eloquent airs
It acquired its precious prize.
A shower of flattery and inflated cares
Disguised elaborate and crafty lies.

The key to paradise relinquished
A vulnerable garden came under new rule.
Carefree days of yesterday banished
But hope is promised through a jewel.

The earth grows through the tears of a maiden
And the toil of her beloved and the death of a son.
Eden will be reclaimed and the dragon will be laden
With its postponed sentence, the spell undone.

No flattery nor crafty story
Will keep the key to paradise forever hidden
The garden was created for love and glory
To choose abundance over what is forbidden

Copyright ©2005 J. R. Hollyday

POEM: No Race To Name

An island of a smile
A face from Spain
Eyes from the Orient
No race to name

I breathe in the east
And wake in the west
No roots on the earth
I live out a quest

Cultures crashing on a beach
Unsure my being unshored
Acceptance by artists
Most others ignored

Sometimes confusion inspires a game
To see who'll guess right
Here I am, a few shades too dark
Standing alone a few shades too light

An island of a smile
A face from Spain
Eyes from the Orient
No race to name

Copyright ©2005 J. R. Hollyday

This is a reprise of a poem I wrote in February.

I had a great weekend... high intensity with a mix of fleeting moments of self-pity and frustration.

I left Friday night for San Diego and arrived at 1am and stayed up til 3am with my mom. An opportunity had came up for us to share our health business at a Filipino cultural festival. It was to be a first annual neighborhood kick-off to celebrate Filipino Hertiage Month and we had all of 5 days to prepare. I didn't have a crazy supply of brochures, I mainly share with close friends and families so we came up with creative solutions.

My sister-in-law borrowed a canopy from a friend, a couple of tables were borrowed. My brothers came to set up and break down our set-up... I didn't have a business "banner" so I made some artsy letters in cardboard which my sister-in-law arranged across our tent... THELIVINGWELL.NET

We had a artsy tent with red pretty material draping the sides and keeping the sun out. Information CD's arranged nicely across the front with a few stories and testimonials in plastic as well as various brochures on the benefits of mangosteen juice and we attracted the nicest people to our little corner of the festival... with a great view of all the entertainment... cultural dances, a fashion show, music and martial arts.. lots of wonderful talent..

So we met a lot of artsy people who are into alternative health possibilities and I had some very interesting conversations. I love it when I demonstrate what the word "try" does to people. It surprises everyone. I teach it to my students to help them get rid of the word. And I teach it to everyone else when I am looking for specific persons to invite into my business. I learn a lot about a person with that exercise... and they learn a lot about myself as well.

So in general, it was a wonderful day... the unwonderful parts were when a few persons came up to ask me if I was Filipino... I'm the oddest looking person, I suppose, so I was glad to have my mom there to set them straight and give me culture cred. I get questioned EVERY SINGLE TIME I go to an event where there are Filipinos who don't know me.

I'm a mix... but I got so "mixed" up that no one seems to pin what I am. It's obvious that I look different.. I guess I wish people asked in a way that wouldn't send me back to my isolated days of junior and senior high school where I felt like I would have had more acceptance if I hadn't looked so "questionable" or "different." I didn't make it into the asian cliques.. I became an artist.. and most of my closest friend are from all over the world, Russia, Turkey, Japan, Switzerland, India, England or they are mixed as well..

I feel like a party crasher when someone asks me if I'm Filipino. I still have those moments when I go to dance rehearsal. And I felt even more obviously different when we had our photo shoot today. It was great being in makeup and costume but I looked less island than everyone and wondered if my Spanish features were just too angular. I had a poignant moment of sadness... silly as I know it is.

I guess I sometimes wish I had a more aloha look.

