Ward Stories A column organized by Dan Frey, Interim Poetry Editor

Ward Stories
A column organized by Dan Frey, Interim Poetry Editor
For this winter 2015 edition, we feature three poets, each with their own style and message. R. Martinez Jr. makes addiction real for his readers in Love is a Drug. Paul Chipkin grows into a peaceful man through his poem I Am That I Am. Beryl Khabeer explains that our soul is beyond the material world in her poem Brooching SOUL. I hope that you enjoy as much as I have.

Love is a Drug
By R. Martinez Jr.
I need a quick fix
I'm addicted to you
feeling high feeling low
what am I to do?
an aphrodesiac
affection in a sack
I can feel you in my veins
but Im stuck without a track
I'm drowning in a bottle
of absolute sorrow
if I cant have you now
there will be no tomorrow
Pure euphoria
when I'm with you its ecstasy
I take so much of you in
that I can't even see
I might have to quit cold turkey
I might have to ween
Love is a drug
you already proved it to me.

I Am That I Am
By Paul Chipkin
I am the very one
Who did those things
That I can be the one
Who is growing into
Who I am today
Because I am who I was
And have seen complexity
As I strengthened
Growing
And making peace better.

Love appears here,
Sprouts anew there…
Goodness greets me
In response to faith.

Divinely-inspired liberties
And holy trust
Bring me to pray
That those
Who I hurt along the way
Are exercising forgiveness,
(Believing in that eases my burden
as I stand in this present moment
loving my fellows with developing confidence).

Having fought off hoplessness,
I hold an optimistic vision
For the salvation of individuals.

Now, as it always was,
I am grateful for all that I have!

Brooching SOUL
By Beryl Khabeer, M.A.
The body is just the shell I live in.
I am no sensation; I am no senses.
I am a living  S O U L.
The beat of my environ touch my true self,
Touch my  S O  U  L
And echo through the senses.

Knowing and using the senses
For only the senses’ sake
Is to abridge Creation and Creator.