Thursday, September 26, 2019
Author Mike OConnor: Dreams questioned
Author Mike OConnor: Dreams questioned: I thought it was just another dream I often had of her. Quick snapshots of our time together as teenagers. We were in love, and nobody w...
Dreams questioned
I dreamed about her
for many years until one night; I realized it wasn't pictured books flashing
through my mind as I slept; it was her with me in spirit. I know you think I'm
crazy and maybe I am, but I know, and I accept her being there with me just
like we promised we would be together forever.
When she visits my
body lays in bed and can't move, but my spirit self rises to meet her as we
hold hands and walk backward in time to a place we both loved. We soar above
the clouds looking down at ourselves in years gone by laughing at our clothes
and hairstyles.
When we soar high
above, our bodies can't feel one another, but our spirits are connected, and
that is a thousand times better than human touch. I remember everything, every
detail about her and my love for her is as timeless as our midnight flights
back in time.
When I feel myself
trying to wake up, I try to fight it as her hand pulls away from mine and shes
gone. I lay in my bed for a few minutes my eyes wide open, leaving me to wonder
if it was a dream, or was she here with me again?Whatever the answer I get out
of bed and kiss her picture as I face another lonely day without her.
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
Author Mike OConnor: Empty memories
Author Mike OConnor: Empty memories: Walking down a quiet country road, the dirt kicking up with each step a reminder that rain hasn't come along in a while. The corn...
Empty memories
Walking down a
quiet country road, the dirt kicking up with each step a reminder that rain
hasn't come along in a while. The corn isn't as high as it should be, and
another bad crop will probably be the end of the farm.
I can see my dad
and mom sitting on the front porch, and I can imagine their talk isn't about
love and such but what their going to do if the worst happens? It has to be a
huge burden for them
I was just
seventeen when I got the calling and joined up, now six years later I'm coming
home with scars unseen and nightmares most every night. The meds help some, but
what keeps me going is the fact that I won't let them lose the farm, I won't.
It was mom who saw
me first, nearly falling out of her chair and running towards me as fast as her
legs would go. I dropped my bag and braced myself for that momma bear hug I
knew was coming. Dad tapped out his pipe and waited on the porch until we made
it there. Welcome home son he said offering me his hand which I took in mine
pumping a few times then looking away.
The rains finally
came, and we got the crop in and a few after that. Dad got hurt when a jack
fell on his leg, and he had to stop farming, leaving it to me and my mom to
keep things going. Then mom got sick with a cancer which took her from us way
too soon.
I never did like
farming all that much, and dad wasn’t much good at anything those days since
mom passed. The bank called in our loan and auctioned off the machinery and
stuff from the house then sold it off to the highest bidder who came in with
the winning bid of just twelve thousand dollars. Not much for a piece of land
that we worked for so long.
Dad ended up in a
mobile home in the desert where he drank himself to death, and as for me well,
I took a job at a factory that made cardboard boxes. It was a mindless job that
didn’t take much skill, but it kept the voices quiet, and it was only a few
miles from the old farm. I still walk down that dusty old country road
sometimes looking at the old house that’s been painted, and the fences mended.
I'm only
twenty-seven tears old, and my life is nothing but some memories that someone
much older than me should be having.
Author Mike OConnor: The last sale
Author Mike OConnor: The last sale: She walked slowly throughout the house she called home for over fifty years. The furniture was taken away this morning going to a s...
The last sale
Her gaze fell upon
darkened shadows of pictures taken down and given to family members who wanted
proof of their youth. She had selected a few that she would hang in her new
room but, It was hard to choose which ones to take as she loved them all
dearly.
Her children held
an estate sale last week, and hundreds of strangers fought over things she
never knew held such value. In her day people kept stuff if it were broken her
husband would fix it good as new. She was amused when two ladies of someplace
else fought over a set of pots and pans she remembered getting for Christmas
1947.
It was a bit
unsettling watching strangers paw through her life with no concern for her
feelings, only who could get something for way less than its actual value. She
didn’t enjoy this sale in any way and left early to let her children play
carnival barkers.
Nobody noticed her
gone as she went into her backyard and sat on a bench her “Herbert” had made
for her some forty years ago. It was a place she often sat when life threw her
a curve, a place where she did some thinking or just relaxed and looked at her
flowers.
The sun was setting
when her daughter found her on the bench. She sat next to her and told her it
was over and almost everything had been sold. It was like showing her life did
have a price. “Do you think there's room in the truck for this bench?” she
asked her daughter? ‘Of course mom” she replied as they walked back into her
empty house where her life story just seemed to have vanished into the night.
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Thursday, September 19, 2019
Author Mike OConnor: Last song
Author Mike OConnor: Last song: We use to be invincible when youth was on our side. We never backed down or gave in we marched forward to the sounds of our hearts be...
Last song
We stretched the
boundaries in all we did, but fear was never in the picture only a shadow
taunting us. Now we sit in comfortable chairs looking at old photographs
remembering all we can before that once beautiful carefree mind slow dances to
the last song of the night.
