poem

A Final Valentine

~ Randy Blazak ~ 3 Comments

February 14, 2023

There was a beautiful mountain 

I saw it there in the far distance, so small

I wanted to put in my pocket

Add it to my collection

Rocks and minerals to give me strength

And I love you

And I love you like my daughter

And I love you like my mother

And I love you like all the women on my bedroom wall

There was a beautiful mountain

Bigger this time, as I neared its soft slope

I wanted to climb it

See what I could see from the peak

To be closer to the god that must be there

And I love you

And I love you like my daughter

And I love you like my mother

And I love you like all the songs that snuck into my brain

There was a beautiful mountain 

That suddenly seemed so massive, the earth pushing it upward

It was now much bigger than me

Its pathway disappearing into rocky cliffs

I fought to push it back into the earth’s mantle 

And I love you

And I love you like my daughter

And I love you like my mother

And I love you like all those who broke my heart

There was a beautiful mountain 

Who never needed a man, so frail

Who only ever needed the wind and the rain

And the pollen that spread wildflowers across its face

So I returned to the valley below

And I love you

And I love you like my daughter

And I love you like my mother

And I love you like a memory of being loved (by a mountain)

La Historia de Cómo Encontré mi Corazón (para el Día de San Valentín)

~ Randy Blazak ~ 2 Comments

February 13, 2022

Como la Gran Novela Americana, impulsada por la complejidad y el desarrollo de los personajes

Una memoria sin páginas que exige nuestra atención y enfoque.

Me atraiste

Palabra por palabra

Al principio, pensé que era un cuento simple

Me proyecté en la narrativa

Pero no se trataba de mí

Se trataba de cómo podría servir a la historia

Me enamoré de

Sin saber lo que era el amor

Lo leo en mi voz

Y poco a poco borré la tuya

Entonces llegué a una página en blanco

Te habías ido

Y yo estaba solo

Con solo mi voz y la historia que había tratado de escribir

En el vacio

Reinicie desde el primer capitulo

Y vi la verdad

Que ahí, en tu voz, está la desnudez de cada historia

Dejé de existir en la eterna verdad de ti

Desapareciendo en las páginas

Mi amor no era sobre el lector

Fue en estar presente con el autor

No eres un libro

Un volumen en un estante para ser admirado

Una hermosa tapa del libro envuelta alrededor de una historia interesante

Eres el cosmos que lo creó y he tenido el privilegio de tenerlo en mis manos

The Story of How I Found My Heart (For Valentines Day)

Like the Great American Novel, driven by complexity and character development

A page-less memoir demanding our wrapt attention and focus

You drew me in

Word by word

At first, I thought it was a simple tale

I projected myself into the narrative

But it wasn’t about me

It was about how I could serve the story

I fell in love

Without knowing what love was

I read it in my voice

And gradually erased yours

Then I reached a blank page

You were gone

And I was alone

With only my voice and the story I had tried to write

In the emptiness

I restarted from the first chapter

And saw the truth

That there, in your voice, is the bareness of every story

I ceased to exist in the eternal truth of you

Disappearing into the pages

My love was not about the reader

It was in being present with the author

You are not a book

A volume on a shelf to be admired

A beautiful cover wrapped around an interesting tale

You are the cosmos that created it and I have been privileged to hold it in my hands

A Safer Space – A Valentine’s Poem for My Wife

~ Randy Blazak ~ 2 Comments

February 14, 2020

 

This safer space

Where you can breath

Where you can open

Where your back is watched

 

The complexity of existence

Is far from a straight line

No pretty rom com

With a beginning middle and end

As “Here Comes the Bride” plays into the amber sunset

The wounds are real

As are the secrets they conceal

Each stripe a mark of resilience 

What to do with each lived tale

Waiting to be remembered as a lost epithet

 

This safer space

Where you can breath

Where you can open

Where your back is watched

 

Let our bond become a fortress

Where truths be told

And where hearts are bold

A lush garden of ever-growing trees

And where sadness only rests her feet

The beaming face our child

An old photo of grandmother passed

A husband’s holding hand

Proof of a great embrace of love

And chance to finally smell the air so sweet

 

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This safer space

Where you can breath

Where you can open

Where your back is watched

A silly love song for my wife

~ Randy Blazak ~ 1 Comment

February 14, 2019

 

There’s nothing new about this song

This trite sentiment has already been written

It’s an extremely familiar melody

Just a lawsuit waiting to happen

 

But it’s a tune firmly stuck in my head

It might be old but it feels brand new

With a chorus that’s overly simple

It just repeats each time, “I love you.”

