Tag Archives: love

3AM

Posted by thom amundsen on

A quiet shadow

a new normal

remember the names

seemed abandoned souls

when in the cloud of our lives

their names forever

etched in our mind,

and now tonight

I gave pause to a moment

looked outside to see empty streets

an occasional walker,

sometime a couple hoping they together

might escape the nightmare

looms about us all indiscriminate

infectious –

we need this isolation

the loneliest of hearts

forced tonight, tomorrow,

in the shadows of sunlight

the misty tears of a rain,

always to live for ourselves,

to find peace in the mind

of our own stability,

for this is now tomorrow.

©Thom Amundsen 4/2020

The Monster

Posted by thom amundsen on

He walked alongside,

non-descript,

hoping to be noticed

in order to quell

such is the pain inside

of an insecure mind.

 

Started as a child,

one day he lost all hope

in the manifest of

life over death,

or the cruel hand of God

in what we call a miracle,

yet absurd,

inside the fear

is simple departure

of the one we love.

 

That internal flame,

became ignited

virtue of a confusion,

the wonder of why,

the angry response

to losing someone we love

at the hands of innocence,

where that person,

that wonderful being,

is cut short.

 

A woman recently,

suggested I take the knife out of my back,

its is a long line to

understanding

why we carry the demons we do,

when in reality,

if we could just live our lives,

we might

discover

a certain peace,

the one we see

in the eyes of those

we may never know.

© Thom Amundsen 3/2020

Thoughts in a Covid-19 World

Posted by thom amundsen on

I haven’t felt like writing for quite some time, but today I received the inspiration I was pleading, and so it goes that I want to talk about this Covid-19 crisis that we will seemingly endure for quite some time. It will change our world, our lives. The number of positives today reach 169 in Minnesota alone, not to speak of the enormous numbers across the world.

Our lives are impacted as we all get used to this self-quarantine in our homes. The temps outside are just shy of my desire to take my bicycle out, though newly tuned, I am thinking at least a short ride in the late afternoon when the temperature peaks. That would seem a freely healthy move inside this isolation.

I am a coffeeshop guy and I went through early withdrawal with the words of our Governor shutting down any inside seating. It makes frightening sense to me now as I watch the numbers and their daily rise. It is important to recognize these are real people and not simply numbers. People’s lives across the world are changed, forever. People have lost loved ones like a germ warfare attack throughout Europe and now having reached the states, it is clearly an epidemic not seen since perhaps the Polio outbreak.

I’m a teacher so I don’t have to go into work. We are planning to go online with our courses in a couple of weeks, not only finishing a quarter but perhaps completing the school year online. I haven’t wrapped my head around that. At the same time I appreciate the time off to get my head straight with my own personal life, I realize our work, as experimental as it is, so vastly impacts the lives of our students. I hope to give them a solid foundation for their education in both core and elective classes.

I run a  theatre program that will shut down for the spring if these effected lives do not begin a downturn in the weeks ahead. I don’t see that happening anytime soon. As I sit here with a mild cough, I get nervous, and wonder about the thousands of lives in Minnesota already infected. Again, I’m only focusing locally, because really that is all my brain can muster right now. Looking out my window, I know that on everyone’s mind outside that walks by, is the virus. We are living a summer blockbuster. The only difference is it is real.

I think as a teacher, someone said recently, maybe now our profession will be appreciated when families are stuck at home rather than sending their children to school. Well then I would say all of those people in all professions need to be respected for the impact staying home has on their livelihood, and then don’t forget the medical personnel in all capacities who are dedicating their lives to curbing the spread of a virus that they cannot even clearly see a vaccine that will brings this to a halt.

My car has 12 miles of gas left in it before empty, and I am not in any huge hurry to go fill the tank. There really is no need, unless I decide to just take a drive and never get out. That might be in the near future if the temperatures don’t rise and my bicycle remains hanging in the garage.

I wish everyone peace during this very difficult time. I hope you may all hold your family and friends near your heart and soul. I hope those alone don’t feel completely invisible to our society and world, and realize there are many in the same circumstance. I hope people may find their peace of mind within themselves and use faith and prayer, your chosen method of processing this incredible violation upon the human condition..

On a lighter note, I hope Netflix does not shut down.

Peace everyone,

@ Thom Amundsen 3/2020

An Unconditional Prelude

Posted by thom amundsen on

We stood and watched,

heard about a couple of planes

ascending into the atmosphere

above and beyond a toxic city.

 

We wondered aloud,

thought oh my, such a tragedy,

imagined only a particular moment,

far beyond our backyard,

we don’t even need a fence,

so convenient,

so far away.

