Photo by Keith R. Good
Your life can’t be good.
Don’t listen to those who say
God can make a way.
Time is running out.
It isn’t possible your
Changes can be made.
You have to settle.
Don’t believe for a second
Your life means something.
© Marie Elena Good 2024
This is a Reverse Poem. Please read the poem again from the bottom, up. I wrote this 3-stanza poem in my favorite 5/7/5-syllable style.
Painting by Deanna Marie Metts
DETACHED (sijo)
Member of Mensa Foundation. Former business owner,
Now mindful only that this actual moment in time
Is dreadfully not as real as yesterday’s tomorrows.
© Marie Elena Good 2014
EMERGING (sijo)
Weeding worry stubbornly seized in depths of clay soil perdition.
Bleeding time. Believing her beseeching isn’t reaching the Ear.
Then, breakthroughs and dream-come-trues. Not of fantasy, but of being.
© Marie Elena Good 2024
I wrote Detached in 2014 about my mentally ill daughter. Emerging, written now exactly ten years later. Though she still struggles, the difference is immense. There is so much for which to be thankful!
I.
Being proud of my
gratuitous training bra.
Forced rite of passage.
II.
Hollow dissonance.
First solo and ensemble.
Black notes and white face.
III.
Shaving of The Legs
without my dad’s awareness.
Razor-thin escape.
IV.
“Does anybody
really know what time it is?”
My first sleepover.
V.
Kissed by the back door.
Glaringly obvious it’s
my first, but not his.
© Marie Elena Good, 2024
Closet Disco Queen
I was a band nerd.
Not a rah rah. Not a geek.
And not a surfer.
That wasn’t my bag.
But I liked walkin’ the beach
and catchin’ some rays.
I wasn’t a drag,
but not all show and no go.
Like, can you dig it?
I was no brick house.
If I stuck out my tongue, I
looked like a zipper.
Not a dancin’ queen.
Didn’t have the moves, ya know?
(Just keepin’ it real.)
© Marie Elena Good 2024
May we learn by heart
that live is three quarters love
and one quarter “I.”
(c) Marie Elena Good 2017
CHURCH
Brick and mortar
house far too many walls,
as though Jesus
never came.
Image by Jeff Jacobs from Pixabay
The science proved to
the many eyewitnesses
that Jesus was dead.
More eyewitnesses
prove historically to us
that Jesus now lives.
#seventeenintwentyfour
Our hearts were lit the moment you were born.
This blue-eyed chubby cherub, ours to hold.
It seemed you brought with you a love well worn;
If you could speak, the stories you’d have told.
Your toddler legs gave movement toward your dreams.
But no, not near enough for your designs.
You needed flight to capture those moonbeams,
And wishes aren’t contained by boundary lines!
In thirteen years, you’ve hardly changed a bit:
You’re soft of heart, while strong of mind and drive.
You’re beautiful. You can’t contain your wit.
It’s our delight to watch you grow and thrive.
We see inside those laughing eyes of blue,
Intelligence and warmth reside in you.
© Marie Elena Good, 2024
Happy Birthday, Soph! We love you!
Nonna and Poppa
He created all that we are,
and are not aware of.
And so that we might “know,”
he created all things in opposite,
and extremes.
He created joy.
The unbounded joy in everything that is good and beautiful.
And sorrow.
The unending sorrow of man’s inhumanity to man.
He created heat
So searing, it turns all it touches into itself.
And cold
So penetrating, it can suspend the very essence of life.
He created the winds
With power enough to destroy anything man erects.
And calm
So still, even the spider’s web is unmoved.
He created love
So full and without reservation, that he gave us his son.
And hate
So destructive, it renders us incapable of love and joy.
And he created you.
You are joy.
The joy that brought balance to the sorrows of life.
You are love.
The love that reproduced itself in two beautiful children.
You are warmth.
The warmth in a world that often seems cold and uncaring.
You have been like a cool breeze,
blowing gently through my life.
And like God,
Who created all things,
I, too, will love you
Forever.
© James F. Fagnano
(Dad wrote this for Mom, for her 60th birthday.)
This audio clip is selected from a 1972 Poland Seminary High School band concert in Poland, Ohio, under the direction of my father, James Fagnano. The clarinet student featured is Ralph Lutz.
This was an extraordinary group of dedicated, passionate student musicians. Dad brought out the best in them — and they, in him. Over the years, I began to wonder if my memories of these high school students sounding more like a fantastic college or even professional musicians was simply overblown in my head. I’m thankful for these recordings. This band was every bit as good as I recall.
Per Kevin Cook, who, with Richard Woolford, kindly contacted me to get some of Dad’s music into my sister’s and my hands, these few selections are from “recordings made on Richard Woolford’s tape recorder, which Mark Kostyk made copies of and ultimately digitized. Since Rick was in band, Ralph Hutchinson served as the recording engineer. Kudos to Ralph for his diligent work. I contacted Rick and asked if he would allow me to share these recordings with others and he gave me his blessing.”
Guys, I can’t thank you enough. Warm smile and hugs to you all.
This second selection is titled Bugler’s Holiday (1972). The featured soloists are Loren Popio, Steve Alleman, and Karl Ivansen.
This third selection is titled Tone Poem (1970).
The fourth is titled Variations on a Korean Folk Song (1969).
I would love to share all I was given.
pictured words 