Poetry

Holding My Tongue

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

Holding My Tongue

If life has taught me anything

it is that you can’t convince anyone

of anything they don’t want to believe.

My younger self thought otherwise,

going so far as to convince myself

it was my job to convince them.

Met with one brick wall after another

I learned to hold my tongue.

Standing back and watching

as one after another after another

digs their own grave.

You can’t teach the unteachable.

You can’t give sight to those who don’t know they’re blind.

What good is speech to those who don’t want to hear?

“Ignorance is bliss”  – or so they say.

Perhaps for many this is true.

Far be it from me to disturb their bliss.

Instead, I’ll hold my tongue.

copyright Lauri Ann Lumby

Lauri Ann Lumby is the author of eleven published books, including three poetry collections. She is currently working on her fourth. All books available on Amazon HERE.

Melancholy

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / 2 Comments

There is a kind of melancholy
that inhabits a woman of a certain age.
Like a cloak of kelp and arame draped across her shoulders –
Clinging and dripping,
Enfolding her in saline dampness.
Salty, cold, and wet from a lifetime of tears –
Some shed. Some withheld.
Sorrow-ridden tears of loss.
Bitter tears of betrayal.
Volcanic tears of rage.
All comingled with fleeting tears of joy.

A woman’s heart is tender –
despite the strength she must show to the world.

Melancholy creeps in like mist through a crack in the door
filling every space with a weightless veil
carrying all the pain of the world.
She barely sees its coming
until realizing it’s here.
Impenetrable.
Eternal.
It’s made a home in her.

Initially unwelcome –
something that must be expunged.
But the more it’s met with resistance
the louder its cries become.
Until the moment she accepts melancholy’s heavy wrap,
there she discovers not pain but comfort.

Melancholy is neither curse, nor depression to be shunned.
Instead, melancholy is the acknowledgment of all a woman has held on her own –
the cloak of comfort she could not give to herself and what she didn’t receive from the world.

Casting Stars

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / 4 Comments

Casting Stars

“Speak Lord, your servant is listening.”

The words of my morning prayer.

But to what god am I praying?

To what does one pray in a post-theistic state?

“Speak Self, your servant is listening.”

What is it my Self has to say?

What do I want from and for myself?

Self wants what the Self wants –

To be known.

What do I know of my Self?

Moving past defense mechanisms

And the armor designed to protect from the horrors of the world,

there is kindness

and deep sensitivity.

A heart too tender for the violences of this world

and the cruelty of man –

yet strong in its ability to endure the constant breaking –

held together by a love that sees promise

and the hidden good in it all.

Wise enough to have discarded hope (that fool’s game)

allowing Faith to take its place.

No longer wishing, but knowing,

in a deep, abiding way, that “it is good”

no matter how horrible that “good” might initially appear.

This is the Self I know.

The one who sees and knows.

Who seeks understanding in confusion.

Who looks for the higher way, the higher truth.

Who longs to know the Love in the center of it all

And who has no choice but to point it all out.

The messenger poet casting stars into the sky

helping humanity find its way.

Journey to the Holy Grail

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

Cross land and sea
Time and tide
To misty Avalon I fly.
Seeking what?
I do not know.
Unless it be a place called home.
Where kindred spirit join by chance,
Round the fire – the sacred dance.

Drawn through dreams of lifetimes past,
Seems ancients did this circle cast.
To Tor and Well and ancient spring.
The place I thought my Soul could sing.

Take care all those like me who’d go
For Avalon’s gifts cannot be foretold.
Where Michael and Mary ley lines greet
Ego and fear did meet defeat.

Gwyn Ap Nudd appeared as guide
For the hell I created could not be denied.
Following the labyrinth to the depths of my fears,
Often wondering, “Is insanity near?”

Attachment, rage, resentment and grief
Transformed in the fire while I prayed for relief.
My warrior’s heart tested in flame
Hoping here would be the gain.
When at last released me at the top of the Tor,
I collapsed in a heap – wanting no more.
Processing along the dragon’s back,
My Beloved Christ kept me on track.
He explained the attachment that stood in the way
Of knowing the peace and the love of each day.

To Chalice Well he bid me rest,
In the Mother’s arms I’d completed the test.
Finding her love hidden in stone.
In bud, leaf and wood, I remembered my home.
Then verse 12, Chapter 12 of Testament Old
The world of Joel that made me whole:
“Return to me with your whole heart
Don’t let fear keep us apart.”

An ocean of tears the floodgate released
As I was reminded of the true source of peace.
The love of Divine that resides in my heart.
Return to the Oneness from where we all start.
The Holy Grail now fully revealed.
I am this love and through it am healed.

The truth that Christ came to remind.
Is that when we seek we shall find.
That home is the love of the Divine deep within
This is our origin and where we begin.
It is ego that creates the false separation.
That caused us to fear Divine reparation.
In fact this love of Divine that is me,
Is the ground of my being and the place I am free.

Seeking for home in someplace external
Led me within to the love that’s eternal.
The Holy Grail is the truth of our being.
When we’re vessels of love for everyone’s seeing.
Allowing the love that’s in truth who we are.
To flow from our hearts to all near and far.
So Dorothy’s words take on a new meaning,
“There’s no place like home,”
Divine love – what we’re seeking.
My quest for the Holy Grail will go on
Knowing where spiral ends, we’ve only begun.

copyright Lauri Ann Lumby

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The Call of the Bean Sidhe

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In a far-off land

‘neath a hill of grass and stone

lives the Bean Sidhe.

Cloaked in rags

Dreaded silver locks

Tattoos of woad telling stories of her life

Her face a skull

One clear eye seeing without

The cloudy one seeing within

Her skeletal finger pointing out the eternal

Her life will never end

With her knowing eyes she’s seen it all

Nothing you could say would surprise

Nothing you do could shock

She sees only Truth

A mirror for those who dare –

who can endure her eternal screaming.

A witness to all of humanity’s sorrow

and a voice for all who weep for humanity’s doom –

They’ve no one to blame but themselves.

I am She and She is me.

art and poetry copyright Lauri Ann Lumby

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Boneyard Poet

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

Boneyard Poet

I am the Boneyard Poet

always singing them goodbye.

To the empires always crumbling

right before my eyes.

In Church and School you’ve heard me

keening lullabyes

‘neath windows of forefathers’ vision

of beautiful spacious skies.

Standing as dark witness

and catalyst of change,

herald’s trumpet blowing

“It’s time to rearrange.”

Upending the corporate ladder –

ceilings becoming floors.

Shuttering all the windows

and locking every door.

Branding each “Momento Mori”

While singing their goodbye

“We’re better off without you,”

The Boneyard Poets cry!

copyright Lauri Ann Lumby

Lauri Ann Lumby is the author of 10 books, including four volumes of poetry. Lauri’s books are all available in paperback and Kindle, and two are available on Audible.

Visit Lauri’s Bookstore HERE