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Monday, September 16, 2019
Author Mike OConnor: The mirror
Author Mike OConnor: The mirror: Age is sometimes just a word that pertains to those who couldn’t muster the strength and belief that they could hold their own for more ...
The mirror
Age is sometimes just a word that pertains to those who
couldn’t muster the strength and belief that they could hold their own for more
than expected time. Age is looking in the mirror and smiling back at yourself,
knowing you wear the battle scars of someone whos walked the walk.
I can keep up with
those much younger than me and sometimes it's them who quit as I keep going
because I told myself over and over that I could, I will, I must. I believe
inner strength has to come out of the prison some people trap themselves in
Everyone will
succumb to death sooner or later. Some will age waiting for it to come calling
and others understand that someday they will have to finally stop but not until
the last adventure and the final walk on the endless beaches have been
completed.
I love this life
filled with thousands of stories, some of which I wrote both on paper and in
doing. I was a sailor of the vast oceans finding love in every port.I was a
product of a generation who wasn’t afraid to experiment. I longed to learn all
I could welcoming the conversations of the ancient ones who shared their times
that sometimes became my times eager to share with ears of all ages willing and
wanting to listen.
Age isn't something
to fear or dread, it’s a lifestyle to be thankful for, but you must accept that
some things can now be only memories. As I look into that mirror, I smile that
same smile I wore as a child even though the wrinkles of time have altered its
state a wee bit. I see a man who lived a life filled with good and evil,
someone who suffered the pain of loss and the emptiness of being alone. But I
think the most meaningful thing I see is it's still me looking back at me, and
somehow I still manage to smile back with a twinkle in my bloodshot eyes
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Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Author Mike OConnor: He wrote stories
Author Mike OConnor: He wrote stories: Often I sit down with a blank page and wait for a word or a memory to work its way towards me. Then I take it and run as fast as my min...
He wrote stories
Often I sit down
with a blank page and wait for a word or a memory to work its way towards me. Then
I take it and run as fast as my mind can spit out sentences and stories. The
amazing thing to me is I don’t know where I'm going with it, like how are the
characters going to evolve? Will it have a happy ending, or will a thousand
tears fall?
It's so quiet here
in the back room where I write and dream and realize who I am and my purpose
for being here. There is one noise, my elderly neighbor doesn’t believe in air
conditioning, so the sound from her TV softly enters my cracked door. It has
become a part of my silence.
Some writers will
tell you they are inspired by this or that, and they find building a story can
take years off your life. They say sometimes it just flows without end and
other times they don’t write for weeks even months. That’s not true for me. I
write something every day. It may be a paragraph about a thought or a complete
page filled with one-liners I keep writing down. Writing for me is a drug, it’s
the booze I don’t drink anymore or the joint I wish I had. Its food for my soul
and water to quench the thirst for a story.
Writing is the very
lifeblood of who I am, and as I grow in age, the importance of it grows with
me. Once it was for the fun of doing something others wish they could.Now, its
because I want to leave behind a part of me that made up who I was. For reasons
only I know its important that my children and grandchildren will be able to
read a book I wrote where they could see the funny part of me, or browse
through stacks of my work where they will wonder if the stories are real?
Painters create
great works of art that will adorn the walls of those they left behind. Writers
work will gather dust until a broken heart needs comfort or dreaming about
adventure comes alive in written words. I want my stories to be a comfort and
an escape into my private world full of who I truly am. I want my great-great
grandchildren to read and be proud of the guy who wrote the stories.
Saturday, September 7, 2019
Author Mike OConnor: Ashen gray
Author Mike OConnor: Ashen gray: The sound of coins in my pocket has been replaced with the silence of cotton. The fullness in my heart now a dark hole of despair, and...
Ashen gray
The sound of coins
in my pocket has been replaced with the silence of cotton. The fullness in my
heart now a dark hole of despair, and the clarity of my memories an ashen gray.
Time hasn't been
all too kind, yet my tattered boots keep heading forward.Hope is a powerful
potion combined with beliefs in one's self and its all I have left other than
my name that is sometimes softly spoken by someone who once loved me.
Thursday, September 5, 2019
Author Mike OConnor: Clean your mind
Author Mike OConnor: Clean your mind: Sometimes I have to stop the thoughts racing through my mind, to let go of all that is my life. It's not easy to create a quiet spa...
Clean your mind
Sometimes I have to
stop the thoughts racing through my mind, to let go of all that is my life. It's
not easy to create a quiet space when the noises are pounding at the door of
emotions.
I have discovered
that if I leave some of the noise inside like specific memories or thoughts of
someone or something dear to me, it makes it easier to quiet the voices.
We need to do that,
and we need the brightness of life to dim on occasion and even grow dark and
without meaning.How else will we rid ourselves of the unwanted commotions?
I think of it as
spring cleaning for the mind, getting rid of useless thoughts and opening the
windows of the soul, letting in a breeze of freshness to take away the stagnant
thoughts.
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