JNET

POEM: From Jane Gault

Inspired by "John Gault's Radio Address" in Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged"

The last of my words I leave to those heros hidden in the world
Held prisoner within the beauty of a soul unfurled
Of virtue and desperate determination

My friends in spirit, keep watch your border
For lingering enemies await to bring disorder
Hurling hatred upon a path of an honest life

Where roads have been laid down with passionate invention and emotions
To serve hungry nations of voracious appetites and notions
And you are held by means of your endurance

As your generousity extends to bear their sorrow and concerns
Innocent of their sulfurous hearts as their mind burns
A crack on the sidewalk disguishes

Their evil in cries of despair
And you stand unaware
Unable to conceive of their intentions

In giving every benefit of every doubt
You refuse to condemn that which eludes you
Devout to understanding

You stand with your love for life
They chant quiet prayers of strife
As you naively call them friend
They plan your love for life to end

Copyright ©2005 J. R. Hollyday

POEM: Hellos and Goodbyes

What if life is not about the pain and the pleasure and

simply an experience..
whose past moment was the second that winked at you
like the minute before that winked at you
at the blink of an hour

What if life is not about the pain and the pleasure and

simply is an experience
where every pressing moment was like a box of confections
and your nows are indulgent sweet afflictions
waving hellos and saying goodbyes

To possible futures and decontructed tomorrows
whose past moment was the second that winked at you
presenting a box of bittersweet hellos and goodbyes

To smile or frown is
to entertain with your thoughts
a past moment winking at you
and you say your hellos and goodbyes

Copyright ©2005 J. R. Hollyday

"Every act of creation is first an act of destruction."

Pablo Picasso

POEM: Spotlight (Pantoum form)

.
.
at the center of the stage
the lights shining solely on you
in the darkest place to engage
a blinding spotlight cuts the view

the lights shining solely on you
loving silhouettes in horizons afar
a blinding spotlight cuts the view
isolating time to a star

loving silhouettes in horizons afar
admiring shadows on the floor
isolating time to a star
you dream of wanting more

admiring shadows on the floor
from the center of spotlight space
you dream of wanting more
of candles lighting a lover's face

from the center of your spotlight space
a lonely hunger calls out an ironic desire
of candles lighting a lover's face
a song longing for a choir

a lonely hunger calls out an ironic desire
at the center of the stage
a song longing for a choir
in the darkest place to engage

all eyes are full of anticipation
at the center of the stage
smile alone despite spotlight frustration
in the darkest place to engage

a lonely hunger calls out an ironic desire
a song longing for a choir

Copyright ©2005 J. R. Hollyday

POEM: The Curves of A Cloud

i gave myself up today and found that i loved being revealing
in naked vulnerable strength
and i mused over my given biology and conditioning
actually, i daydreamed at great length
over the mechanical process
of being stifled by modern inventions
of constraining thought
a force giving me angles of domineering edge
suffocating the softness, leveling the curves of a cloud

finally hearing my soul sing out loud with quiet color
a cheerful sweep of sequential thought
i notate my thoughts of flourished moments
over why i am, why i'm not and why not

Copyright ©2005 J. R. Hollyday


It's great being a girl. It's hard being a girl..

To live powerfully and yet not relinquish grace is difficult in a world that looks at femininity as weakness, meekness, emotional and naive. What I am learning from dance is grace, control, strength, beauty and clear self-expression. I am also learning a lot about anatomy, endurance and humility.

I struggled thinking of someone I know as a girl... She lacked girlishness having the demeanor of a football player. Imagine a swearing sailor that spoke with the tone of Tinker Bell. It's a bit of a mind puzzle and I felt confused and guilty that I struggle with relating to her. And then womanly wouldn't fit either. My vision of someone womanly is someone who is mature, sexy, confident, nurturing and articulate. Since I couldn't think of her as a girl nor a woman, all I could come up with was barmaid...

What an awful thought. I think she must have given up being a girl somewhere in high school. And I see degrees of resigning the feminine side in order to be an all-american standard bulldozing tough chick in myself and my friends. I know a girl who calls everyone "Dude".... and she sometimes presents herself as someone with bigger balls than her man. I know another girl who talks to her male friends down as if they are children in a pseudo mother-from-hell-mother-knows-best tone.

