Tag Archives: sad poetry

Holding on and Letting Go

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Holding on and Letting Go

Invariably, our enemies will become more surreal,
flushed into our memories—consigned to how we feel.

Every niggling worry and each old friend who’s lost
added to dreadful feelings that leave us tempest-tossed.

Life seeks remuneration, be it justified or not,
and we pay with guilt for sorrows that we might have wrought.

Time renders us more docile but our guilts become much stronger,
until we decide that we can deal with them no longer.

Then life slips away with one long slide and then a gasp
as all that we’ve held onto is released from our tight grasp.

 

Prompt words today are flush, surreal, docile, remunerated, enemy and invariably.

Phases of the Moon

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Phases of the Moon

When you whispered you’d be leaving with the waning gibbous moon,
I let your words escape behind the music of the loon.
I let the truth go bankrupt in the lapping of the wave.
Underneath the full moon, it was easy to be brave.

Beneath the waxing gibbous and the first quarter moon,
I seldom thought about the truth that you’d be leaving soon.
I turned my back to moonlight to ward off future pain.
My joy could not be sabotaged by its wax and wane.

Under the first quarter, I stifled my duress
lest memory of your leaving undermine your fond caress.
And though the new moon brought again reminders you’d be leaving,
I sealed my eyes against the truth to circumvent my grieving.

Under the waning crescent, resolution slipped away.
I pleaded for our meeting to be done in light of day.
I was wan beneath the moonlight as our time as one grew shorter.
How I dreaded what was coming as we viewed the moon’s last quarter.

Tonight I greet the moon again, standing all alone,
listening to your whispers over the telephone.
In spite of my avoidance, your leaving came too soon.
I finally face its truth beneath a waning gibbous moon.

 

The prompt words were wan, undermine,bankruptcy and seldomly. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/21/rdp-thursday-wan/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/21/fowc-with-fandango-undermine/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/21/your-daily-word-prompt-bankruptcy-february-21-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/21/seldomly/

Sentimental Journey

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The Smell of Curry

Would that sentiment were only
positive and never lonely––
but all emotions of the world
in sentiment are tightly curled.
Every  memory we cherish
is doubly edged with “live” and “perish.”
In every city, country, land––
bad and good go hand in hand.

The blend of cardamom and lentil
always makes me sentimental.
Odors of turmeric and its ilk,
garam masala and coco milk.
Curry spices being roasted,
degree of peppers being boasted,
chickpeas, carrots, potatoes, rice––
stirring in each thing that’s nice.

What do I think of when I smell
and taste that it is going well?
Bombay and wedding saris thin
sliding down my youthful skin.
Visions of a midnight ride
to cages with young girls inside
sold by their parents and then resold
nightly for a bit of gold.

Traffic, sitar music, fingers
scooping curry––all this lingers.
The beauty of that winsome song
that showed me where the world’s gone wrong.
His action, swift, unthinking, curt
of small coins cast into the dirt
to deflect those who beg and bleat,
surrounding us in every street.

Palaces and then the clash
of children in a world of trash,
the refuse of this giant city
the world they lived in—what a pity.
Back when traveling was new,
experiences were so few
that India changed my life forever.
So, will I forget it?  Never.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/cherish/

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/sentimental/