Tag Archives: life

Time Drawing Near

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‘Aladdin’ and ‘The Little Mermaid’ no longer hold a charm
‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ have lost their sway
The sound of glass breaking, holds not the same alarm
When I could conceive a multitude of frights just yesterday

Macaroni and glitter artwork, stuff that used to be bane
Along with a medal made of paper, in the scrapbook
A box with a bundle of model trains and cars and planes
Memories past, that bellow for a just another look

Emphasizing the second syllable of the word every
The volcano project that was quite a bit unstable
The melted chocolate cookie smile used to distract me
From the crumbly mess left on the kitchen table

The children who couldn’t fib, looking me in my eyes
The kids I couldn’t trust not to burn the toast
The brats who threw a party and told straight-faced lies
When confronted with evidence of their being such gallant hosts

The con-men who know ‘Please mother?’ from ‘Mommy PUH-LEEZE??’
The house slaves with laundry finished and dinner cooked, ready to serve
The hooligans who greet me at the door when I take too long fumbling with my keys
The young men who offer the aspirin, sensing I’ve had a day that tested my nerves

These days I find myself staring a little longer at their faces
And the tones of their voices, to my memory, I try hard to adhere
Some mother’s instinct I suppose, preparing for empty spaces
That once remote chance of their leaving, now drawing near
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dVerse ~ Poets Pub | OpenLinkNight Week 65

30/30 – 4 | The Papers

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He did not mean to eavesdrop on her conversation as he stepped outside.  He simply could not help grinning as he enjoyed the sound of her voice in business mode as she conversed with someone from an office on the coast. He stood just behind her, leaning against the wide column of the restaurant’s portico and waited. She had finished the conversation and was about to turn around when another call came in and stopped her.

“Why are you calling me now? You know I am out with him.”

What the hell?

“I was going to tell him at dinner, but it was likely to be an ugly scene if he doesn’t take it well.  I could not risk that. I’ll give him the papers when we get home. Handle it in a private setting.”

Give him the papers? What papers? Divorce papers? Why? They’ve been married forever, well nearly twenty-seven years anyway. He was happy. Had you asked him five minutes ago he would have sworn on a stack of bibles that she was also. Granted she had seemed a little distracted these past few days. He knew they were in a crunch another cycle at her job and she was always a little more tense then. He simply contributed it to that. Taking her out to dinner tonight, to one of her favorite places, just a little something to help ease some of the stress. But this? No, he was not expecting this.

The lovely voice becomes more and more dreadful as he listens to her speak to what has to be her lover.

“I know, hon. It is insane for this to happen now at this point in our lives, but I have to tell him. The sooner the better. It’s past the point where I have a choice and I’ve put it off long enough already.”

His head spins as he tries to quickly process what he was hearing, but his mind can’t do it. He moves to the side and waits for her to turn around.

“Look, he’s going to be out any minute, I have to hang…Oh dammit!” She turns and saw him standing there.  He has no idea what his expression looks like, but it must be something fierce gauging her reaction to him as she slowly shuts the cell off putting it in her purse.

There is the most uncomfortable silence as they stare at each other for a brief eternity.  Slowly, he holds out his hand.

“What…?” She looks genuinely puzzled by his gesture.

“You have papers? Divorce papers?” He could barely get the words out.

If she was taken aback by his expression upon seeing him, it was now his turn to be so as her expression morphs from surprise, to confusion, to comprehension and then giggles.  The giggles quickly became peals of unbridled laughter as she sees the incredulous look upon his face.  Unable to speak she simply reaches in her over-sized purse and hands him an envelope.

The envelope had no outer markings, he has no choice but to open it. Inside are what looks like printouts of a couple of Polaroid photographs of orange aliens. No, it was one of those 3D ultrasound images of a fetus, but why would she…? Then he sees the patient’s name on the side.

Oh…

They had tried to conceive. It turned out they both had medical issues that would make it hard, but not impossible to have children. They went for it full tilt, spending serious amounts trying various technical and medical treatments, homeopathic remedies etc. Nothing seemed to take.  When he once suggested adoption she was adamant against it; she had wanted their child or none at all.  For nearly fifteen years they tried and failed.  As their chances grew slimmer with age, they officially gave up trying a couple of years ago when she went into early-menopause. He mind reels anew at the thought as he continues reading the information on the paper.

Estimated 17 weeks.

Oh holy…

No wonder she was worried at what he would think. They were past the point of having a choice, they were having this baby. She stops laughing, for once unable to read his feelings in this, and places a tentative hand on his. He looks from the papers to her, only then remembering how she did not want wine at all during dinner tonight and slowly breaks into self-depreciating laughter feeling incredibly stupid.  That is an expression she can read and falls into a gentle teasing laugh of her own.