Machines with breasts whose humanity has been compromised by who knows what are taking over the world. Forget the robots and AI overwhelming humanity. The curves of the clouds are turning angular. Patience, subltety, refinement, grace, discernment are qualities of power that is becoming scarce...

Maybe it's obsolete and out-dated and guys love the barmaid, tough as nails, sexy chick who is part-man and part cowgirl who shoots and spits straight.

I'm finding myself wanting to be alone than hang out with girlfriends because it's not fun being part of a trash session of why-the-world-is-not-fair-that-life-really-SUCKS. Stories can be entertaining sometimes but when the game of life starts to seem like a wrestling match rather than a dance, a song... I choose silence, solitude, putting my head in a saner place than participate in a session of impatient ranting.

A world where listening diminishes, where encouragement is like finding flowers in a desert. It's a tough world but I hope to never lose the curves a cloud that bring a bit of respite to a crazy world.

JNET

POEM: Wings of Imagination

my grumblings and rumblings
are of nothings and somethings
of sometimes impertinent things

i meander to be mindful
of wonderings insightful
inviting imagination to take wing

always thinking mostly dreaming
sailing rivers of thoughts streaming
entertaining fanciful adventures with wise kings

feelings waves of emotion
swimming with passionate notions
to a moment to cry and then to sing

skipping stones across lakes of tears
playing tag with mischievious fears
floating joy to the sky on a string

i meander always mindful
of wonderings insightful
inviting imagination to take wing
on a river of thoughts streaming
a moment sad to a season singing
floating joy to the sky on a string

Copyright ©2005 J. R. Hollyday

POEM: Path To Your Heart

Lost your way
From the path to your heart?
The bend is just 'round the corner
To a road that says restart

The place where you stand
With your quiet lonely joy
Is a perfect place to learn
The path to a man is from a boy

Because the way to happiness
Cannot bypass the highway of sadness
The tolls paid on your roads of gray
Leads to future bridges of gladness

From your poverty
You'll share your treasure
The seasons of trouble
Transforms into pleasure

To get where you wish
It's silly to expect you'll come to it where you stand
To go somewhere you have to move
Get lost! Make mistakes!
It's part of the action plan

Lost your way
From the path to your heart?
The bend is just 'round the corner
To a road that says restart

Copyright ©2005 J. R. Hollyday

POEM: Chiaroscuro

I have a vision to paint the shades of a shadow
Meeting the light of day
A moon gloating upon a hill
On borrowed majestic glory
A dissonant echo to sunshine ways

I have a vision to paint the shades of a shadow
Tempting with shrewd flair
Wearing a broad smile over a scheme
Light reveals the seams and places
Shadow's obscurity under glare

I have a vision to paint the shades of a shadow
Sketching promises in the dark
Driven by dim perspective unable
To see the light that is the spark of me


Copyright ©2005 J. R. Hollyday

POEM: Wishful Notion

I spent the evening under eyes of admiration
And noticed the shadow of dark thoughts
Where ideas were driven through imaginary boundaries;
The gaze of fear there I caught.

Lively conversation and passionate pretense plotting towards a prize kiss.
Torn between games of positioning reality
To strategize or sacrifice to exist

A position to choose is decidedly denounced
In exchange for the currency of chance
Loose change unpredictably flirts for things unplanned and
Schedules for hopeful romance

Angles of beauty with truth dazzling in distortion
Words unsaid; thoughts stretched out of proportion
Weakness weighed in wishful notions
Expecting Love to answer the call of your devotion

Enslaved, enchanted, empowered
Do I hear the voice of a king or coward?


