Victor D. López's Blog: Victor D. Lopez, page 57

Priceless Legacy

Leave to all your heirs,
The one priceless legacy,
They can’t buy: Honor.

O Castelo de San Antón

Beautiful small castle on a tranquil bay,
Of beauty seldom seen on any shore,
Museum now of artifacts of old,
From Roman digs and our Celtic ancestors.

Treasures displayed from my Galician soil,
The lost kingdom’s uncovered still,
Yet nary a manacle, or bar seen,
Of a fascist makeshift prison once here.

My grandfather tortured, condemned to death,
But set free by a jailor/patriot.

My maternal grandfather was a supporter of the failed Republic before and during Spain’s Civil War. He never t...

Lightning Rends the Sky

Lightning rends the sky,
Heaven’s blood floats to the earth,
That life may flourish.

Ode to Innocence

Oh half remembered, fleeting, happy time,
When nothing mattered more than love and play,
Imagination was then in its prime,
And life began anew with every day.

A flower was then a joy, a mystery,
And not a petal, root and simple stem,
And life was full of wondrous fantasy,
Untainted by the intellect of man.

That time is gone now; it cannot return,
The fruit’s been swallowed; its slow poison kills,
And yet my fallen heart will always yearn,
For that most happy time of unknown skills.

Oh false god...

Tinnitus

An endless screeching tone, now in both ears,
You cannot know the solace of silence,
Until it is taken away from you.

A billion cicadas that will not die,
Along with high-pitched sirens ever near,
Symphonies translated by a kazoo.

Inoperable tumor in my ear,
Genetic hearing loss on my dad’s side,
The joy of music fading, singing too.

Like the vibrant colors of a rainbow,
Stretching over all the oceans on Earth,
Fading to gray, dissolving into black.

My world is dissolving to a shrill hum,
The...

I Need a Reset Button

I need a reset button for my life,
A chance to chart a course on a blank slate,
Unplant the seeds that blossomed pain and strife,
And brought a bitter harvest to my plate.

I walked by open doors that closed behind,
With eyes fixed only forward on my course,
Trying to do what’s right, I’ve been unkind,
Attempts to avoid pain just made it worse.

I should have explored many other paths,
That led to orchards that would bear sweet fruit,
My solitary one has led to wrath,
The seeds I planted would themse...

On the Poisoned Well of Politics

I just came across a long blog post on one of my now dormant blogs (The Political Center) that I wrote in the heated political climate that was the precursor to the 2016 election. Written just over five years ago, it is more relevant than ever today so I would like to reprint a lightly edited portion of it here.

The political well has been poisoned for too long—from the beginning of our fledgling democracy in fact. For all of their many strengths and intellectual gifts, even gr...

The Heart Sculpts Us

The heart sculpts us
From within
With neither chisel nor hammer
But with white-hot fire
That burns away
The weak facades
We build
Hoping for
Shelter from the
Storm

It melts away
Reason
Logic
Sense
Leaving behind ashes
From which a Phoenix
May yet rise again
Revealing the
True nature
Of our
souls

We are not what we
Seem
Nor are we what we
Say
Not even what we
Do
We are only what we
Feel
And how we
Love

In the darkness
And the cold
And the loneliness
That is our life
It is our only
True source
Of
Light
Heat
Comfort
And our ...

Justice / Justicia — readings of the shortest speculative fiction short story in my Mindscapes short story collection

The following link is to my Booksie web page where you can hear and/or read the shortest story in my Mindscapes: Ten Science fiction and Speculative fiction Short Stories collection: https://www.booksie.com/posting/victordlopez/justice-flash-fiction-291716

El siguiente enlace es de mi página de web de Booksie donde puedes escuchar y / o leer la versión en español del cuento más corta de mi colección Mindscapes: Ten Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction Short Stories: https://www.booksie.com...

On Completing My First Novel

This is the third and final free verse poem on the process of writing, and completing, my first novel. the novel which is largely autobiographical caused me a great deal of unanticipated emotional stress as it dredged up long submerged memories about one of the most rewarding and painful years in what is now a long, well-established career. Wordsworth, my favorite poet, once described poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings . . . recollected in tranquility.” Writing poetry has a...