Category Archives: Cyber Romance

Premature Viability

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Premature Viability

It was a viable solution to a major tragedy.
She had it all planned out, and she confided it to me:
how she might overcome her fears of dating and romance
by going on a dating site and giving love a chance.

First she lost a pound or two and got a stylish cut,
then purloined her sister’s Spanx  that nipped in thighs and butt.
Had a makeup session and bought a new blouse that
showed off a bit of shoulder as well as a new hat.

Set at a rakish angle, it polished off her wiles—
made her eyes more come-on and accented her smiles.
When she was ready for battle, she turned her webcam on,
signed up for OkCupid, and when her family were gone,

tried out her Skype and FaceTime to see how good she looked,
only to discover than her goose was surely cooked;
for no matter what the lighting or the camera angle,
there was little chance that a boyfriend she would wrangle.

She turned off her webcam and decided she would wait
another year or two before vying for a date.
Her stars were not aligned now. Her prospects were not fine.
She’d put off looking for a boyfriend at least until she’s nine!

The prompt today is viable.

Hard Drive

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The Prompt: Buyers, Beware? The year is 2214, and your computer’s dusty hard drive has just resurfaced at an antique store. Write a note to the curious buyer explaining what he or she will find there.

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My Retablo, “Autobiography”

Hard Drive

If you long for mystery,
poems, facts and history,
long perambulations
and wild exaggerations,
recipes and letters and
episodes of Homeland,
Elementary, Sherlock, Friends,
a blogging site that never ends,

Emails, Youtube, Facebook notes,
starts of novels, copied quotes,
OkCupid pictures of
possibilities for love,
notes from nice guys, threats from creeps,
notes from guys who play for keeps,
friends who only write when drunk,
chain e-mails, jokes and other junk,

two hundred drafts of my third book,
(each one different, have a look),
kids stories and their illustrations,
the Christmas plans of my relations,
photographs of my whole life—
its happiness and pain and strife—
some successes but also follies,
fireworks, insects, gardens, dollies,

travel snaps and friendly faces,
rooms at home or foreign places,
birds and children, beaches, skies,
the camera lens is true and wise
and not as given to fraud and lies
as writings filtered through the eyes
of one who feels the joys or pains
of what she witnesses, then deigns

to try to change her reader’s mind
to accord with the type or kind
of thoughts she carries deep inside:
pride’s cutting edge, love’s waning tide—
things lovely, funny, jarring, rare.
So read this hard drive if you dare,
but if you fear a life laid bare,
I have one word for you. Beware.

Two Poems from a Night with No Moon

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This Night is Broken

With all of its sounds
spilled out,
someone else’s sounds
echo around it.

The space inside of it
is broken, too.
Only the constant rain
seeks to fill it.

————-

Falling Practice

Twice on the stairs last week
and once in the kitchen.
Lately, these falls
have been coming in threes.

Tonight in the dark, I tripped
over the low metal bench beside the hot tub.
Then a loud bang sent me searching
to find the heavy husk fallen from the palm tree.

I do not venture out alone again,
but sit on the patio
in the light of my laptop,
hoping to escape the third fall.

Your face on the screen turns green
from the reflection of the string
of Chinese lanterns
as we succumb to hard truths.

I fell in love with you so quickly,
but even all these falls
have not taught me how
to fall out of love with you.

 

The Prompt: Howl at the Moon—“Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness.” — Allen Ginsberg  Do you follow Ginsberg’s advice — in your writing and/or in your everyday life?