Copyright ©2005 J. R. Hollyday

POEM: The Perfect Tomorrow That You Left Behind

Gossamer despair
A drip dance down your hair
Caressing a chain that encircles your neck
Separating a heart keeping thoughts on check

Grotesquely beautified
Parading diamond tears as you crucified
Your soul with a swan story
In exchange for the gold of broken glory

With your heart in shards
Chasing truth in the faces of loose cards
You cry that you're losing your mind,
The world's hopelessly unkind,
And you wish you could find
The perfect tomorrow that you left behind

You wish you could find
The perfect tomorrow that you left behind

How your heart is grieving and aching
For a game of love giving and love taking
You score yourself on how you've been deceived
Meriting the stage as you take leave
Of your senses and begin a new season to share

Your script of despair
A sonorous prayer

Grotesquely beautified
Parading diamond tears as you crucified
Your soul with a swan story
In exchange for the gold of broken glory

You wish you could find
The perfect tomorrow that you left behind

Copyright ©2005 J. R. Hollyday

POEM: Mansions of Thought

Who has tasted the delightful zest of freedom
To laugh in solitude and enjoy a minute of rapture

For no apparent reason
Only responding to your own choosing

And then enjoy another minute and then another minute
Til you can do nothing but declare in awe
That Life is beautiful

A world without second guessing, the present pressing a kiss
A breath bringing ecstasy by the simple awareness of existence

Standing in the design of power and compassion
As an architect of mansions of thought
Where you mind wine cellars of wisdom
Timing choice bottles for celebrations on landscaped intentions

The library of your peaceful musings opens out to a courtyard of life
Where you admire prize roses
Thorns and all

Who will play architect, gardener, master, artist, maestro
In houses of thoughts moving through and fro?

Mansion or hut
Make a stand
Built on rock
Or designed on sand

Copyright ©2005 J. R. Hollyday

The Innocence of Self-Expression

There is an innocence in being self-expressed. A freedom from fear and convention.

Today, I visited my mom. She wanted me to play her piano which she had just tuned. I opened the piano bench and found a couple of piano pieces that a boyfriend from the past composed for me. There between two pieces of white cardboard, bound by gold ribbon and tape roll, E. wrote his heart out to me in notes.

"Expressivo et amorioso"...a 17 year old wrote in pencil… "andante"… Every single note was a dedication to me, his muse… a 16 year old girl. He titled his piece to me in French, Troisieme Serenade Semplice… Á Mademoiselle Jeannette… by E. He was my first boyfriend. He wrote poetry for me. There were a few of his writings to me there with his music I had shoved another poem in the collection that was dedicated to “jeannette, my bestest friend”… that was from D. a friend who I traded piano lessons in exchange for violin lessons.

I found a box which included many more of E’s poems, a few written in French. I found some drawings and more poems from more boys.

I am glad that I didn't throw away these immortalized feelings put to art. This.. from the hearts of young love. This is the poem that E taped to the cardboard back cover..

Who will replace the mysterious Muses
Now that mythology has gone?
Inspiration was the game they played
Talent being their pawn.

They would fill a man's heart
With a passion to create;
In which he would share his joy
With those he loved feelings great.

All that's left of the Muses
Is a spirit of creating talents jubilee;
A spirit of inspiring others
Which lies in fair damsels such as thee.

E.

He wrote this on three ringed, lined school paper and taped it to his composition. I remember now how he sat with me to read it to me and then he played the piece.

This is what D. wrote to me, his "bestest friend."

I come to you, a jacaranda tree,
Behold thy beauty in a morning dew.
With painted fingers reaching out from thee,
To touch the Heavens with thy velvet hues.
Why is it that God favors thee before
All else that is His own? To shape thee with
Such twisted grace, a beauty all the more;
A mem'ry of the Eden lost: thy pith.
You stand there bent in beauty, mocking all
That gazes on as if thee God Himself.
I tell you, I would love to see thee fall;
Thine grip to slip from Heaven to thyself.
For this I come: to cut you down from here,
For mediocrity is less to fear.

D. signed his poem with the "composer's name" that he wanted to use when he grew up. He gave me a tape of music he composed that he had a string trio play for him to record. I remember that I was a bit confused to be receiving a poem from a friend and that I didn't know what a jacaranda tree was.

