Scattered Pieces: Poems of an Ordinary Life

By F. Apollo M. Arenas

Scattered Pieces started as a poem which consisted of short random thoughts based on the authors personal experiences. Some of these vignettes grew into poems when subsequent experiences galvanized a particular thought enabling the author to build from it a longer and more cohesive form that could stand on its own. Some remained short, maybe dormant, but the author hopes that someday, each will bloom and fly off to a place of its own.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 31, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499076318

F. Apollo M. Arenas

F. Apollo M. Arenas was born and grew up in the Philippines. After graduating from medical school, he moved to Philadelphia, PA where he did his residency training and practiced neurology. He currently lives in Blountville, TN with his wife.

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Copyright © 2014 by F. Apollo M. Arenas.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Rev. date: 10/31/2014

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CONTENTS

TO THOSE WHO MAY CHANCE TO READ THIS BOOK

I woke up in a good mood

Good Morning Earth

As My Hair Turns Gray

The Echo

Bird Watching

The Modern Existentialist

This New Day

God Was Not Too Nice To Ducks

Ang Buhay Nga Naman

That’s Life

In appreciation of the ordinary

The Simple Spiral

A Baby’s Eyes

The Rose

Cardinals

Snowflakes

The Plant On The Road

The Bench

Old Houses

Thoughts in an ordinary day

Peace

Time

My Desiderata

Envy

Nightmare

Dark Silent Corner

Dreamless Sleep

My Imperfect World

The Long Drive

The Dying Of Slow Days

Suns And Moons

The Lake In Autumn

Some days are special

A Birthday Poem For Me

Birthday Blues

A Grumpy Christmas Message

A Christmas Utopia

The Christmas Card

New Years, Old Years

One And Six

Special people, ordinary people

The Young Man In A Corner

Ode To The Hungry Scholar

Merle And Jorge

Me

Selfish Miss

The Father

The Good-Looking Man

Two Cool Guys

Mary Oliver

Gone, but I will always have them

A Lost Poem

Margarita, In Spring

Micah

Let Him Rest

Fathers And Sons

Lost Love

Her Many Faces

The Bridge

The Last Days Of Summer

83 Bryce Lane

Old Friend

Looking Old, Feeling Good

Your Poem

Mother

The Sunset

There’s always another day

An Ordinary Day

The Long Cold Night

Come To The Old Day

Silent Spring

A Part Of Thee

Come Out And Look

Tomorrow

SCATTERED PIECES

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

TO THOSE WHO MAY CHANCE TO READ THIS BOOK

I started writing poems as a project in high school. My literature teacher, Mr. Restituto Cena, asked me to submit a collection of poems and short stories. I finished my project within a few days. I have already written some previously so I only needed a few more just to have a good enough number of pages in my little book of prose and poetry. I don’t know what became of that book or if it was even worth searching for.

I was born before the digital era. Everything then was written in paper which is easy to misplace and lose. All that I have written before my first computer are gone. Not that there were many but there were a sporadic few which I wish I had kept. I remember my first long poem was entitled Scattered Pieces which consisted of unrelated poems each was only one stanza with a few lines. That poem had been lost but I remember the first paragraph. I used it in one of the poems I included in this collection. I also started a new Scattered Pieces poem. It is unfinished. I hope to pick up many more pieces to add to it and keep it growing.

As it was when I was young, I would continue to write if there is something that would give me a reason to write. Those inspirations came from people who I have encountered, my wife, Elvira, who is a saint for withstanding my many moods and insufferable jokes, my family, my friends from grade school, high school and medical school. Some of these poems I have already shared with them and some have pushed me to put them together into a book.

I do not fancy myself as a real poet. I do not envision myself sitting down again to write enough for another book. Thinking that this book of poems may well be my first and my last, I jammed in all that I have written with neither rhyme nor reason other than the hope that somebody will feel himself or herself in any of them. What I write is always a response to people I have encountered, an emotion felt and shared with others. But even in solitude, I was never alone. That’s what friends and memories provide. They offer you a shade when the sun is scorching, or hold up a light when it gets too dark.