Heart's Way

by Michele Fry, © 1966

(Teen girl's angst on the loss of a first serious crush, gracious me, seems it was almost as bad as an actual breakup!!)

Oh my heart, please hear me!

Won’t you listen to my plea?

         Miami shores are gone now

         and the pounding of the sea

                           is far behind you.

                  That stretch of sand.

                           His warm, soft hands

                                             Please understand.

 

You’ll burst if you relive

each little word that passed between us

         from the first “How do you do.”

         until the last resounding echo

                           of a sigh.

                  No, please don’t cry again.

                                    Don’t cry.

                           Just say goodbye.

 

The beauty of his smile, his glance,

the way he held his glass.

         The moments shared between us

         that seem to last and last –

                           they’re in the past.

                  Don’t feel outcast.

                                    They never last.

                                             Let go your grasp.

 

You’ll be our life’s destruction

if you dwell upon the past.

         My heartbeat!  Can’t I reach you?

         You are throbbing even faster

                           than before.

                  I underscore –

                                    give up those distant shores!

 

There’ll be another chance,

Another love will come our way.

         Til then we have to live,

         to make a bridge,

                      to find a way.

                           We must portray

                                    some solidarity.

 

A half a smile to mask our pain

is better than a frown.

         We owe it to our friends

         to be heroic, not a clown.

                           But I can’t muster half of that

                  without support from you.

                                    We are a team.

                                             We share one theme.

                                                      Our self-esteem’s at stake!

 

My way is the only way . . . . . Ah,

won’t you hear me through?

         I fight with all that’s in me

         but as usual you defeat me

                           by a mile.

                  I’m in exile.

                                    Please reconcile.

                           Okay, we’ll rest her in the dark again awhile

 

Condemned by fate, I’m bound with you

to drown in lost love’s pain

         for reasoning alone is not enough.

         It can’t sustain

                            the will to live,

                   the will to give.

                                 The heart’s the source

                                               of all our incentive.

A Tempered Sword

By Michele T. Fry, ã 1996

 

I thought myself ungainly as a child,

but my Mother, feeding fancies of her own

pasted labels on my unformed soul with oft-repeated phrases such as

     "Come to me, my precious ballerina."

 

So I grew up a cynic,

disbelieving any praise I got from her

as well as every disingenuous

remark that pierced my ear.

 

My strengths went undetected

but I managed, hanging on

to some nameless noun

I knew to be my SELF.

 

I read in classic literature

of heros who had risen like the Phoenix

from the ashes of their own annihilation.

I took heart, and I smiled

(with that Mona Lisa smile —

distant gaze, folded arms, cool resolve) . . . . . . .

and laid siege to the deafening defeat

which was roaring all around me day and night.

 

I was certain I was strong

and I knew I had power.

Something beautiful was stirring deep within me,

though it seemed no one else could see what I saw.

 

"You will metamorphosize in good time",

said my soul to my heart, and I believed it!

As an article of faith this became my religion

as I slogged through the slights and the nays

and the disapproving looks and the backstabbing ways

of my fellows towards their fellows.

Through the endless disappointments of my life,

I saw light through the darkness and myself in the light.

 

As a Samauri does,

I became what I am:

 

     Folded once. Folded thrice.

     Thrusted yet again into the fires of Life,

     then again, layer on layer,

     I was bent and beaten flat

     on the anvil of Strife

     'til the edge I could hold

     was undullable in conflict

     and the arc my blade could trace

     matched a ballerina's grace.

     and the handle fitted to me

     gleamed with polished usefulness.

 

Thus, I sprang from the Master's hand —

A Tempered Sword.

P.S. Mom, if you read this, it isn’t about you.  You never called me your precious ballerina.  It’s a poem about the damage done by all sorts of people  who place false (good or bad) labels on others, especially children, and about surviving such cruelty by being true to ourselves.

Without Potential

© 1964 (Age 17)

I am a man without Potential
I've got none of that essential
STUFF to show the world.
I've no pride in all the Doings
that all men seem bent on strewing
o're this raged and ragged, stripped and staggered globe.

I've no Motive, nor the Taste
for just living life in Haste
as it seems we're all required to.
And in treatment of my Brethren
no examples seem as Reverent
as I'm told they are . . . . . and should be!

Wish I could charge down a Path
spewing love and venting rath
letting those I trample lick their wounds alone.
Then perhaps I'd give THEM hope
I'd be climbing up the laddar
towards the Virtues OTHERS value.

But, alas, I'm doomed to Caring
and my heart is chained to bearing
all the woes and harsh indignities of Man.
And my tongue gets tied for Trying
and I freeze for fear of Lying.
What if I, too, do not know the Truth?

Those who love me, my how Queer!
For they know not how they seer
my heart to blackened embers.
For they whisper that I'm Empty
when it's only I'm attempting
for a better reasoned way. Where's the way?

If I'm lost and I seem vacant
Truth is this: I am waiting
for a sign that those who teach me
actually know the Proper Pathway.
Doesn't look like it from here
when all I see is fear, selfishness
and contradictions everywhere.

Though you mean no pain, nor scorn me
you don't realize how you've torn me.
I am lost among your Ambiguities!

Written in high school, shocked at the conduct of our church minister who ran off with another man's wife; adults around me who didn't remotely live up to the loving Christian values they preached; and a variety of teachers who played favorites and seemed to enjoy humiliating, with impunity, the students they didn't like.