I imagine him typing this on his parent's typewriter, indenting it and taking such care in his presentation. He chose a very nice linen heavy paper and penned his fancy name. I spilt hot cocoa on it and stuffed it into my piano bench.

I am a bit sad that I wasn't present to the beauty that was being given to me. But I was young and thinking about school and planning for college. I moved across the country and got absorbed into a new world.

I find these things now because my mom is remodeling her house and I'm finally going through my belongings. I find the innocence of self-expression profound.

JNET

POEM: The Eyes of Time

They turn a million revolutions while
Looking into my eyes
Yet you stand in solid transparency
Arresting time

Conversations in hushed chambers of stolen minutes
Inventing an intimacy of enigmatic adoration
Platonic, passionate, surreal and peaceful
Standoffish, familiar and sublime

Time moves on and the seconds pulse with a world of
Prospects orbiting love and affections ticking
Tocking words that blur swirls of who they are
Illuding to love but eluding their object

Declarations and seasonal proclamations
Etched into the sands of an hourglass
That turn with the slight of the hand
Hearts devoted into hearts that readily reject

A whirl of love thunder and chatter
Never addressing heart and soul matter
Your voice rises like a counter melodic sigh
Breaking through clouds the eyes of time

Copyright ©2005 J. R. Hollyday

POEM: Run-In with Love

You will run as I will run
And I always run back to you
After fretting dark corners
And unlit circles
It's what I tend to do

I will run as you will run
Yet turning to say hello
I'll ponder your thoughts
You'll smile at mine
And then we'll turn and go

You will run as I will run
In fear and in sheer love
Feeling brushes with confusing joy
And I will run as you will run
Like a timid girl and boy

You will run as I will run
In disgust and in delight
Confident one day
And nervous by noon
What's next by and by?

I will run as you will run
Forgetful then awake
This is a game attending to love,
Contending with self
Impetuous love
We make

Copyright ©2005 J. R. Hollyday

POEM: Impetuous Words

impetuous words litter the past
piling reckless insult into private nook
vandalising walkways and bridges

like notes played with hazard and no heart
insincerity interrupts the band of a song
silence stretches over tensions of time
ready to conduct a new storm

yesterday was clothed with promises and dreams
today is dressed like a pauper
a future squandered for righteous posturing
replacing a shelter from choice words

impetuous words litter our private world
reckless insults stray from all directions
we are caught in a storm of bad weather
without an umbrella to weave our dreams together

Copyright ©2005 J. R. Hollyday

POEM: Shadow Battle

A corridor for living
With a shadow in the wing
My mind plans for dreaming
My shadow schemes a swing

A hearth prepares for true love
In the cabinets my shadow chills
Fires of passion and imagination
Duel at the table competing wills

Rejecting versus accepting
A scream for dreams to die
My hungry shadow debating
My efforts to say good bye

My contest grows stale daily
I'm tempted to disappear to timely naps
Forgetting then remembering the shadow battles
Creating reality collapse

Vile shadow vying my victories
Vindicated by your pain
Away Away... tiresome shadow
This is the end of your refrain!

Copyright ©2005 J. R. Hollyday

POEM: Passion

Ecstasy waves as the eyes gaze

Declarations are punctuated in the silent terms between

Electrified sighs

Serenades in my mind

I am thinking of you… I am being with you…

And your presence outshines and makes all things awash by your

Brilliance

Copyright ©2004 J. R. Hollyday

Written last summer. 2004... after finding my inner muse...catalyzed by an outer muse. Do you follow?

JNET

POEM: No Race To Name

An island of a smile
A face from Spain
Eyes from the Orient
No race to name

I breathe in the east
And wake in the west
No roots on the earth
I live out a quest

Cultures crashing on a beach
Unsure my being unshored
Acceptance by artists
Most others ignored

Sometimes confusion inspires a game
To see who'll guess right
Make fun of a few shades too dark
Stand alone a few shades too light

An island of a smile
A face from Spain
Eyes from the Orient
No race to name

Copyright ©2005 J. R. Hollyday