Poem #16-2011 A Promise Kept

A Promise Kept
          for Cindy but not for Bob

I wrote a poem once. and it was a good poem
as I recall
but I don’t know where it went at all
I mean – not where the paper I wrote it on went
(Hell, I’m sure it went the way of my baseball cards – unmercifully bent)
I mean
          where did that passion go?

Is it gone forever?
For. Ever.

One summer
Between schooling
A promise made
A promise kept: a poem each day

Hand-delivered first day back
         must have been 90 or so:June-July-August

My pay a thank you
and seeing her walk down the hall holding hands with my mortal enemy
          poetless soul-less blond hunk of fiery loin-grinding nemesis

didn’t keep a copy (pre-Xerox)
never saw them again

Her?

Once – lame class reunion
didn’t have the balls to ask

I rather think that good poem was in that batch
and now it’s in her
but tomorrow it will be in me again This poem contributed to dVersePoets Open Link Night.
Follow them on Twitter @dVersePoets.

Poem #15-2011 The Artist

The Artist

Loneliness would be

lonely

here

a vase sits

empty

but for a

dried-up paintbrush

you once used

to create me

from where

I hadn’t been

I miss your hands

This poem contributed to dVersePoets Open Link Night.
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Poem #14-2011 Family Truth

Family Truth

Some of the time – not nearly enough -
I bite the tongue of nurture.
Instead,

I disavow mother’s acerbic conditioning,
I reframe father’s dour aphorisms about growing old being “bad business,” and
I pretend brother actually saw me.
Instead,

I rely on surrogate family:
Some are flesh-and-blood,
but most are images conjured from eternal words
by inspirational authors dead and alive.

Embracing the latter,
I unleash the tongue of truth.


This poem contributed to dVersePoets Open Link Night.
Follow them on Twitter @dVersePoets.

Poem #13-2011 Anger

Anger

I am an angry, angry man.
But you have no right, she says
(cue Pollyanna list of “blessings”).
What she does not see,
what you do not see,
what I only feel
has no name. It sleeps in
cold gray solemnity
but burns to life with
each bell tolled with
each softness violated with
each mad injustice
reaped in damnable misery for
sake of
the state for
the family for
the business for
the earth

Its perpetuation
is my anger
is my
is . . . .
me.

I am anger.



This poem contributed to dVersePoets Open Link Night.
Follow them on Twitter @dVersePoets.