Emotions in Rhyme

By Carol Sue Sorensen Thavenet

Emotions in Rhyme is not only a book of poetry that encompasses life over a span of many years but also includes a true and compassionate accounting of a horror that should have never happened to one of our older citizens. There will be poems perhaps many, that will touch your life in some way and may leave you with a feeling that you are not alone. In other words, you may find yourself in a poem or two!

There are poems that deal with life and some have good advice for those who are looking for an answer! There are few solutions but no lack of encouragement!

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477285596

Carol Sue Sorensen Thavenet

The Author, Carol Thavenet, has had a lifetime to witness an unfortunately decline in Humanity. She has seen the slowly diminishing qualities of principles, manners, respect and compassion replaced by fear, lack of trust and greed. Granted, she realizes that it is an imperfect world that we live in and though perfection is not feasible, it doesn’t mean, to her, that we must throw in the towel. Instead, she feels that life is a challenge and a battle that we should never concede defeat. Pretending, however, life is a bed of roses is okay as long as the one pretending doesn’t forget that roses have thorns!

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Well, dear Friends, it goes without saying, a book title that has the word emotions in it is going to be, at times, ‘emotional’. And, those who are responsible for these emotions have, without a doubt, inspired these poems and, yes, there is a boat-load of the bad and ugly. And, too, there has been plenty to complain about since we last met in Truth Through Poetry a year or two ago.

Many have told me that I have a way of hitting the nail on the head (an expression that apparently means you agree with me). My guess is that the nail and the hammer will be used extensively in this book as well. It could be there will be enough ‘nails’ to build a whole new house! But there are also poems that speak of the good in people as I critique humanity and have seen it in all these many years.

There is one section of this book that I am going to encourage you to skip back to and read first because it is a true story that the bad and the ugly may or ‘may not’ surprise you. I was there and I could not believe my eyes or ears and would have sworn it was just a bad dream that I was yet to wake up from. But unfortunately, it was not just a bad dream but total reality, for a 68 year old woman had been accused and sentenced for a crime that she did not commit. Instead, she had become the victim of a system that is supposed to protect her from the criminal element; - not, make her a victim of a criminal, of which the justice system, from all appearances, is joined at the hip (and I do mean that quite literally). It is Unbelievable – But True and some of you may not be shocked at all considering some of the news that has been made public in the past regarding the Judicial System . Call me ‘naïve’, if you will, but I feel our judicial system should, at the very least, be above board and beyond reproach when it comes to administering the law. Tulsa’s judicial system has failed miserably! Case in point is written here that you’ll read about in Unbelievable – But True! I can believe one thing – they believe they are above reproach – no matter whose life they have damaged unnecessarily! But, when the ‘bloody’ criminal is a buddy of the judicial system – anything can and will happen and you can bet it will not be fair or good!

EMOTIONS IN RHYME

(An Introduction in Rhyme)

Emotions in rhyme

Tends to be

Thoughts and feelings

Felt by me

For, we all have emotions

Affecting our hearts and minds

Feelings regarding events

That is a sign of the times

We have an obligation to speak up

And try to eloquently say

What drives us to reveal

Why we feel a particular way

We have emotions of happiness

In our lives

And sometimes sadness

That is hard to disguise

And emotions as we get older

And seasoned in our years

When faced with disappointments

And disturbing fears

We feel emotions about injustice

Involving innocents wrongly accused

And are angered

When we see them abused

Emotions involving injustice

When as victims of deceit and mistrust

It affects our sensibilities

Deep inside us

Emotions we can recall

As a small child

Creep back into our memory too

Every once in a while

And then there are emotions

Awakening our sensibilities

Encouraging us to reach out and help those

Who suffer destabilizing frailties

And there are those with kindly emotions

Who inspire those who are not so inclined

For they are the salt of the earth

I find

I have felt each and every one

Of these emotions

At one time or another

As a child, wife and mother

For these poems of emotions

Are all relative to my life through the years

Every emotion you can possibly think of

Love, happiness, sadness, laughter, anger and tears

And my very best to you

As you read this through

For, perhaps, it will bring back

A few memories of yours – too!

Carol

THE POET

(Me, Myself and I)

Yes, there are times I feel like three people! But, don’t we all!

