Category Archives: Poetry

Reflections on Maybe

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Penned this over 25 years ago for my late-husband.
Praying I get to feel something like this again someday…

I think of him night and day. If not exactly twenty-four hours, as close as humanly possible for anyone to honestly come. He opened the closed book that was my mind with knowledge. He filled my hardened heart with happiness and refreshed my weary soul with joy.

Maybe it’s just imagining things.

When I’m not with him, everything becomes dull and lifeless, off kilter. The most exquisite of items have no appeal. When I am with him however, everything has color and magic. I can suddenly see the majesty in a variety of ordinary of things.

Maybe it’s all in my mind.

When time comes in two forms; how long it has been since I last saw him and how long it will be until I see him again. I find myself saying things like ‘It must have happened on Friday because it was the day before the last time we went out and that was two days ago.’

Maybe it’s just being silly.

When I’m with him I feel changed-different. That things can be good solely because he is apart of it. He leaves me feeling so fulfilled, that for a long time afterwards, I forget how hardened and empty my life felt without him. He calls and whispers sweet everythings for an hour, then I’ll call back a minute for an encore. And the charm of it is, we don’t have to speak to each other, we just seem to feel what needs to be.

Maybe it’s crazy.

I find myself opening at just the thought of him. I can feel his presence even when there’s an ocean between us. I find myself doing extra things that are pleasing to him, because what he feels-I feel. When he laughs-I laugh, he hurts-I hurt. I choose to stand by him, not because I have to, but because that’s where my heart knows I should be and death defy all who dares to down him. When without him I can’t breath and with him I’m breathless.

Maybe it’s imagining things.
Maybe its all in my mind.
Maybe it’s silly.
Maybe it’s crazy, but
Maybe, just maybe, it’s

Love

NaPoWriMo — Final Goodbye

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You charmed me with a personal obsession
Made me feel our stars crossed above
I was the best and the best was your possession
Too late I learned possession isn’t love

The morning’s desperate heartfelt plea
You didn’t mean to go off about the pen
And you kissed the newest hurt tenderly
I was desperate to believe it wouldn’t happen again

In the good times you made me feel safe and sound
In the bad times you were someone I never knew
In the phantasmagoria mess I found
I was helpless as to what to do

Our life was perfect from afar
No one could put the sham to task
A nattily tied scarf to cover a mar
Bruises hidden behind a foundation mask

Even in the face of your constant rage
Saying goodbye was never an issue
The fear of being alone far outweighed
the fear of being with you

I played the perfect partner for so long
I started to believe my own sham
So used to tapping to your song
I couldn’t tell you who I am

And I’m not sure when the tide turned
Or just when it all fell apart
I just knew this love you once earned
Became a huge gaping hole in my heart

You went off on a business trip one day
And I just simply went out
By the time you returned I was a continent away
Redefining who I was about

And for a year you cajoled or threatened or yelled
I was terrified to go out for a walk
but by God’s grace my new convictions held
As I let you in for a final talk

The charm was still there I had to concede
But I was no longer yours to command
Your look of resignation made my heart bleed
But the signed papers stayed clutched in my hand

Still ‘Come back!” wanted to rip free from my lips
But those are words I know I’ll never say
Goodbye’s a word my soul has learned to equip
It’s in my tears as you drive away

The final goodbye lay in a teary puddle on the ground
Memories of you fading into the morning mist
As I remember love comes many surrounds
But never in the form of a fist

Dessert

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19

As some know, I like to try hand at various poetic forms from time-to-time.  Today’s form is called a Super-Tanka. Hmm, I should probably explain a regular size Tanka form first. *dons professor cap and clears throat*

The Tanka, an Asian poetic form very similar to haiku, is a single stanza, 5 line, non-rhyming poem, with a 5-7-5-7-7 syllable count pattern per stanza. Thus a Super-Tanka is two Tanka poems where each can stand alone on its on merit, but when put together side-by-side create a complete poem. The greater the subject difference of the individual Tankas from each other, compared to the whole, the better.

/poetry class

That’s what I asked for, cherries jubilee
Because that’s what I wanted, the taste of heated brandy
Wanted to taste it, sweetness set ablaze
Feel it’s texture on my tongue, a most unique concoction
As it slides slow down my throat, dripping with the sweetest cream

====================

dVerse~ Poets Pub | Poetics– Foodloose

Let The Morning Find Me…

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20

HAPPY 2012!
With the brand new year upon us, may this be one resolution we all can keep.

