Some poems
have longer titles.
Category: poetry
A poem: Never no more
It was just one slap.
Didn’t even hurt that much.
Shuddered your walls though.
It was just the one slap
As if to correct an unruly child.
(taking candy without asking!)
One of those e-d-u-c-a-t-i-o-n-a-l ones.
with the certainty of more.
(If you persist, that is.)
But you are no kid no more.
And you don’t take no shite.
Not from anyone.
Not anymore.
Not from your ex.
(His shite you put up with for so long, so very long)
Not from your internet suitors.
(Virtual dating shite, that is.)
And not from him no more,
not anymore.
It was the weakest of pats.
The kind you gave your kids once.
(Long time, long time ago.)
That kind he gave you now.
(Then and now, then and now.)
But you’re no kid no more,
not anymore.
It barely brushed your cheek.
but it iced your soul.
A chilled chilling silence spreading
(to the back seats).
Your children, subdued
“If you are going to be like that,”
he says,
“you better get out!.”
And you do.
For you’re no kid no more,
not anymore.
He is the first man,
and he won’t be the last.
But you won’t take no shite no more,
not anymore,
never no more.
Losing feathers
I imagined a tree.
When it was young it grew rapidly into a tall tree with a wide trunk, thick bark and so many luscious dark-green leaves that our whole family could sit in its shade when the sun was at it’s most merciless during the heat of the summers day.
I imagined the tree.
When it started to loose the first leaf nobody noticed, because there were so many green ones and that one red-yellow leaf that floated to the ground at dusk, went unseen and was perhaps trod upon by one of our daughters during a game of tag or when flying a kite.
I imagined the tree.
When I was in my long dark green gown with my red-brown hair being tugged by the wind, during the first storm of our fall and a cloud of red and yellow leaves – all so sudden dead – was released and carried away just before the rain arrived.
I imagined that tree..
When it was old and gnarled and the limbs were like fingers on a hand grasping upwards as the frozen image of the hand of a drowning swimmer reaching out in desperation or a skeletal hand pushing through the soil of a graveyard. The last of the leaves had long gone.
I imagine our tree.
When, the next year, after the snow has melted, trees would blossom again and cloak themselves in their emerald versatility, but ours will be like a bird that lost it’s feathers and shows only the withered frame of a creature that would never fly again. With each incident and each conflict another feather would be plucked from it’s body until that moment came that we both did not care about that stab in the heart when yet another moment in life made us drift apart further.
That was our tree:the only tree we had together.
Freedom 2
In the center of our room.
A screen adorns the wall.
I press the button.
and the black flashes
multi-colored faces,
unknown to me.
Some looked worried.
Others in tears.
No smiles there.
A cavalcade of people,
bring me despair.
In the center of our room.
A screen adorns the wall.
I press the button again
Sounds of laughter
Multi-color outfits
Flashing teeth
Shining lights.
An unending stream
of soulless happenings
A cavalcade of people,
bring me exhaustion.
In the center of our room.
A screen adorns the wall.
I press the button once more
Grey suits sit
arranged around a table
Their voices talk and talk
but I don’t understand
I only hear a buzz
or a drone.
A cavalcade of people,
bring me blindness
In the center of the room.
A screen adorns the wall.
I press the last time.
The colors went black.
This is freedom(?)