“A divorce you dolt, really? After all this time, really?” She punches his arm playfully.

“A baby you doll, really? After all this time, really?” He retorts grinning.

“A baby…?” She stops; arching an eyebrow.

He looks at the papers again. Twins.

Oh holy God!!

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30 Stories in 30 Days | Day 4

30/30 – 1 | Hello

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No longer in a mood for intellectual stimuli, she closes the heavy bound manual choosing to peruse a fluff espionage thriller type novel instead as she sits at a cafe and enjoys what is left of the wonderful weather. Autumn has hit in full Technicolor glory and such lovely days where a light cardigan was the only protection needed against the slight breeze were numbered. El sol glares bright enough to require her pulling down the sunglasses that were holding back the tumble of curls from her face to cover her eyes as she is part reading – part people watching while she slowly sips her jasmine infused tea. Pushing an errant curl behind her ear, she gazes out, spying a man walking up the street in the near distance.

No, walking is not the right word, he strutted.

Not a cocky Tony Moreno, a la Saturday Night Fever, strut. This was a cool measured purposeful stride. Looking mostly straight ahead, he had a destination, but with his thumb hooked in his belt front loop, he oozed self-confidence as he moved. Despite the casualness of his stride, she somehow knew he missed nothing of what was going on around him. As he came near the cafe he broke stride for only the briefest moment as he suddenly smiled.

She casually looks over her shoulder to see what fortunate woman was the lucky recipient of such wonderful smile, because why the hell would anyone want to deal with the likes of her.

She blinks, Whoa! Where the hell did that come from?

She already knew the answer before the question was asked, him; her ex-husband.

The man, her very young self had invested everything short of her soul to have. The public prince who was anything but behind closed doors. And a vivacious, outgoing, somewhat vain young woman was slowly changed into a dispirited, introverted recluse. She had turned into the living embodiment of the worthless, lackluster person he called her, proving his point. It took seven years of the abuse to get to that magic breaking point where she walked out the door one morning and never came back. On July 7th at 7am as it coincidentally, turned out. The Lucky Seventh as she eventually called the year. It was another two years of damn good friends and therapy before the divorce was final and another four years since then to now. In the interim she had already gone through the thrilling rise and tragic fall of a rebound relationship, another short courtship that ended amicably, had finally finished her masters, was now working on her doctorate and for the first time in a very long time was truly happy with herself. Still, every now and then, the hateful diatribe he once pounded into her would rear its ugly head and pop into her consciousness, like now.

The only other people sitting at the cafe were a couple currently oblivious to anything else in the world, but each other. The guy was almost within yards of her now, looking dead at her nodding a slight greeting; the smile was definitely for her. She knew if she didn’t respond, the smile would leave his face, he would keep going and that would be the end it; just two people acknowledging each in passing as it were, nothing more. For some reason she wanted more.

Why the hell would anyone want to deal with the likes of her? Why the hell not?

She takes the shades from her eyes, breaths and returns the smile.

“Hello.”

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Thanks to that darn instigator of personal writing challenges (yes you GirlGriot). I am now compelled to attempt the 30/30 Challenge. I will write 30 (hopefully), short stories in 30 days. Welcome to Day 1.

For all its potential…

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We are all wounded.
We are all fucked-up.
We are all scarred.

Some of us are a hell of a lot more jacked than others. And not all of our scars are on the outside.

Some of us are equipped to deal with it.
Some of us are not.
Some of us don’t even want to try.

We try to tend to our wounds, control our persons in our own ways…

Some drink; some get sober.
Some starve; some binge.
Some find Jesus; some lose Him.
Some chose to sleep alone; other choose to sleep with anyone/everyone rather than be alone.
Some are adrenalin junkies, crowd seekers; some become hermits.
Some draw, paint, write, create.

And some of us wake up to a tear drenched pillow yet again, but don’t remember crying…

Some of us do any combination and/or all of the above in our lives.

These are our realities…
How we dull the pain…
Silence the noise …
The ways in which we attempt to overtake that which threatens to overtake us…

For all its potential, this world can be such an ugly place sometimes.

It’s up to us to find / carve out our own individual niches of beauty within it, to survive the best we can during our time here because the alternative sucks and neither side has a reset.

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Found this written on a paper tucked in a book while I was cleaning. I hadn’t read the book in years, so I’m not sure when I actually wrote it, but it was definitely my handwriting.

I scare me sometimes.

