The Answer
Another night, another day
Meanders in, then fades away
And still you do not come or call.
No news from you at all, at all.
Do you realize my heart is waiting
As your heart keeps on debating?
For Looking At Names prompt, we were to write an Acrostic poem using the name Amanda
Love’s Highway
A pilgrim on this long highway of love, he quickly learned how to forsake what was lucrative in favor of what was genuine. He learned how to first cover-up his pain from love’s last skirmish and finally, how to heal.
“Faint heart never won fair lady” and “Hope springs eternal!” became his slogans and in the end, persistence won out. He celebrated his fiftieth wedding anniversary today, and their celebratory cake read, “Still Companions on Love’s Highway.”
Prompts today are heal, lucrative, pilgrim, genuine, springs and cover-up.
Romantic Fling
It takes tremendous willpower to duck a louche rogue’s charm,
for something deep within us believes he means no harm.
His appeal is so humongous and his influence so great
that although we know at heart that he’d make a lousy mate,
still we can’t resist him. He piques romantic hopes
that make swashbuckling heroes out of misanthropes.
We bundle up our doubts and cast them overhead,
our fond expectations cancelling out our dread.
We jump into a love story we hope is never-ending,
knowing deep within ourselves its probable sad ending.
But nonetheless, we fall in love, in spite of our friends’ censure,
plunging into a fabulous romance-filled adventure!
Prompt words for today are louche, willpower, pique, humongous,
our and influences.Image by jdb
This Dress
This dress, stuffed in a corner of an old trunk,
sparks memories, rekindling magic.
From far in the future, I feel the past
rising to join me. It heats the cold air of the attic
and the skies outside the window clear of clouds.
A warm spring afternoon on a blanket in the park,
the outing I thought spontaneous
crowned with the offer of a ring.
Spilling the wine, falling sideways into the three-tiered coconut cake,
rising as one, laughing—a freshly engaged couple.
Licking the frosting off your arm. Your licking the frosting off my neck.
Symbiotic in new plans for our continuance into the future—
into the length of our lives.
That dress. A bit of frosting still on the collar.
You, so many years after, still blooming in my memory.
For the Sunday Whirl Wordle # 511 the prompt words are rekindle, dress, far, future, magic, ring, rising, sky, heats, spontaneous legendary sparks. Image by Kate Hizlitznova on Unsplash.
Act Three
The echo of your footsteps as you trod across my mind
creates anticipation of a nostalgic kind.
You elevate my consciousness as you were wont to do
and so in time I manifest the whole grand rest of you.
You’ve been a silent tenant for so many years
that this surprise appearance prompts again those tears
I thought had been dried up in me when you had to go
to that place where you were drawn by the undertow.
For only a brief moment, we are as we have been,
’til with a click of memory, I banish you again.
You slip back into shadow in the attic of my mind,
where both of us lie tangled, hopelessly entwined.
I come back to the present while you’re banished to the past,
once again resuming the roles in which we’re cast.
You imprisoned in act two, caught eternally
while I assume a solo role, living out act three.
Prompt words today are elevate, echo, click, tenant and cross.
Fresh Prizes
Even though she thinks she knows him to the bone,
another little detail comes forward to be shown.
Like a little prize, presented for her viewing,
after all thee years, he’s not finished with his wooing.
No fact inconsequential as he unveils his life,
so even after decades as a man and wife,
new mysteries are still revealed in words coined charismatically.
Each new revelation, an avowal made emphatically.
This poem is in answer to Marilyn Armstrong’s comment about her husband, Garry:
We still are discovering things we didn’t know about each other. You’d think we’d know it all by now, but we keep surprising each other. It’s kind of cool.
Prompt words today are prize, drain, emphatic, inconsequential and bone.
Divergence
It’s the untold exposition
of most love stories–
that split in the path ahead
that was hinted at, perhaps,
from the beginning.
Overlooked but inevitable,
it makes this story
as regular as most of the others.
It is the flourishes
that make the romance
that nudges us
to try again.
Today’s word prompts are: the path ahead, split, (starting to sound like a Robert Frost poem in the making, here,) untold, exposition and regular.
Holding Back the Moon
Standby. I think I love you, though I’m not completely certain.
But when I see the ship of moon through my bedroom curtain,
then watch it disappear as the sky takes up its space,
as though its crew has moved it to another time and place,
I hope that you can moor yourself and stay your bullish pride
while you wait for my decision. Please stem restlessness. Abide.
Prompt words today are standby, moon, disappear, crew and pride.
“Couple-ets”
The path I thought was straight and easy has developed swerves.
This trick-or-treat relationship is getting on my nerves.
One day you bring me sweets and roses—all my fond heart seeks.
The next you end up ghosting me and disappear for weeks.
Our bond I once thought perfect is showing signs of wear.
Too often I’m a single whereas once we were a pair.
That love once thought infrangible now sports a widening crack.
Don’t show up as who you’ve become. I want the old you back!
Where once I published love poems, now I tell how my heart aches.
Where once I wrote of how love grows, now I tell how it breaks.
Prompt words today are infrangible, publish, ghosting, trick and sweet. The jar pictured is a wedding jar I purchased in Chiapas. The idea is for the bride and groom to each drink out of their own spout of the communal cup. Lovely imagery. I put black beans in it to hold the plants upright as they developed roots and filled it full of water. A few weeks later I came out to find that the beans had soaked up the water, expanded, and burst the cup. What a metaphor!!! Perfect for this poem…
Photo by Giovanni Ribeiro on Unsplash. Used with permission.
Words of Wooing
He took her to the movies. He took her to the fair.
He raved about her choice of clothes. He doted on her hair.
He brought his uke and stood for hours strumming at her gate,
riffing on the talents of the lovely Kate.
Was he accurate? Were all his laudatory quips
valid? All those praises of her swan neck and her lips?
Not likely, but it’s lucky that the lady was so vain
that she took verbatim the praises of her swain.
They married in the autumn and by spring the truth was known.
He no longer sang her praises. She had to sing her own!
Prompt words for today are movie, valid, riff, accuracy and gate.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 