Tag Archives: death

How Do I Remember You Today?

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How do I remember you today?

Faded ribbons holding memories
Twirling the colors between my fingers

Indigo as the night you first touched me just so

Scarlet as the blood pulsing through my veins
When I went from being your woman to being your wife
Perhaps the white as the fresh made snowball in sunlight
That I waited until I was inside the house to throw

Faded ribbons holding memories

Maybe the orange of the summer tiger lilies
You didn’t think could I grow in our yard
Oh, the lush green for the fresh-cut lawn
I had to teach you how to mow

Twirling the colors between my fingers

Perhaps the rich deep brown of steak
Well done as you loved, but I abhorred
Then there’s the aqua as crystal clear
As the waters of our Caribbean cruises

Or the slate of the morn I became your widow

Twirling the colors between my fingers
Faded ribbons holding memories

How do I remember you today?

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dVerse Poets Pub : Meeting The Bar: Memento

This week Grace has us Meeting the Bar via mementos. Either as the poetry form itself or in a free style poetry with a theme of memento, using symbolism as a poetic device.

L’amour Mort

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Photo of woman at a grave in autumn

Autumn leaves in warm earth tones vale upon the new mound of soil. The leaves appear demur on the soil adorned with fresh florals. She who has spent nearly three score with in life until a year ago, has now joined the he in afterlife. Most have begun to mill away, eager to start the slow shedding of bereavement that begins with the repast, but she lingers a spell.

I watch her eyes, both mournful and misty.

And I watch as she, a morbid Noah, mentally gathers the dates of the ancestral pairings interned. I know she sees in the family line none have gone more than two years without their hearts in life beside them. The dichotomy of such beauty in sadness. She fears it, yet, I see she embraces the seemingly inevitable as we finally leave.

To her, death is quite romantic.

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Prosery – Bob Dylan

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dVerse ~ Poets Pub

Tonight at dVerse, Björn Rudberg (brudberg) hosts and would like for us to write a Prosery piece which includes the line:

“To her, death is quite romantic”

It is from “Desolation Row” by Bob Dylan, from his 1965 record “Highway 61 Revisited”.

Write a piece of flash fiction or other prose up of up to or exactly 144 words,
Including the given line from the poem.

Morning Scent

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The fresh scent of lawn anywhere
Can sometimes take me there
Magnolia wafting on morning breeze
Even if I cannot see the trees
Yes, sometimes a hint of sweat
Remembrances of you beget
The mourning in memory spurred
When into earth you were interred

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Quadrille #158: Morning Has Broken
dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Poetics: A World of Common Scents

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dVerse ~ Poets Pub

Yesterday on Quadrille Monday Linda Lee invites to put our best morning forward in a quadrille.

A Quadrille is simply a poem of 44 words, excluding the title. It can be in any form, rhymed or unrhymed, metered, or unmetered. You MUST use the word “morning” in your poem.

Today dVerse guest host Jo invites us to A World of Common Scents and challenges us to write a poem of scents.

Linda’s “morning has broken” struck at Melpomene who cruelly reminds pleasant scents do not always pleasant memories make.

On Parade in the AM

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7:27am my desk: I am standing at my keyboard going through my usual morning routine as I log in. My earbuds are in, my iPod has RATM blasting because while my body is on the job, the rest of me is still asleep in bed. A colleague passing by sees my very enthusiastic headbanging, looks at me like the very insane person I am, and pronounces “No, it’s too early. No.”

Because she arrived at a perfect moment in the song – I look at her, smile benignly and when the beat drops in my ears a moment later, I raise both hands high – full on rock fingers gesticulating – face scrunched befitting the song’s mood and reply in her face with “🎵Come with it now! 🎶“

She understandably blinks at my unexpected response then shakes her head laughing clearly knowing the song by that one lyric sung even if she can’t hear it herself. “Nope, MUCH too early for that.”

“Hey, I just walked in I’m not awake yet,” I laugh as she walks away while I head-bang on and continue with my checks.

“Have you tried coke?” she asks as she reaches the corner.

And because I really am not quite awake yet, therefore honestly thinking about the caffeine boost, I hear a fading disembodied voice around a corner call out “And I don’t mean the stuff in the can.”

I settled for my usual morning IV infusion of C25H28N6O7, and C12H22O11, aka coffee black 20oz with 2 tsp sugar; but now all I can imagine is a series of horned Red Bull cans carrying banners as they follow a white powdered line down the street stomping in tune to RATM.

[For those not into such – RATM is Rage Against The Machine, an American Rock band and their song I reference is the very loud and very thrashing Bulls On Parade.]

Let’s see how others are rocking and slicing out this Tuesday…

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Slice of Life Tuesdays
Writing Challenge
Two Writing Teachers

To Sleep

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Then you laid me down to sleep

In cotton coddled

For sweet dreams ‘til my eyes open

Thus days and nights wrap round the world

‘Till now I lay you down to sleep

In linens layered

But on your eyes I place a token

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Quadrille #156

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dVerse ~ Poets Pub

Tonight Mish hosts at the pub and wants us to “wrap” things up in a quadrille.

A Quadrille is simply a poem of 44 words, excluding the title. It can be in any form, rhymed or unrhymed, metered, or unmetered. You MUST use the word “wrap”, or some form of the word, in your poem.

For The Last Time

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*SIGH* I’m in a mood today…

It’s funny what things you remember…

“I didn’t give you permission to go anywhere, young lady.” Me – 40 to a 71 year old. She left anyway.

