Tag Archives: poem about telling fortunes

Flight of Fortune

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DSCF1303Flight of Fortune

Aisle seat in the third row–
a next door neighbor I do not know.
I put my seat belt on and then
look up to her all-knowing grin.
“May I tell your fortune?” is her request,
though it is not made at my behest.

A pastime really not my choosing,
still, with nothing more amusing
to pass the time, I give consent
and this is how our time is spent
in those first minutes of our flight,
until the ground is out of sight.

My fortune told, I sit and think,
ordering another drink,
pleased by some of her predictions
but finding others contradictions
to how I’ve planned my life to be.
I worry my fingers upon my knee.

Does she concoct or does she see
the lines that she relates to me?
Some things she mentions have happened, still,
I hope that others never will.
Yet I fear if I reject
the things she says, I might deflect
the good things so they’ll never be.
This is the choice that faces me.

Can the good that she foretold––
of feats accomplished and love and gold––
be accepted without the rest?
I want the warmly-feathered nest,
the stranger tall and dark and rich,
but I do not want all of her pitch.
The illness, sadness, loss of friends?
I don’t like how my fortune ends.

I press a coin into her hand,
take off my seat belt and quickly stand.
Perhaps if I just change my seat
and find a seatmate more discreet,
I’ll change my life as easily–
and react less queasily
to conversation that is not rife
with details of my future life!

 

Life Line:You’re on a long flight, and a palm reader sitting next to you insists she reads your palm. You hesitate, but agree. What does she tell you? https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/life-line/

Washing Up

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https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/it-builds-character/

Washing Up

The churning water brings them up.
The grounds of coffee in the cup
rise like saints to water’s top
while water runs, they do not stop.

I read their shapes like tea leaves now.
I see the future but know not how.
They swirl and change, revealing lives––
swarm like hornets from their hives.

The one I wait for comes unstuck,
careening towards his future luck.
The one that’s me caught in an eddy,
stuck for now, but holding steady.

Other remnants of finished meals––
carrot shards, potato peels––
rise up and circle, forming dreams.
Reality, or so it seems.

I see a heart and charm and lies,
a future lover in disguise,
a plane, a knoll, a tree-lined path,
a woman bound in senseless wrath.

She sends out waves that push you here––
the very thing that she most fears.
I know not who or where you are.
Are you near or are you far?

As all goes rushing down the drain,
I feel a sense of loss and pain.
And so I fill the sink again.
Will I see you one time more,
or was my vision only lore?

This poem was inspired by a comment chain on  Jane Basil’s blog. In reply to my last comment, she wrote:”You have just inspired me. When I read your comment I thought about the odd concepts writers come up with. If we didn’t think up strange plots, what would we write about? The answer came in a flash: washing up. We could write about washing up, or hanging curtains, or eating toast. I’m off to try to write a poem about washing up. Would writing about mundane activities make me boring,or odd? And is there something wrong with my thought processes?” I wrote back telling her I’d write a poem about washing up as well. This is mine and HERE is hers!

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/it-builds-character/