 

We began to stare

a certain shock

this calamity of our social

atmosphere,

shutting down,

closing, ending,

creating financial ruin,

the livelihood of so many,

suddenly matters little,

not a bitter response,

just one of humanity,

a time to understand,

find meaning.

 

There is ahead of ourselves a prelude

asking, universal, unconditional love.

© Thom Amundsen 3/2020

Stepping Away

Posted by thom amundsen on

Many times in my life,

have I stepped away,

taken a breather,

had my hand forced …

yet, when does the time come when we can

honestly say,

the choice is my own

for me to decide

in some sort of even way,

not a hostile arrangement,

by any means,

so out of character,

would be defiance and doom and gloom.

 

Stepping away

would ask for only a settlement

in love, in passion, in pursuance

of those pieces of our lives,

our own peace,

our desire to understand

a world beyond

selfish need.

 

Reality is a dream,

we can see deep along a river path,

the blossoming of spring,

the lush imagination

allows us  to draw

our own own

sweet circumstance

the beauty of a fantasy,

the magic of our mind.

 

So we do step away,

on occasion within ourselves,

in other situations,

we ask for a pardon,

and yet,

the road away does seem to

carry the weight

of our own self-proclaimed tragedy,

with far less burdensome angst,

than

if we stay within the course

of simple travesty.

 

Outside, the sun had begun to shine,

an overbearing competition inside.

© Thom Amundsen 3/2020

A Working Man

Posted by thom amundsen on

I am a working man,

with a verve, passion, a concept

of what I feel is right

in the vocation that I am.

 

I need to see the might

of quickly drawn out ideals

that give me inspiration,

capture a full moon at night.

 

I watched her drive away

her smile was something to hold

wondering then what happened

to the silence of today.

 

This isn’t who we imagine,

the working man in his day,

has thoughts of some reaction

speak to personal, my chagrin

 

I am a steadfast human being,

drawn by a mechanical means

I cannot step away from love,

a sordid state of wooing.

 

She walked away from a life we knew,

and then ironic, so did she.

© Thom Amundsen 3/2020

A Difficult Month

Posted by thom amundsen on

I have experienced loss this month, not simply grief of losing a loved one to the natural course of life. More presence and banishment. Not hostile as much as confusing. Many aspects of life have been exposed, many others kept in their dark holes of quiet solace from revealing my greatest fears. And yet there is the heartbreak of our lives that we always keep close to ourselves in order to find some sanity in our day to day.

I have known love on so many levels, and now I am being asked to love alone, without any recourse beyond knowing in my own seeming understanding of God or some spiritual entity that love does exist and continues beyond the mechanical or physicality of the human condition.

My belief is in God. I have kept that tucked away for many years because parts of our society do not accept the reality of some of our own ways to find personal strength in ourselves, in our lives. I remember a time over a decade ago when I was struggling and when finally coming to terms with whom I was in the moment, I sat in a chapel, looked at an altar and began to feel the tears stream down my cheeks. I didn’t hold back, I just let them fall, and the memories began to flood my mind. I thought immediately of my cousin Billy, who I miss so much, and my parents, and my childhood, and like a film reel my life ran its course of recall and redemption. I realized that morning that I could be okay with whatever decision I make in life because it is my own. I believed that day, that God was looking over me, and offering forgiveness. It felt unique in contrast to the many times I would on my knees or in a fetal position pray that God might take me out of this miserable life. That day God held my hand.

Recently I have returned to the church and it has offered me a unique peace. Though I still walk through my days with questionable motives. I have very good friends, a support system that is just short of phenomenal, but are we ever completely satisfied? There is a void in my life that I created on my own, that I find troubling because I fall into patterns of neediness that won’t allow that to be fixed. I have made a choice in my life that I could not possibly regret because moments do teach happiness and truth.

Today, my words gradually become more revealing. I hope they might speak the truth in what I feel, not simply words to fill the page and find reader’s eyes, but words that would somehow tell a story that when other’s hear, they have their own quiet ‘yeah’ moments. My mother always called them ‘aha’ moments, so I save her mantra for myself because I do love her and miss her dearly. With my dad the two taught us as a family how to live with one another no matter the struggle. We used to spend hours in debates with all of our family around the old oak table – freedom of thought without judgment. Something I miss dearly, but in writing we can find and use that venue to our own advantage to help define our thoughts.

So it has been a difficult month. I have returned to work in a capacity and the students are clearly my life blood. I see them throughout the day and their smiling faces is all a person needs in the moment. It is the hours afterwards that I will continue to struggle to find my own space, my own identity, my own truths.

© Thom Amundsen 2/2020