Let the morning find me…

…languishing
from a sleep that was enough to feel well-rested, but not lethargic, energized, but not anxious

Let the morning find me…

…knowing
even if the best possible sometimes fails, that the person I find in the mirror has done the best possible.

Let the morning find me…

…living
and not just merely surviving, but joyously thriving, even in the midst of the crazies.

Let the morning find me…

…enticed
to start this day even if the most strenuous thing I have planned to do is vegetate.

Let the morning find me…

…satiated
in that toe curling, back arching, arms and fingers extending to their maximum reach full body stretch way, regardless if there’s someone beside me.

Let the morning find me…

…smiling
that Cheshire cat, absolutely no reason what so ever, but I just can’t seem to stop smile.

Let the morning find me…

…loving

me.

–== == == == == ==–
Submitted to
Jingle Poetry At The Gooseberry Garden — Week 20
Fairytales, My First Time, Hope, and New Year’s Resolutions

Black Man (a Valentine to the Brothers)

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Carrying the past on his spine, but his back in not bowed

You’ve passed him on the streets. You’ve seen him in offices, in schools, in stores. In anyplace and everyplace. There’s something about him-his presence. It’s always been there, but now its something new-fresh-different. The way he occupies your time, your mind, and maybe even your heart. He is all of many, yet one of few. Who is he?

He is Black Man.

Black Man comes in many shapes, many sizes, many colors. He may be a part of the new generation of tomorrow or the old generation of yesterday. He was there at the beginning. He will be there at the end. Be he leader or follower, sinner or saint, Black Man is there.

His skin may be ebony or damn near ivory. His eyes gray or black or any where in between. He may be large in size, but never in ignorance. He may be small in stature, but never in spirit.

His pride is as tall as the redwood. His honor as solid as the oak. His soul as deep as the dark earth his pride grows in and his honor firmly stands upon. His strength inner or outer is as mighty as any hero, fact or fiction. His passions can be as explosive as the erupting volcano, or as quiet as the rising dawn. He may be put down, but as many have learned; Black Man can not be put out.

Black Man has loved-hated, been loved-been hated.
Most of all Black Man has lived, he has endured, he has survived.
He has proven his self worth.

How do I know this? I have been there with him. I have brought him down when he got too high, raised him up when he got too low. I have fought next to him, stood with him, laid beside him. I have often known Black Man better than he has known himself. Who am I? I am his mother, his sister, his wife, his daughter, his friend, his lover.

I am Black Woman and I am proud of Black Man.

I Want You…

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12

.
.
I want you…

I want sapphire skies with diamond eyes
filled with guttural moans and satiated sighs
I want to feel the arc of the moon echoed
in the curve of your spine
I want to feel the breath of your whisper in my ear
screaming that its mine

I want you…

I want to love you with the rising of the sun
and start again when the day is done
I want you to rhyme me in a sonnet
a prose of your own
I want the words to vibrate on my skin
from the bass of your moan

I want you…

I want to run wild in the trap of your gaze
feel the slick of our bodies in a sweaty glaze
I want to hear you scream the words
that would make Mama blush
let the blood flow to your head in a heated rush,
then lick the burn on my abdomen from the carpet plush

I want you…

I want you to fill the void with a dip
then come down lick the cream from my lips
I want to feel us shiver,
feel us tremble, feel us shake
feel the crash to the floor in its wake
go deaf from the scream for its own sake

I want you…

I want you to take me to the brink, risk the cardiac
fuck me ’till I’m flatline,
then fuck me back
I want to feel your body pressed between me and the wall
dependent only on our strength to save us from the fall
Test the limits of our bodies, fight the spasms
roar against the ecstasy, then

  f
    a
      l
         l

into the chasms

I want you…

>========<

dVerse ~Poets Pub | OpenLinkNight

 

Cold-Hearted Illusion

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9

Painting by John Huggett: Woman in mirror smoking a cigarette.

