Urban Haze

If only I could drive my car to work
I wouldn’t be caught in this urban haze.
The streets spots filled, the garages are packed
Garage is too expensive anyways.
Going home from work in a funky sweat,
Back of my throat like bottom of ashtrays.
The hour’s lucubration gone downhill,
Under the glare of my boss’ sharp gaze.
My corporate suit felt so good at work,
Now I’m out in midst of this darn blaze.
The walk’s a distance by foot to the train
And my suit is torture under these rays.
If only I could drive my car to work
I wouldn’t be caught in this urban haze.
Want to take off my jacket but I can’t,
Caught some strange guy checking me out slant ways.
Can feel my silk blouse sticking to my skin,
Yet I’m so not about to make his days
And see just how fitting my form can be,
But it’s worse in the sauna of subways.
For once again the AC’s not running.
This train’s the epitome of clichés.
Practice mental transference while I’m here,
To somewhere with pools and drinks and valets.
If only I could drive my car to work
I wouldn’t be caught in this urban haze.
All packed up on each other like sardines,
Is it the train or heat that’s causing sways?
Grateful that I’m finally at my stop,
Caught again in of those train delays.
At last! I am the phoenix bird rising,
From the deep pyre walking up the stairways.
Got the number for dinner on speed dial
The thought of cooking has me in a daze.
Little trooper I am I brave the heat,
But sometimes I swear I hate the weekdays.
If only I could drive my car to work
I wouldn’t be caught in this urban haze.

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Today’s form is a Raccontino.

The raccontino is an unlimited number of couplets, rhyming xb xb xb xb xb, etc. The syllable count is set in the first line and followed throughout the poem.

Entered in dVerse Poets Pub – Poetics: Subway

Of Plans And Raivenne

Plans change and now my day is free
To vegetate?
No not
I.

Shades await this
bluest
sky.

I must enjoy
This gift,
Bye!

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Yes, another Zeno poem (Ten lines with the syllable count: 8/4/2/1/4/2/1/4/2/1 and a rhyme scheme: a/b/c/d/e/f/d/g/h/d). Because the day is too beautiful to stay in for anything verbose.

Enjoy your weekend folks – I’m outta here!

Moshing

Music blares through amplifiers
Heavy Metal
Bass line
Loud

My age shocks some
In this
Crowd

Me in the mosh
Thrashing
Proud

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Last week I went to an underground concert to support and critique a friend whose band was performing there. Let’s just say I could have given birth to most of the other attendees with whom I was front stage and center dancing up a storm. Conversations while different bands set up, comparing the ones performing that night to other older (sometimes much older), bands is when some realized I was not even within fifteen years of their age. As faces ebbed and flowed that night, it became something of a running gag for some whippersnapper in the know to grab a newcomer and have him or her guess my age. Yes, Advil was dear my friend the next morning, but this Mama held her own proudly that night.

Because when this mama rocks, it’s not in a chair.

A conversation I had yesterday regarding my love of head banging music reminded me of last week’s concert. I decided to immortalize it by trying another Zeno poem (Ten lines with the syllable count: 8/4/2/1/4/2/1/4/2/1 and a rhyme scheme: a/b/c/d/e/f/d/g/h/d).

That it also happens to fit this weeks dVerse challenge of “keeping it small” is an added bonus. 22 words total!

dVerse ~ Pets Pub | MeetingTheBar: It’s a small, small world — so let’s LIMBO like there is no tomorrow

Lock / Key

I had closed the door upon my heart and wouldn’t let anyone in
Trusted and loved only to be hurt swore it to never happen again
I had locked the door and tossed the key as hard, and as far as I could
Love would never enter there again yes, my heart was closed for good
I thought that tossed tiny key would be next to impossible to find
Then you came into my life without my even knowing changed my mind
I never imagined how quickly and quietly seeds of love are sown
But can I trust to give my heart again, letting go all the pain I’ve owned?

My love for you is growing, but can I trust in fate?
Should I take one more chance on love, before it’s too late?
Every fiber in my being, tells me this is so very real
But I’ve been down this road before, how do I trust what I feel?
When this heart of mine has been broken more than I can take
I have the fear of again repeating the same love mistakes
Will you let me grow so close to love you, only to let me go?
Or are you my life and soul mate just waiting for a hello?

