Tag Archives: poem about old friends

Conjuring

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Conjuring

You are my homing pigeon, my wise old owl and dove.
My balsam for the pains of life, a well-remembered love.
Your presence is reality. It does not deviate.
You are a special part of life I can’t eradicate.
I breathe your name into the night and it draws you here.
Equal parts of holy and risque, you hover near.
And although your presence lasts mere minutes at a time,
it is time enough to prompt this laudatory rhyme!

 

Prompt words today are risque, name, balsam, deviate, reality and pigeon.

Upon Running into a Former Friend

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Upon Running into a Former Best Friend

Don’t give me cause to regret our reunion.
Don’t bring back to mind our former disunion.
Don’t lament my profession or cuss at my kids—
those actions that once put us into the skids—
dissolving our friendship and our former ties
when I’d had enough of your conniving lies.
Don’t inveigle or bemoan your lack of a pension.
Past times I’ve come through I won’t bother to mention.
And if you’ve a reaction and want to explode,
do me a favor. Take it on the road!!!

 

Prompt words today are inveigle, lament, reunion, cussed and reaction.

Reuniting with an Old Friend at the School Reunion

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Reuniting with an Old Friend at the School Reunion

You astound me with your gibberish. Where did you learn this stuff?
After just a minute or two, I feel I’ve had enough.

I pride myself on faithfulness, but nonetheless I fear
somehow over all the years you’ve turned a little queer.

I never pegged you for a fool way back in our youth,
yet I think you got shorter on wits as you got long of tooth.

Though friends of long duration are my favorite kind,
somehow I feel that you’re one friend I need to leave behind.

Word prompts today are peg, gibberish, astound and faithful. Image by Janko Ferlic on Unsplash.

 

Old Friends

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Photo by Alessandro Bellone on Unsplash, used with permission

Old Friends

We are grappling with our friendship over difference of opinions.
My beliefs are liberal. He’s one of Donald’s minions.
He won’t put up with teasing. I can’t bear his iron will.
Of faux patriotic slogans, I fear I’ve had my fill.
How can it be that all those years I thought that he had heart,
he was harboring this meanness? When did it get its start?
This virus in our populace that masks as patriotism
spreads misinformation, creating such a schism
that no bridge can be long enough to bring us all together.
The strength of our convictions seems to hold us at short tether.
When will come the end of it, and if that end should come,
what will end this great discordance and restore the hum
of democratic harmony? Are voices so distorted
that we cannot reclaim the friends with whom we once consorted?
When I walk the streets where we once walked, my former friend and I,
he crosses to the other side if he sees me walk by.
When change comes, certain evils must come to an end,
but I don’t think it will mend the hearts of me and my old friend.

Word prompts for today are tease, iron, opinion, grapple and friendship.

Sweet Harmony

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Two years ago, when I visited friends from my childhood that I hadn’t seen for scores of years, we had a wonderful time  going through a box of mementos and then gathering around the piano to make  music as sweet as the memories.  Susan is a wonderful pianist and Karen a professional-level singer with a lovely soprano voice that always sends chills down my back.  Patti and I, good high school altos that we once were, created the harmony.  A perfect day with three of my favorite people whom I don’t see often enough.  Sweet Harmony for sure.

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Small Reunion

The pianist deftly presses out her chords.
The soprano’s voice slides smoothly from her throat
while we others strain until “Dear Heart” syrups our vocal chords
and we slip with less effort up and down the scale—
old friends singing even older songs.

The small dog snuggles in,
balancing on the plush chair back.
The mother of the pianist and the soprano
observes from her frame atop the piano.
All husbands out and about on other business.

Old letters reread, old memories pulled from forgetfulness,
each of us is left at the end richer—hearts refilled
from a shared past. Every word
has been a song of its own—
our notes blending together
in perfect harmony.

The prompt today was harmonize. This is a rewrite of a piece blogged two years ago. I’m getting ready for Camp Estrella so there won’t be much time for blogging for the next week!  

Advance and Retreat

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Advance and Retreat

The farther we grow apart,
every time we try once more to merge,
the hastier the retreat must be
back to ourselves.
But still we try, over and over,
little incursions, trying to find
a level meeting place more suited
for festivities than battle.
We work our whole lives to become ourselves,
yet must regret losing those less-finished times
when we all floundered together,
no one right enough or formed enough
to be sure they were right.
Every step forward is
a step away from something else.
Every progress a departure, as well.

The prompt word today is “retreat.”