“Don’t give me that look! If you don’t make it to fifty, whenever I catch up with you, I’m gonna make you SO sorry you married me!” He didn’t – jury is still out on whether I keep my end of the bargain – only time will tell.

“Man, I haven’t won a pot in two years. You fixing the scores or something. At least let a sista win a box or two, cuz! Or else!” Never won another pot or a box at least not in that specific football pool.

“Oh please! You better come to my birthday this year or I am not going to any of yours ever again!” As of last Saturday I know she won’t make it. The rest is now a given…

Because of the latest one I am remembering how I was just me, being me, leaving them laughing. Not knowing they would soon be leaving me, reminiscing on this earthly plane.

It is a silver lining. A faint silver lining. One feeling a little tarnished right now.

It’s funny what things you remember…it’s tragic what things you wish you could forget.

Let’s see how others are slicing it out this Tuesday…

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Slice of Life Tuesdays
Writing Challenge
Two Writing Teachers

Another Day Without You

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The alarm goes off and I reach for you
When I hold you close, just like I used to do
My heart listens for your sounds in the air then
Before my head catches up, that they won’t be there again
Some habits are just harder to kill
And my heart breaks against my will

Every morn I wake that you’re not here
It’s a struggle to not shed that first tear
Another day without you
It’s time for me to fly – I have not wings
A nightingale with no desire to sing
Another day without you

All these feelings I hide from folks each day.
Falling in line with the games people play
I just go through the motions of daily living,
Hoping no one sees through the performance I’m giving
When it’s the wind that mocks your gentle touch
Or the storm of your kiss that I’m missing so much

Every mourn I wake, and I do mean mourn
I try to anchor my thoughts, but I’m still too worn
Another day without you
It’s time for me to fly – and someday I might
But right now this heart’s too heavy for flight
Another day without you

In the morning I wake and sob in the lonely air
Too many times I cry how it’s unfair
It’s so unfair

Knew when we took the vows of man and wife
That it would truly be for the rest of our life
The calendar still holds the dates of the things planned
From one winter to the next of activities spanned
Because I thought there’d be more of life with you
I’m alive, but this is not living without you

Every morn I wake and face the dawn
A part of me is surprise how I breathe on
Another day without you
It’s time for me to fly – But I stay prone
The sky’s a lonely place here on my own
Another day without you

Yet I’m still here…

I’m still here…

National Poetry Month for 2021 Day 14 in a mood

Never Imagined

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They were alone at last.

On his knees.

His face wet with falling tears.

How he always liked him.

Hands clasped tight in front of him.

His voice hoarse from begging.

His knees wet with the tears that have fallen.

How he always wanted him.

He waited for the stark voice of his command.

He waited for the tantalizing touch of his control.

How he always needed him.

He knew he waited in vain.

So, he looked up at last.

In wet tears of grief.

In front of the marble headstone.

How he never imagined him.

National Poetry Month for 2021 Day 6

Muse does enjoy taking things in an unexpected direction. Sorry/not sorry.

Be Grateful

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The path on the bus from my home to the train station leads past several tenement buildings and projects.  A part of City life is the occasional appearance of memorials for the recently departed. I’m ashamed to say, they are so much so a part of the scenery that while I look at them, I really don’t see them anymore.  At least, until this morning.

This morning as I pass, I actually noticed the memorial, this was somehow different and as I looked closer, I understood why. The large portrait was that of a baby. This life could not have been more than a couple of months if I am gauging this infant correctly.  Someone lost a baby. Do we  even want to go into all the reasons why the younger a life is when it departs from us, the more tragic it seems? No.  It just is.

I was conversing with a woman on the train about the frivolity of some of the rich when she jokingly queried “What happens when you’ve been there, done that?”  I got the joke of it, I did and I smiled at it, still…

I think of my sons, my friends, others and myself. We spend so much time a’bitchin’ and a’moanin’ about the things we can’t do, the things we want to do, the things we have yet to do. We wrap ourselves in the dreams of the next big adventure we often barely appreciate the act of the things we have done once they become memory.  All the things we’ve already done even the truly regrettable ones, we at least got to do them.

So right now, right now, I keep thinking about this newest angel looking down upon us who didn’t get to do anything but brighten someone’s life for the briefest moment in time and think…

“What happens when you’ve been there, done that?” …

…Be grateful.

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Today is Day 23 of the March Slice Of Life Story Challenge.
Come see how others are slicing it up this Friday.
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The Eternity Remains

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My days dream of your return
My nightmares are of your leaving
You entered my life full of sound
Listened to the crazy man I am
Then left without a goodbye

Trapped in this blood’s ebb and flow
The eternity remains in the end
And I miss you

It is forever winter in my soul
There is no hope of spring
Thanatos is a cruel thief
To take you but leave me

As I die with each day I’m living
The eternity remains in the end
And I miss you

What trial need I finish?
What deadliest path by far?
Tell me and I will take on any challenge,
If it but gains us a few mere moments more!

Tell me! I beg screaming into the yawing silence
The eternity remains in the end
And I miss you

I who once thought to have everything
Find myself bereft of all
You were our voice
I am now the silence after your echo
That goes on without you

Seasons come, days go
The eternity remains in the end
And I still miss you 

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dVerse ~Poets Pub | OpenLink Night #216
dVerse ~Poets Pub