On December 25th of 2011, I celebrated my 75th birthday (and I used to think a half-century sounded old when I became 50). As someone once said – getting old is not for sissies. I can agree with that, even though, I am reminded by those who are older than me, that I’m still a spring chicken in their eyes!

Oh, but that is not all the good news – reaching 75, that is. My dearly beloved husband, Fritz and I celebrated our 50th anniversary of our meeting on 11-11-11. We married on June 30th the following year and have now managed to hang in there together for 50 years. Actually, it almost seems like yesterday that his Mother decided we would make a nice couple and arranged our meeting. She was first my landlady and was a wonderful and kind woman. I had two children, ages 2 and 4 years old, and we had been abandoned by their father – so, I was pretty much alone. My mother-in-law found an apartment for me and did the best she could, considering the fact there was little else she could do. The rent was cheaper and more affordable and I did have a job.

I will always believe that this was Devine Intervention.

I must confess, however, that the idea of another man in my life left me with serious reservations. But, in retrospect, an old saying comes to mind – When one door closes – another more promising one may open and indeed, it did for, like Mother – like Son and I couldn’t have asked for more. She arranged our meeting. I could hear two people coming up the stairs and the knock on the door and when I opened the door, it was my landlady and her son. She said Fritz this is Carol – Carol this is Fritz….. and I’ll see y’all later – and she turned around and went back downstairs and we were two strangers in a room with two little children eating their chicken pot pies and doing our best to find something to talk about. Diana Lynn, my four year old broke the ice with Mommy, is this our new Daddy? Neither Fritz nor I can recall what we said or did in answer to that question. Personally, I thought I would never see this man again and he would be out the door and out of town as fast as he could possibly make tracks but it was the exact opposite. This was a man beyond my wildest dreams and who would adopt my two little children as soon as the law would allow. We married and added one more to our nest – a little girl, Donna Rene!

I learned a few things from this experience. It takes more than a sperm donation to make a Dad and if there are young people who say to their step dad – You are not my Daddy – then they had better think again because Daddy is the man that has taken them under his wing when their own sperm donating Dad has voluntarily left the nest! Anything, and I do mean anything, can pro-create. It is what we do and how we see our responsibility to what we have created that counts!

Fortunately, my children never questioned who their Daddy was and we never had to face that problem but I know there are families that do have that problem and it is a real challenge to the stability of the marriage. But children really do need the presence of two adults in a family to guide them along the way to adulthood!

I, however, recognize and realize that is not always possible and for those one-parent households – I wish you all the good fortune in your endeavor to get your children raised and out on their own so you can breathe a sigh of relief!

CHRISTMAS DAY 1936

I was born in Monroe, Louisiana at the St. Francis Hospital at 1:15 AM. Actually I don’t think it mattered to my mother that it was Christmas Day – she had to be overjoyed that all those hours of labor and pain was over with. But I have since wondered how many times, during that time, she wished she had listened to her doctor who had advised her not to get pregnant in the first place. She had been told that due to her state of health, she would not likely live to see any child she would have reach the age of six.

But she did and she conquered TB in 22 months at the age of 41. She was released from the Tuberculosis Sanitarium on November 22, 1947 and due to, what is believed to be the culprit – sulfur drugs, – her kidney’s failed and she succumbed to peritonitis on the following April 6, 1948 at the age of 42. I was eleven years of age and due to the fact that I was not 12 years old, I was not allowed to visit my mother in the hospital prior to her death. She had become very ill and had to go to the hospital on March 12, 1948 – the day after her 42nd birthday.

My Father was a professional musician, born in Manchester, England on February 12, 1900. He came to the United States aboard a Merchant Marine Ship, decided he liked it here, changed his name and became a citizen. Whether it was actually legal is still a mystery and I was 22 years old before I learned my maiden name should have been Austin - instead of Sorensen. Truthfully, I like the name Austin. Why he chose to sever his ties with his English family for 36 years I can only speculate. I met Dad’s sister and his two brothers and found them to be very gracious and loving people. I also found out that he left behind an unborn son, Geoffrey, and unknown for 36 years. We became true brother and sister and spent some time together in the years to follow before he died at the age of 64 from lymphatic leukemia. He, too, was a writer - of