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.
Respite
Although it is the day lit world that shouts at me, it seems
that when darkness closes, you echo in my dreams.
Suspicion
It’s daybreak when the rude alarm
is shut off by your questing arm.
As you roll over, the blanket’s pull
is your daily ritual.
As you leave the room, I do not stir.
I hear the blender’s angry whirr.
I hear you shower, brush and groom,
but stay wrapped in our bed’s warm womb.
I feel your presence. I hear you cough.
A rapid hug and you are off.
And in these hours away from me,
I suspect infidelity.
All day long I wait and wait
in an agitated state
for the creaking of the gate
that says you’ll soon alleviate
my loneliness this whole day through
that I’ve spent pining over you.
I leave the house, then come inside
to find the presents that you hide
to keep me entertained while you
do whatever you must do
to keep a roof over our head—
to provide shelter, food and bed.
Finally, a slamming door,
your footsteps on the hallway floor.
You bend down for our first caress.
and I’m suspicious, I confess.
I smell your collar, arms and cuff
until I’ve gathered facts enough.
I find no odor, no stray hair.
No other dog has tarried there!
The prompt words today are hug, rapid, suspect, alleviate and daybreak.
Ashes
A handful of memories, discounted by time.
Five for a nickel and ten for a dime.
Burned down to ashes, their bodies erased
along with the dreams they achieved or they chased.
How we incorporate thoughts of the past
into our lives may alter and cast
the present in molds that are better off shattered.
Better new memories than those aged and tattered.
Life is for living, so best throw away
corpses of the past that get in the way.
Living is glorious, but it’s not portable.
By merely living, we become deportable.
Thoughts hoarded in dreams should dissolve in the day.
Think too much of the past and it gets in the way.
As hard as it is, it seems that we must
render ashes to ashes, return dust to dust.
Prompt words for today are ash, portable, glorious, incorporate and erase.
Confession to an Errant Grandchild
From the first, I called you “Piggy,” my small bundle in a poke.
You grew into a ham, as though you got the silly joke.
In return, you called me “Brammer,” for your whole younger life.
I ignored your teenage insolence, which cut me like a knife.
For years, you called me nothing, while off roaming with your friends.
I waited for your twenties, when you would make amends.
Those foggy baby early years, I’d held you in my arms,
your most ardent admirer, a captive of your charms.
When your parents fussed, I was always on your side.
Made cookies for your naughty friends, embraced your errant bride.
Wiped your babies’ noses, patted their small behinds,
as they toddled off to school, observed from behind blinds.
So many decades later, sitting by my bed,
not knowing it was just a cold, fearing I’d soon be dead,
you asked why I was always there and why I didn’t balk
at your teenage indifference and your dismissive talk.
What was germane to the matter, I finally confessed,
was a truth which on your own you might have never guessed.
As I observed the recklessness of you and your rude crew,
In every naughty act, I saw a bit of me in you.
Prompt words today are brammer, germane, foggy, ardent and joke.
Old Lovers
We meet in the kitchen,
your face slightly blue
in the light from the refrigerator.
Left-over shepherd’s pie in one hand,
a half-gallon of Costco vanilla ice cream in the other,
you seem suspended in a middle land
between repletion and guilt.
Being here for the same purpose,
I offer absolution,
and we talk about the future,
sitting with forks and spoons aloft,
eating from the same bowl and carton.
It is part of our sensuality,
this culinary communication at 2 a.m.
Wishing to go deeper,
we seek out chocolate
in that place
where you have hidden it
for years––on top of the refrigerator.
Knowing all your secrets,
I am the one who retrieves it this time.
This is what might happen
if we were not divided by miles,
you in your country,
me in mine. As it is,
you feast on ribs from Dexter Barbecue,
I eat the ice cream with a single spoon—
these mid-night fantasies
reality enough for old lovers
building new communions.
Prompt words today are talk, middle, sensual, future and kitchen.
Unlikely Pairing
One ungainly orphan elephant, wandering and uncertain
of where his journey’s leading him, comes upon a curtain
of mist that rises from the plain, shimmering, evanescent.
The stars now muted overhead, the moon a fuzzy crescent.
He splits the curtain, comes upon a lone and lost impala
split off from the herd during some wild stampeding gala.
They form a duo and plod on, each looking for a herd.
Such an unlikely couple. Impossibly absurd.
And yet they struck a certain chord, each one with the other.
She was the sister that he lacked, and he her missing brother.
One thing led to another. She fit him like a glove,
and before they knew it, the two were fast in love.
When the baby came, it looked a bit like a nyala,
a bit like a rhinoceros––an elephantiala!!
Prompts today are intent, orphan, elephant (good grief) and evanescent. Add this one, too: curtain.