In The End

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21

Nights in white satin, never reaching an end
Letters I’ve written, never meaning to send
Beauty I’d always missed with these eyes before
Just what the truth is, I can’t say anymore
Nights in White Satin – The Moody Blues

We were destiny, as only the stars portend
Two opposite worlds of the equestrian track
You a portrait of its wealth, me a pole post of its lack
An interest in film creates a chance meeting
Our eyes locked in pass of eternity’s fleeting
Despite it all, these two hearts of our transcend
To have had those stolen moments with you
Were worth the obstacles we were put through
Days wrapped in gold sun, a love ascends
Nights in white satin, never reaching an end

Each loving moment together a true Godsend
More so as time lessens the hold on or plight
And we could share our love in the full day light
We were a force leaving all others in the dust
I your earth you know had my complete trust
Your heart a Gibraltar on which I could always depend
It’s beat as familiar to me as the bent of my own
But the familiar sometimes become things left alone
I wrote letters of love, as classic poets have penned
Letters I’ve written, never meaning to send.

In retrospect I would have sent each letter and more
Had I but an inkling of the plans of the fates
By the time we saw your sickness, it was too late
Your health declined with such rapid velocity
The rushes to try any means of medical restore
Introduced a side-effect unplanned
The pain became more than you could stand
A slow fade of the sparkle I had come to adore
Beauty I’d always missed with these eyes before

Somewhere in there came the chorus of rumors
That your fidelity wasn’t quite as strong as mine
One of the reasons for your health’s cruel decline
The last thing I needed was that kind of stress
I saw it as a true meter of others’ nastiness
Like your arrival, your death shook me to the core
I find myself at war with the god’s aggression
That rips from me, my soul’s one possession
In the end I oscillate between faith and rancor
Just what the truth is, I can’t say anymore

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Hyde Park Thursday Poets Rally Week 74 (October 4 -October 10)

 

Triple A…

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Some say I’m a nympho
And that’s quite all right.
And hell yes! I do love it so!
But only one fills me with delight

He calls me his Triple A Pet
Anytime, anything, anyplace I can get

Anytime

Soft as the murmuring breeze of a new day’s dawn
When the evening sun is about to set
An afternoon thunder shower should the mood spawn
Or perhaps during a midnight buffet

Anything

Going out commando on a dare
With nothing over my shape but a very short coat
Then sitting open in a park getting air
While he presses buttons on that special remote

Anyplace

Members of several airport’s Mile High
In the nose-bleeds, for a Knicks game at MSG
The feast at The Great Wall still bring me sighs
The weekend in the brink for the stunt at Wrigley

And I know it’s just not my predilection
Anytime – Anything – Anyplace
For he suffers from the same affliction

In limos, in cars, in buses, in trains
In a taxi during rush hour, against the door
I think we’ve hit every state except Maine
In a hotel picture window on the second floor

Anyplace

Swinging wildly with our motion
Re-enacting the latest porn
At Macy’s taste-testing lotion
And yes, that cob of corn

Anything

The times the reason how they vary
It’s not for food when we go for brunch
One crooks finger the other doesn’t tarry
At my office 3pm, because I needed to munch

Anytime

Anytime, anything, anyplace that he can
I call him my Triple A Man

Manual, anal, oral, it doesn’t end
With but a moment’s loaf until recur
To each me he’s the perfect godsend
That doesn’t mind if you call him a satyr

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Hyde Park Thursday Poets Rally Week 73 (September 20 – September 26, 2012)

I’ll Bide ‘Till Time

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A time long since your love I held
A memory that wants to fade
Where an abundance was once held
Reduced to dreams, images frayed

So young our love, this war so stalls
A fortnight wed, in twice passed Falls
In King’s honor I know you serve
But nights lonely, my heart does swerve

My fingers replace not your touch
Though deepest soul can recall such
In shallow dreams that hold your kiss
The gentle roughness of that bliss

Ne’er thought to feel this desperate
I bide ‘till time, returns my mate

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dVerse ~ Poets Pub | FormForAll – Basic Sonnet Forms

Daily Prompt: Good-bye

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11

.
Early autumn.

Click.  Click.

He stands in front of the floor to ceiling picture window in the living room that faces the water.  Being near the apex of the hill gives him a nearly unobstructed view of the river, the bridge and the rest of the city spread out before it.  The glittering effect of the sun on the water is as picture perfect as the fluffy cotton candy clouds breaking the monotony of the azure sky above.

He does not see this.

Click.  Click.

The leaves are mostly green, but you can see the first of fall’s leaves on the lawns and sidewalks. A perfectly shaped, beautifully russet leaf lazily drifts from a tree in front of the brownstone to the street.  Even this early in the season you somehow know autumn is going to show off in a blaze of glorious color at its peak.

It does not so much as invite a shrug from him.

Click.  Click.

