Please move closer to me,
feel chilled air,
warmed radiant love,
skin against skin,
two pools of passion.
Feel me, touch me, taste me,
lucid reality packed with
lost memories so real as we
dance by the luminous light of
a harvest moon.
***
She thought his bright sun made her shine.
But it was his darkness that illuminated her beauty.
Look both ways into days and nights.
Mind the gaps, sunshine or moonlight.
Give thanks for those who make us look good.
I’ve not written a letter to my teenage self.
If I did, it would be
crude,
rude,
and threatening.
I knew that boy
wouldn’t heed warnings.
He did little good.
The bad I remember,
the stupid,
the asinine and foolish acts
I cannot deny.
I was me.
I was there. I did it. I was
the thick-headed marauder
they claimed.
My survival is a mystery.
How it turned out like this; I’ll never know.
Look both ways in life to connect the dots.
What happened to all those years?
Mind the gaps in recall for memories denied.
Footnote: My wife edits these. She brought this to me saying, “it turned out well because you married me.” I agree. Ok, late addition of a video that kind of says cool stuff.
I came up with an acrostic.
Hopeless romances never die from
Eroded unrequited loyalty, nor
Awkward, embarrassing, green jealousy.
Thankless deceptions give us
Hollow empty feelings of
Eviscerated, torn, pride; and
Ruined trust.
Look both ways, especially if 27 is your “lucky” number. Mind the gaps for unfounded fears and feelings of unrequited love.
The video is Conan Gray talking about his song, Heather, which sort of inspired the poem.
Thanks again to cat-herder extraordinaire, Rochelle @ Rochelle Wisoff-Fields-Addicted to Purple for providing another Friday Fictioneers photo prompt. Her weekly challenge is for us to write a story (beginning, middle, and end) of 100 words or less based on a photo prompt. Thanks to Rowena Curtin for the photo.
Genre: Fiction
Title: Xin Loi Gonzo
Word Count: 100
***
The sun was behind him, half blinding me. Gonzo insisted on knowing why I asked to meet him so early.
He swore and moved aggressively toward me. I backed-up and said, “Some make the world a better place, some we would better off without, and some make no difference.
When he charged me, I drew the pistol, repeatedly squeezing the trigger before I could point it. He knocked me down but did not move after we were on the ground. I stood, shot him in the head, and said, “I just made the world a better place. Xin lỗi, Gonzo.”
***
Look both ways when making room and don’t bring a knife to gun fight.
Mind the gaps and keep the sun at your back.
Xin lỗi is Vietnamese for ‘sorry’ or in my case, ‘sorry about that.’
Yesterday, Morris Mac Davis (January 21, 1942 – September 29, 2020) died, as did Helen Reddy (25 October 1941 – 29 September 2020). Mac was a country music singer, songwriter, and actor, originally from Lubbock, Texas. He was one of (if not the) my wife’s favorites. I wrote this poem a few weeks ago. I kind of relate it to his song, The Words Don’t Come Easy.
Grant Me the Words
I want words to share with her,
to impress her, to draw her closer.
Are there such words? Is what I feel
a force? One that words can’t say?
Words must say what I want. This world isn’t
perfect. People have people issues,
life is life, it is all relative. Except love.
Love is not relative. Love comes in thousands
of different flavors. That love is not this love.
Each is special. Each unique. Each its own.
The pain is not the love, it is not the passion,
it is not the physical or mental human reality.
It is the inability to tell another human being
how much you love them. How much you care.
We suffer most not because we love, but because
we lack the humanity to share our words of love
with the world, because we don’t know what they are.
But we try. We must always try.
Look both ways at the good things in life, like love.
Mind the gaps for lessons and reasons. Always try.
They don’t come easy but find the words.
Megalithic monuments to our past.
Cold stone can’t heal broken hearts,
replace shattered dreams, give life
to memories of the dead.
When will truth
replace our human greed, when
will we ever learn? We see and hear
what we want
with blind eyes and deaf ears.
Why even ask?
Look both ways for life.
Mind gaps in memories, lest we lose what we have.
Thanks to Rochelle @ Rochelle Wisoff-Fields-Addicted to Purple for providing another Friday Fictioneers photo prompt. Her weekly challenge is for us to write a story of 100 words or less based on a photo prompt (thanks to Roger Bultot).
Genre: Narrative poetry
Title: Joe’s Plan
Word count: 96
***
Joe was okay for 96;
a walker, a bag, and caths.
not bad. no cancer.
she was long gone.
he felt guilty and missed her.
Joe had a plan.
one night, after the poker game,
the pain was too much.
at the hospital er, shingles, they said,
was not deadly.
Joe’s plan,
that night in his bathtub
he used his .38 Special
to join with her,
just past the veil.
Joe’s girlfriend found him, cops came,
hazmet cleaned up. some family members
dealt with his stuff. all they ever wanted
was joe’s money. now it’s finished.
***
Look both ways and wonder why, but death awaits all.
Mind the gaps and keep your powder dry.
Awakened hours before sunrise,
he must guard, lest they come and kill;
this boy filled with fear and shock,
barely 19, taught to hate and kill,
now loyal to his clan, this new family,
his only friends, his only protection
as war has become his real world.
Miserable, hardened in every way,
unsympathetic, unimaginably deadly,
drawn to flashing light, learning
what he never wanted to know, addicted
to the battle, to the intoxicating fight.
He celebrates life with death, seeks random
revenge where none is possible,
has forgotten questions, never asks why,
lives in his personal accepted hated hell.
Sunrise lifts despair from his soul.
He smiles, alone, at the light of life,
happy to survive one more night.
He looks for answers, for that part of him,
now dead because he kills without a care.
Can he ever again be who he was born to be?
Look both ways to find another view.
Mind the gaps where questions decay away.
Note: I used the noun form of rectify in the title and three synonyms in the piece. Mia culpa.
Rectification
His heart and hers, broken, they had caused their own tragedy. Together, they moved forward, not on, using glue of the gods, Mars & Venus, to correct, reform, and amend repairs. Their common desire: love.
***
Look both ways to “mend a broken heart”.
Mind the gaps for “misty memories of days gone by.”
My inspiration.
Thanks to Rochelle @ Rochelle Wisoff-Fields-Addicted to Purple for another midweek, Friday Fictioneers photo prompt. Her weekly challenge is for us to write a story of 100 words or less based on a photo prompt (this week, hers).
***
Genre: Memoir
Title: When I Met Sparky
Word Count: 100
Old Sparky was its name. A useless device, except for taking out life 695 times.
I could have been seeing any old gallows, a chopping block, a guillotine, but it was an ugly wooden chair with dried up leather straps and old wires. It was a creative invention to kill in a kinder, gentler way.
I felt a willfulness choke me.
I kept my emotions hidden. When the warden asked if I would like to sit in the chair (against the rules), without moving my eye from what must have been a sight for thousands, I mumbled a muffled, “Nope.”
***
Look both ways when you kill.
Mind the gaps death cannot be undone.