She sits at her vanity in examination of her face
Wary of any unexplainable mar
And gently rubs away cooled wax from her breast
Grateful it will not leave a scar

Still she smiles at the dash of lusty memory
Of how it came to be there
Its reason kneeling down right in front of her
Blowing kisses in her hair

Her robe barely hampers his gift to her
As she combusts within
A contrast of wind from an open window
Cooling her hot skin

He comments on her luminescence
As he makes an invisible notch
She comments on his effervescence
As she hands him his watch

She warms at the sentimental kiss he gives her
Just before, he leaves
Out on business for a day
But he’ll be back the next eve

She’s actually feeling good until
He uses her stage name
And pollutes the mood of the moment
Closing the door on the love game

She knows his affection is not
In the way he holds or even kisses her hand
Her cold-hearted illusion of love
Is in the wad of emerald bills left on the nightstand

====<>====

I WON!

Perfect Poets Award – Week 59

Thank you so much! I nominate Life Between The Lines

Somewhere…

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12

somewhere
(in the folds of lasts week’s)
(or maybe last year’s laundry)
the person
(when I’m not a mother)
who wrote poetry
(or being a lover )
drew still life
(balancing the checkbook)
designed clothes
(scrubbing a dirty collar)
and painted murals
(while vacuuming the carpets, again)
that did embroidery
(after the button is sewed on the shirt, again)
is in the mirror
(that needs to be cleaned, again)
trying to find herself
(after working overtime, again)
because she got lost
(showing someone else how)
somewhere…
(in the folds of last week’s)
(or maybe last years’ laundry)…

<>==========<>==========<>

This poem is actually a little over 12 years old.  We were in the process of packing to move into our house and my then fiance, now late-husband, had found my composition book from high school with poetry. We had living together over thirteen years and he had never known that about me. He asked one thing: What happened? I did not have an answer for him. Nor did I know how to pick-up my pen again.  One day I was looking at my reflection in the mirror, asking myself the same question.  I was depressed to realize, though it been a of couple years since he had asked, I still did not have an answer.

Whenever I was upset I would write my feelings to sort them out. Usually, I would write it, read it and toss it.  This time I did not toss it because something in those words had reached me.  What reached me became the first three/last three lines of the above poem. It was perhaps only the third poem I had written in a nearly twenty year span at that point.  Granted, it was one small sad little poem, but it was the first big crack in the wall of the dam blocking my creativity. A dam I was only just beginning to realize I had built and now needed to tear it down.

dVerse Poets Pub |  Poetics – Poetically Evolving

A Good Girl Who Does

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15

As a thinker I excelled in science and chess
Bright in my other academics, I gave no less
Could mentally match just about whatever you bring
Daunted only by my emotional state, a very different thing
Ever curious, I took a shine to coition with ambition
Female born, however held a certain restriction
Gracious model of virtue? Hah! I never tried to be
Held back within all the rules of social complicity

Inquisitive, I felt it more honest than being just a tease
Justly stated, I would pursue my desires as I would please
Knowing that the names for me were much closer to ‘whore’
Love was but a word as the males I knew were free to ‘score’

Mainly, I felt you can’t grow a garden by reading a book
Negating convention I dared to do more than just look
Oh guys can easily convey how often they go to bat
Privately the girls aren’t ever to admit knowing any of that
Quietly I learned to hide how I came to know so much
Raging that a male is never asked to hide knowledge of such
So, I could hum the foulest limerick and still be called quaint
Talk knowledge of a hummer when I was barely twenty ain’t

Understanding people I had known only one or two
Vicious rumors and some cruel truths I muddled through
Watching eyebrows rise as double-standards reared its head
X-rated knowledge in a g-rated world was a hard path to tread

Years went by before I felt I wasn’t a freak
Zeroing in that I’m a rarity someone unique
Allowed myself to enjoy it all in its various forms
Because I refuse to stilted by social world’s norms
Carnal knowledge once bane, I’m now admired for
Day or night, finally happy, I don’t care any more

Every now and then I’ll get outrageous with a verbal gush
Freaking people out on purpose just to watch them blush

<>==========<>==========<>

And today’s form is an Abecedarius which is an alphabetic acrostic or a poem in which each line or stanza begins with a successive letter of the alphabet. Historically, it was widely used in religious aspects as the beginning of prayers, hymns and oracles. As time progressed, variations of the method developed and new types of acrostics appeared. Some methods included using the first letter of the first word (as I have done above), the first letter of the stanza or the first letter of the first word and last letter of the last word in each line.

dVerse Poets Pub – Poetics: The Art Of Rebellion