Artwork: Lock-Key Female / Lock-Key Male by Wak

Resigned to a life of quiet chaos, I figured loneliness was my due
Never imagining the peace I’ve sought would be found in you
Wanting to prove how much I love you, so I did the hardest part
Offering what’s most precious to give…the opening to my heart

You’re my alpha, my new beginning, the door to a peace beyond
Everything I have ever wanted, have ever needed to carry on
I realized I was ready to love you, but didn’t know how to start
So I offer you my most sacred treasure . the key to my heart

Artwork: Lock-Key Male / Lock-Key Female by Wak

In your arms there is no concept of time and place
I’m lost to the passions found only in your embrace

Never would I have imagined there could ever be more bliss
Than the joy, the passion, the serenity found in your gentle kiss

Artwork: Lock Exchanged by Wak

Two lonely separate souls now joined, never again to be apart

Melting together to become one love, one soul, one heart

Artwork: Lock United by Wak 

All Artwork:
“Lock & Key Male” / “Lock & Key Female”
“Lock & Key Exchanged” / “Lock & Key United”
by WAK (Kevin A. Williams)

 

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Entered in:

dVerse Poets Pub | Open Link Night ~ Week 39

 

Word

Oh I would not call this thing love,

much too simple.

Then what?

Word.

We’re talking love.

Our love.

Word…?

This love is ours,

Always.

Word!

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This is a Zeno poem:

Ten lines with the syllable count: 8/4/2/1/4/2/1/4/2/1 and a rhyme scheme of: a/b/c/d/e/f/d/g/h/d.

You know me and poetic forms, I enjoy the challenge of them. Short forms especially as I am verbose. My friend and fellow blogger GirlGriot is challenging herself this month by writing Zeno poems. You know I had to give this at least one try.  And of course, typical of me, I break the rules, by using the same word as the rhyme.

It’s early in the month, I like it; I’ll be back with more…

They Won

She locks them down deep in her heart
The pains that are much to hard to bear
Not knowing pains are living things
They too have a need of air

She paces back and forth
As her soul rips at the seams
The pains try to find a voice
But she suppress the urge to scream

The pains search in vain
Desperate for way to be heard
But not computer, pen or paper
Is touched to give her pains words

But pains are a force of nature
Pains finds a way to succeed
As she picks up a straight razor
And in little cuts starts to bleed

And but for a short moment
The pains do ease inside
Covers the cuts in long sleeves
A whole new way to hide

For days, weeks, months, on end
She and her pains do this odd dance
She suppressing the cuts of evidence
As pains sneak out when they gets the chance

And all the lies rapidly collected
To give her scars a blame
Only cuts deeper than the physical cuts
That can’t quell her personal shame

She refused to reach out
To those offering her their hand
But she just wasn’t ready
Wasn’t prepared to understand

That to accept help was not a weakness
On the strong who reach out survive
But in her head only pains say she’s living
That only the pains keep her alive

Over a year on a late summer night
The clock ticks about a quarter to four
And finds that’s she’s still cutting
Alone on the bathroom floor

And for the first time she sees her arms
The crisscrossing along her inner thighs
The fresh blood trickling from her wrist
And for the first time she truly cries

The avoided mirror reflects all her hurts
Only as painful as the eyes can see
At last her pains have found a voice
And now owned will not let her be

It suddenly felt like so many hands were on her
More than what could possibly be real
It was heart reaching out to all who touched her
Desperate for a chance to finally heal

For the heart’s not made to hold pain for so long
And her pains no longer had the patience to wait
Freed at last it gushed through every avenue
She’d finally reached out, but it was too late

"THEY WON" carved into an arm.

