These Dreams I Still Have

These dreams I still have

Remnants of a misspent youth

Still push me onward

Unlike many of our young

Lost and wandering

~

Have we been failures

Left to fend for themselves

Both parents labor

This unavoidable plague

With our children as victims

~

Our culture has changed

Families expendable

Futures uncertain

Their dreams are left in tatters

If they ever had any

~

These dreams I still have

Are for our children’s futures

Prosperous and full

As mine was when I was young

Not something left in the past

~

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

Youthful Imprudence – A Haiku

Image Credit: findery.com

Image Credit: findery.com

Warmth of early spring

Rekindles past imprudence

The joys of our youth

~

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

Life of Lessons

Image Credit: esrc.ac.uk

Image Credit: esrc.ac.uk

Influenced by birth

Life determines points-of-view

Like watching a film

Sometimes a panorama

Other times a flawed close up

~

A Tanka

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

Ode to Alicia

O’ what sorrows hang under the placid moon,

Beguiled as we wait before an open tomb.

~~

Unexpectedly passing in horrid way,

O’er the hilltop, contorted and lifeless you lay.

~~

Cowardly murderer ran with haste from his deed,

Hiding as rats will do in thicket and weed.

~~

Hide from God! You most certainly cannot,

Judgement at the gates will harshly begot.

~~

O’ dear Alicia…how young and innocent you were,

Just a child– Undeserving of a life to pass as a blur.

~~

While the foul miscreant thrives and lives on,

Corrupt of conscience, never considered you were gone.

~~

O’ how the parents grieve for their little lost soul,

All while this pariah slithers into Satan’s black hole.

~~

Squalid tomb– Why take solace in so young a life?

So cold, so final, no comfort to the progenitors strife!

~~

Judgement befitting the crime, our earthly courts did not levy,

Cries for hanging be raised at the hands of a justified bevy.

~~

No! Justice in this lifetime is not to be,

Pray God, Hell’s hanging tree hath a place for he.

~~

As the tomb eternal be sealed from the light,

Candles pay homage to a life once so bright.

~~

A place be laid for you Alicia…at the foot of God’s throne,

For all to take comfort that you will never be alone.

~~ D. R. DiFrancesco ~~

Greener Grass

This gravel road,

A path oft traveled,

Lane you strode,

As your life unraveled.

~~

Yon horizon so far distant,

Where a better life must lay,

Hurry on forth right this instant,

For the sun will rise on a brighter day.

~~

On yonder side the grass must surely be greener,

As the old time saying goes,

This too passes as ones life becomes leaner,

With far too little to show.

~~

Much too often we chase exaggerated expectations,

When they seem right within our grasp,

‘Til euphoria fades to urgent consternation,

And your prospects they dwindle and lapse.

~~

Life lessons learned are the hardest its true,

As the scars and bruises do prove,

Out of the rubble and ash will rise a new you,

In spirit and nature behoove.

~~

We greet you back home as a most beloved son,

For you needed to find your own way,

This is only the beginning of the journey you’ve begun,

Welcome home for as long as you will stay.

 

~~ D. R. DiFrancesco ~~