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The Side I Never Met
Floating through darkness
I saw a light
in the black universe, one
dot, then
I determined
it was a window.
A woman was there.
She seemed to look but not see,
her blue eyes were calm.
I sensed
honest love, like a mother.
I could see longing—expecting
in her moist eyes.
Then I saw
the window was
a mirror of reality.
She was my reflection,
able to see into my past.
She was the image of the real me.
See both ways when looking through windows or into mirrors,
especially as metaphors of life.
Mind the gaps, the cracks, the wrinkles, and the patina of age.
Everything means something.
This was a complex prompt, so it is best to go to the dVerse page and read about Lisa’s Time Machine Bucket List: TMBL and the subsequent prompt with options.
I think I sort of did Option 1, but this comes from my heart. I know Lisa said ten and cull out, but I can’t do that. I focused on both the stars and the venues because, seriously, I would try to go.
Coming Around Again
Forty-five (or more)
albums later, fifty years
of water under two bridges,
if we could go back.
Back to when you opened up
to your kind, to your fans,
and friends and family,
your folks, without
a care or anxiety
for either of us.
Long over now except for
the forever connection
of Ben and Sally; I still
love to hear you and James
sing duets and harmonies.
Save me seats so I can go back;
back with my beloveds
with you to concerts like:
Live from Martha’s Vineyard,
or from Grand Central,
or from aboard the QM 2.
Can we meet at the Eagles’
Sad Café? It’s been fifty years
Carly. What do ya say?
Listen,
mock, yeah,
ing, yeah—let’s sing!
Look both ways, but when the more is in the past,
we can wish for times to go back to for just a brief concert to visit,
to sit and listen, to applaud, perchance to take in a toke.
Mind the gaps until time travel is perfected. Our goals are very specific.
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The Maelstrom of Combat
Hunt and kill missions,
search and destroy—S&D,
sick and disgusting.
If it’s them and dead, it’s VC.
Body counts win wars.
Ask GM-azon.
Euphemistic defense profits for all,
but not the warrior, the solder,
dead and maimed
they suffer, kid-killers—all,
they hate and love battle.
Combat. Killing.
I die. Why?
Look both ways, toward the light and the dark.
Mind the gaps for hints of denial.
It is yours to reason why.
When he emotionally told me—
he confessed, he squirmed—
with the guilt and shame
that had long lived in his gut.
For him,
it was a hard story to tell.
Surrendering emotions,
“If evil were evil enough;
if good were good enough.
“I would find the courage.
I would fight for right,
one war to end war—forever!”
He was conscripted. Drafted!
It was what he could do
for his country. To serve. To kill
(or be killed).
Maybe he’d find glory. Heroism.
Maybe death.
But wait.
He opposed this war.
He was to fight and kill
but he hated this war.
“Is there another war
more to my liking?”
He felt that killing and dying
were not in his peacenik milk nor
cup of tea.
“Send another,” he protested.
He was ordered to report.
But he was too good for this war.
Too smart. Too woke!
Too compassionate.
He was above it.
But war he did.
And he killed so as not
to be killed. To survive.
And when his war
was no more,
he came home
to discover
that he too,
was no more.
Sadly, he missed it.
Look both ways in war and peace
because each is merely the absence of the other.
Mind the gaps, the traps, the mines, and bombs.
Win your battles to lose the war.
***
Inspired by “On the Rainy River,” a section in the book The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien.
Click here to read more poems based on the same prompt.
My book.
Click on the cover to see the Amazon page for either print or e-book.
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May I Stay?
After the poetry reading
everyone prepared
for their independent absquatulation,
with coffee in their bellies
and books of poems
in their hands.
Handshakes, hugs, and
complimentary laudations
were passed around
like drinks at last call for alcohol.
Those ambivalent moments
when the emotion of wanting to stay
gets trumped by the needs of the day
tell of our human dichotomy.
Back we go into the world
of confusion, confrontation,
and hate. The place we love
too much and too little.
Reading some Reading
might help.
Look both ways but write your poems and read them to the world.
Mind the gaps wherein common sense has flat collapsed.
Note: Peter Reading (27 July 1946 – 17 November 2011) was a strong-willed English poet. His verse is described as “anti-romantic, disenchanted, and usually satirical.” Glad I’m only labeled cantankerous.
My book of poems, “Any Way the Wind Blows” was launched yesterday.
For this weekend, it is available almost world-wide on Amazon at reduced prices.
These books make great gifts, but F-word and S-word warnings.
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