Children play on the sidewalk or in front yards enjoying the last vestiges of the day. Their occasional high peals of laughter break the relative silence of the late afternoon. It is a good hour before the streetlights come on and another half hour at least before the sun noticeably sets.

He does not notice.

Click.  Click.

The gentle swish-swish, swish-swish of leaves brushing against a window is somehow rhythmic.  It is the same gentle breeze causing the light curtains to sway in front of open windows as evening approaches.  Somewhere down the block just out of the line of vision the happy tunes of an ice cream truck are heard.

But not by him.

Click.  Click.

He has stood by the picture window long after the brilliant red, gold and indigo of sunset have paved the way for the now diamond studded navy night.  The grandfather clock in the front hall again chimes the passing hour.  The stereo is just barely audible above the regular sounds of the house.

The only thing he has heard and continues to hear in his mind is click.

Click.  Click. 

Click.  Click.

Click.  Click.

In reality, each click is no louder than of that of an old-fashioned typewriter key strike.  For him each is as loud as a cannon blast.

The sound of stiletto heels clicking against a marble floor of the foyer as they walk out of the door and his life.

Good-bye.

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Daily Prompt | What A Twist!

Long Fallen

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9

Painting of street worker

It’s Autumn, where the verdant leaves turns gold,
And goldenrod leaves quickly become old
And those old leaves soon become just like me
Something broken and crushed, something empty
Long fallen from the grace it used to be

Hard to believe, less than eight years ago,
I think eight, I’m not sure, the years blend so
My employer came to me one down time
And said I wasn’t pulling in the dimes
I’m a utensil that was past my prime

That as such made me particular waste
And was let go from employ with due haste
Youth started its slide from my once young face
I knew the rules, there was no pleading case
No chance of rescue in this youth built place

I started at fifteen, oh such a knave
But had a knack for knowing clients’ craves
I worked there before I had license to
Attained status, before my year was through
This job was all I ever knew to do

The cache of being ‘personal escort’
I never knew a life without support
That cache provided me some global treks
Spinning clients through my erotic hex
And I won’t lie; I damn sure loved the sex

I joked this job was custom made for me
Their faces at the point of ecstasy
And as conversant in Sun Tzu as Mr. Magoo
My clients soon found out I had smarts too
And for the price, little I would not do

Out lasted many who’ve come through the door
Damn lucky to be there at fifty-four
But like my concaved waist, it couldn’t last
My job choices were very far from vast
Don’t have much future because of my past

I’m offered some dinky job on the side
But I still had a little too much pride
To be a has-been hanging on the scene
I remember how I treated has-beens mean
When I once ruled the roost as its main queen

I’m treated like someone they’ve never known
When I tried to hold some clients on my own
With individual contact of each
A beat down was the last lesson left to teach
That everything I had was out of reach

I’ve gone from elite, to stripper, to street
Where I fidget on very tired feet
Jumping from each nameless and faceless mate
Wondering just which day will seal my fate
The seasons are my only notes of date

And it’s Autumn again the leaves turn gold,
Slowly turning other colors they grow old
Long fallen from the place they used to be
What time has washed away past their glory
And then die, a cruel metaphor of me

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dVerse Poets Pub ~ Poetics: Autumn Chill is in the Air

Ravished

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Across a crowded room, his eyes catch mine
Eyes half-hooded by mood lighting, half-hooded by wine
He’s careful not to glance, but for a moment pass
And I equally engrossed, by the drink in my glass

Our paths cross but briefly, among the dancers on the floor
We smile, have a polite greeting, step away and nothing more
It’s a moment over faster than a thunder’s boom
Before we’re back to hooded glances across the crowded room

But this time he doesn’t waver, he lets his eyes penetrate
I grasp the wall for some support, under the glare of its weight
Mesmerized by his power, I realize I am no match
Before I feel him deep inside me just as my breaths catch

I pretend to nod to music heard above the party’s din
But it’s really to the throbbing of his pulse felt within
Eyes closed my body tingles at the unexpected bliss
I feel the warmth of his breath release with mine in a hiss

Guided by steady flickers of strong and tender fingers
That flitter across points enflamed with a teasing linger
My eyes fly open in a flash, just all time slows
Across the room I see him nod and wonder if he knows

Has there only been a passing of a few heartbeats
That took me from the curious to the nearly complete
He stands with his smile knowing, while I stifle down a moan
And leaves me there in throbbing passion, ravished by his eyes alone

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Hyde Park Poetry | Poets’ Rally Week 72 (September 5 -12, 2012)

 

The Perfect Poet Award Poetry Rally Week 72 – Ravished

Perfect voice in an imperfect world
Muse pulls prose from words swirled

I nominate the wonderful poet  Heaven.