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Entered in:

Thursday Poets Rally – Week 65 

Poetry Picnic  – Week 30

This Peaceful Moment

The last of the rain
Leaves bright dew drops on the sand
Save the darker curves
Where flimsy tides carve the shore
My door squeaks open
And the ocean’s roar greets me
Soon the evening bell
That heralds the docking boats
Clangs in the distance
I lean against my door frame
As mild jolts of wind
Causes me to shiver some
But I do not mind
I enjoy the ambiance
Of the setting sky
I’ve loads of things left to do
But it’s worth the time
This peaceful moment
Watching my shore town
Slowly start turning on lights
As emerald seas turn dark

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

Live in the Moment-dVerse Meeting the Bar

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

A week ago Saturday, I should have been repeatedly glancing at the time, waiting for 5:17 pm Pacific Daylight Time to make a call that would have rung in New York City at 8:17pm Eastern Daylight Time. For the past few days I should have been teasing my friend, on how I wish I could have personally seen the expression on her face when the man she had been living with for three years dropped down to one knee and proposed to her, in front of the family gathered for St. Patrick’s revelry while she and I were talking on the phone at 8:17pm EDT/5:17pm PDT. Why that exact time? Because the proposer was seventeen minutes late for meeting up with friends at a pub in San Francisco for St. Patrick’s Day, when he first laid eyes on her four years ago. As I was in California for the weekend, I thought it was a grand idea to call from the West Coast at that exact time tying the events together.

Instead, a week ago I was trying to get drunk so I could fake happiness for a party I had traveled to the other side of the country for, but no longer wanted to be at, because I received the news from the fiance-to-be the day before, that my friend was killed in an auto-accident by a drunk driver. The shock of the news put me in such a state, much to the worry of my drinking buddies who (when I did not show up at the dance Friday night an hour after I received the news), could not reach me through my self-imposed communication silence while I grieved.

Today we bury the body that died, then we will celebrate the life she lived. The past few days have been a whirlwind as I had chosen not to talk about it. Not talking about her is not an option today. For the past few days I noticed when either 5:17pm or 8:17pm struck and felt a pang. Today, tomorrow, a week from now and for several more weeks to come, those specific time markers will be a bittersweet memory; she would hate that.

Eventually, she will be a sweet memory and while she’d likely gag at the use of “sweet” as adjective in relation to her, I know she’d smile at that.

Yet I know as soon as later today, instead of tears of sorrow , it will be tears of laughter streaming down my face as we all tell our favorite stories about her, because you cannot talk about her and not laugh. She would love that.

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

Visit the rest of today’s Slices of Life over at Two Writing Teachers.

SOL - Slice of Life March Challenge 2012

A Lesson Deferred

Moonlit justice
of an imagined sunlit crime
Swung from an oak
a cruel pendulum mark of time
Some eyes tremble
Some eyes leer
all wonder at the marvel
of what happened here

Emmit’s a lesson some can’t forget
Emmit’s a lesson some haven’t learned yet

How many more
Must there be
Why does it take a man’s death
for us to see

As we travel down the road of another man
Who will never travel the same again
Truck tires designed to ride him above
Much better used to drag him down in the night
For a crime no more sinister than
He wasn’t born white

James Byrd’s a lesson some can’t forget
James Byrd’s a lesson some haven’t learned yet

And sometimes a child is shot
For doing nothing more
The walking home in the rain
From the local store
Was it the clothes he wore?
Was it the color of his skin?
He carried iced-tea and candy
What was his sin?

Some fifty plus years between hence and thence
To be reminded how fragile the balance on the fence

Stewart, Griffith and Hawkins lesson some can’t forget
Diallo, Bell and now Martin lessons some haven’t learned yet
How many more names will be added before the lesson is set?

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Letting off some steam in the wake of another senseless killing and wanting to bitch-slap Geraldo Rivera even while a part of me understands the rational behind the unintentionally inflammatory statement.

Visit the rest of today’s Slices of Life over at Two Writing Teachers.

SOL - Slice of Life March Challenge 2012

Two Princes

Two New York princes on a subway train
Two different styles, two different manes
Mister Business so perfectly dressed
While Mr. Free Spirit’s so casually tressed
One baby bottom smooth as always
One hasn’t seen a razor in many days
Mr. Business is the model of all things materially
But it’s Mr. Free Spirit who captivates me
Is it the flip-flop sandals on his feet?
Or that reappearing dimple in his cheek
Head bopping in beat to his own tune
In a way Mr. Business’ would never swoon
Business is cool as in ice, Spirit’s cool as in fun
Maybe I’ll take the money under another sun
But for today Mr. Free Spirit is the one

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Visit the rest of today’s Slices of Life over at Two Writing Teachers.

SOL - Slice of Life March Challenge 2012