From the open sky
Fell the angels, pushed by pride,
Landing hard on us
About the Creator
Gerard DiLeo
Retired, not tired. Hippocampus, behave!
Make me rich! https://www.amazon.com/Gerard-DiLeo/e/B00JE6LL2W/
My substrack at https://substack.com/@drdileo
Reader insights
Outstanding
Excellent work. Looking forward to reading more!
Top insights
Compelling and original writing
Creative use of language & vocab
Easy to read and follow
Well-structured & engaging content
Excellent storytelling
Original narrative & well developed characters
Expert insights and opinions
Arguments were carefully researched and presented
Heartfelt and relatable
The story invoked strong personal emotions
Keep reading
More stories from Gerard DiLeo and writers in Poets and other communities.
Tornado
The finger of God Cyclonic retribution Summons me to Him
By Gerard DiLeoabout a year ago in Poets
Foot Bindings
I asked my grandmother how she knew she'd fallen in love. I am not sure I ever did love him, she said. This was before I met my husband. I was naive, a naked spring, a raw nerve of a thing. That cannot ever be me, I knew. Sadness swept in gently like a Moscow thaw. It is no simple thing, looking into a woman's vast soul and seeing its foot bindings. Now, in Italy divorced with my skin singed off, when I say I don't love him mean: I have succeeded at feeling nothing most days and it mostly works. Do you want the comfort of Nothing? Do you want Nothing, too? Be warned: you'll never be free, even when you are nothing. Here is what doesn't work: Accepting the stages of grief. Talking about it. Sitting with the feeling. Missing him—no, the person you were when you believed in death do us part. Writing poetry. That, too. When I say I don't love him I mean: I feel capsized in an endless, starved tide. What sometimes works: selective memory. You must forget ripe tomatoes and his beard and feeling perfectly sheltered in a big blue world. Forget coffee in bed, laughter watching TV, blowing out the candles on the birthday cake and the quiet all-encompassing knowledge that you are chosen. Remember only how love turned to a banal everyday survival act, a trapeze act unsure whether he will catch you, how the warmth stagnated and became sour, remember the foot bindings and remember the resentment boiling in your veins as you stick it out for the kids. Six-hour Netflix binges help, too. A man's fingers tracing your spine. Frozen pizza at 2 a.m. Random trips to the museum just to stand near things that last a while. The realization that crying won’t change anything. Seeing that life is just a dream, and refusing to participate in your own suffering. Bite your fist. Walk on eggshells around joy. When I say I don't love him, I mean he didn’t break my heart, he just stopped touching it and it forgot how to beat right.
By Ella Bogdanovaabout 12 hours ago in Poets
Comments (7)
This is making me think too hard, Gerard ..... are angels indeed subjected to such human traits as pride (we are taught Lucifer was) or are those ranking high above them subjected to these same such human traits....or better still, did escalating humans' pride erupt to circumvent high in the heavens, ousting the angels? 'Tis a conundrum, to be sure.....
Lol, I'm with John, laughed too. Loved your poem!
I believe if I had a guardian angel, it would definitely land on my head, and would be much heavier than snow flakes.
Well done, a beautiful vision with a subtle touch of comedy
It sure if you intended this to be funny, but I laughed anyway. Loved this Haiku!
I enjoyed both the senryu and the comical way the photo fits it. Well done!
Of interest to note is how, throughout the various mythologies, free will is alotted more often to the corporeal than the surreal or ethereal entities, except for in instances where the ethereal entities choose to defy their creator. This may have to do with the need of the corporeal for convenient interpretation. History is written by the winners and the losers, and interpreted according to the needs of each in their respective time. I cannot imagine the true Divine any more concerned about such power plays than a mountain about the direction a stream takes from summit to base. Everything makes sense in time. Well-wrought Haiku, Gerard! Forgive my meandering circumlocutions!