 

I love everything

I love everything about

I love everything about you

 

Another silly little ditty

It’s not meant to free the world

It’s not selling trucks or pills

Just a ballad of a happy boy and girl

 

Sorry if it’s not a grand aria

Or a complex Beach Boy harmony

It’s not written by a team of Swedes

Just a note to you from me

 

I love everything

I love everything about

I love everything about you

 

I sang this song before you arrived

I’ve been singing it all my life

I heard it on the radio as a child

Sending a musical message out to my wife

 

All the love songs that were ever slow danced to

Including the ones with the awkward rhymes

Turns out they were all about you

And I’ll sing them all on this Valentines

 

I love everything

I love everything about

I love everything about you

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The Bebop of Love

~ Randy Blazak ~ 1 Comment

February 14, 2017

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A Little Valentines Jazz for My Wife

When love walks in the room

It sounds like chaos

Boplicity

Sheets of sound

Bibbity bop badang dang

 

The first time I saw you I heard trumpets

Louis Armstrong

Heralding the arrival of a saint

Dizzy Gillespie’s cheeks filled the room

Bap bap bap bap BAM

 

The horns swirled around my head

The beat was in your hips

I was caught in a madness

Focusing on the drums instead of the bass

Badum baDUM, badum baDum

 

The hard bop can chew you up

Pull you in for the frenzy

Then break your bones

Many will fall off the stand

And retreat to familiar standards

Tooty toot toot yeah yeah yeah

 

I hung in for the ascension

Riding the form to the next stage

Out of the manic comes the spiritual

The combo in complete tonal harmony

Trilla la lee Trilla la la Om

 

Our band became a trio

Finding the groove

A duo backing a soloist

And then coming back in right on time

Dat dat tss bom bom tss

 

Your softness

Your hardness

Your art

Like Miles on a Saturday night

Tee tee tee teeeee

 

You took me from Big Band

to sketches of Spain

with a Cumbia breakdown

Keeping the swing in your hips

Chi chi chi chi cha

 

But the mediations were there all along

A love supreme

Badum baDUM, badum baDum

A love supreme

Badum baDUM, badum baDum

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Here’s last year’s poem: The Song of the Sirens

Christmas Poem for My Wife.

~ Randy Blazak ~ 1 Comment

How can I think of you without thinking of me?

Everything I think and do is because you set me free.

How can I think of where I am without knowing where you are?

When you are near I fear that you are still too far.

—————————————————-

You were the one who gave me the chance to finally arrive.

I was born with promise but got lost along the way.

Like a messiah who accidentally becomes a drunken sailor.

It was you who said, “Come back to your path.

You have it in you to shine like the greatest star in the sky.

I won’t hold your hand and but I will help you up the hill.”

—————————————————-

With love and grace.

With anger and forgiveness.

With salsa and tequila.

—————————————————-

I was a plastic bag floating in the waves.

Not even a comical jellyfish.

Something that fell out of somebody else’s luggage.

Happy to be a pinball spun around by rubber bumpers.

Until I saw your face, surrounded by a great green light.

You were burned into my cloak as I came out of the woods.

—————————————————-

With older hands and stronger back.

With patience and tears.

With hope and head on track.

—————————————————-

How can I think of you without thinking of me?

Everything I think and do is because you set me free.

How can I think of where I am without knowing where you are?

When you are near I fear that you are too far.

—————————————————-

The heart and mind are finally one not two.

My gift for you this year is simple,  I can only thank you.

– Randy Blazak 12/26/2014