In the mere blink of a nightmare, I found myself rechained
and trapped where my peace of mind had once before
collapsed.
The die has been cast, an old challenge from the past, one
I thought long ago smashed, has incited another battle and
painfully thrashed my peace of mind like collateral damage
to aloofly leave behind.
It’s twenty-seven years later, and I’m altogether strength-wise
lesser for this matter. I’ve got mighty prayers but the sum-total
of tassels for the best in life have battered and frayed my energy.
It is retired and at rest, not lying in wait for another day or test.
Now, I’ve no choice but to fake it, declare it is just hiding and
there’s no abiding such when it's time for fighting.
I know I screamed denial, felt a heavy weight disintegrate all
to black. I remember holding him, sharing a crying jag while
watching my peace of mind pack.
My very heart, my special needs son, now full grown and still
at home, woke me in the night in a state of fright, “Mama, I
think I just had a seizure.” The next day came four more and
my peace of mind took its suitcase out the door.
The cafe burnt alive as soon as you
Set your patent leather boot inside
And walked right into this unknown,
Mysterious yet familiar world
Of witty writers and pious poets
With their poetic pens.
My tantalizing timid eyes
Met your musically amused eyes,
And I heard a symphony unsung,
Strange, how can you be just a stranger,
When your eyes can speak so much danger,
Then how much your heart would want to say, stranger.
Strangers don't sing symphonies,
Nor do they linger nostalgically
Like a locket on an ashen neck.
They don't even say hello,
And there I sat with my cold heart,
Wondering like a bashful bard,
What were the chances,
Those burning glances,
And you left aloofly
With your latte
Leaving the ashes behind.
Soot everywhere,
Here and there,
On my lips where
Your eyes lingered,
On my fingertips,
Wanting to write
The desires of the
Waltzing, woozy heart.
Rounded up
Forgotten pup
No hourglass shape
Like sister eight
Denied the pluck
Of seven's luck
No flashy tricks
For clever six
Lacking the vibe
Of cool kid five
Awkward score
No balanced four
Craves symmetry
Family of three
Alone and blue
Unlike cute two
While ten and one
Have all the fun
Eleven stays
Aloofly away
Twelve is far
Too popular
And all the teens
Have their own scenes
So, find time for nine
In your counting rhymes!
4/10/21
Anacreontic Verse contest
Sponsor: Silent One
As love embedded itself in Cifolta’s heart,
vengeance burned a hole in Jiralam’s.
She only saw his unflawed face
and sculpted body,
a well-baked, rakish dish,
plying her with wiles,
oozing with winning wooings
But her senses were bedazzled
by his chameleon charm,
and as his impeccable, impossible pulchritude
blended with her own,
and desirous sighs escaped their satiated lips,
Jiralam seized the amulet dangling
from his damp chest and
hurled it from the bed,
dashing the magic,
reverting, revealing
a bloated blob of malformed features
“You who shunned Ikmoch and embraced Jiralam,
know that I am he!
You who lorded your love aloofly,
taunting a lowly, lonely, homely man,
now share his bed and body!
Behold the naked truth, Cifolta,
and weep with shock and shame!”
And Cifolta clasped her own bright amulet
and cast it free from her breast,
shedding her gorgeous guise,
and a misshapen clump lay beneath Ikmoch,
her fleshy mess meshing with his own
as laughter wracked their wrinkles
And having much in common,
the lovers soon were wed,
and made many pretty children,
who bore no resemblance to their parents
There is an ache, a hurt that makes no list.
Its name isn’t cancer or heart, but loneliness.
Its victims are usually old, but may be young.
They wait for a call or visit that doesn’t come.
The elderly may sense that having been used
It is time for them to be aloofly excused.
They labored for others they hardly knew
Only to be discarded with lives near through.
Chances are there’s a widow on your block
Who stares out a window at an empty walk.
A wave from a passerby would light her face
And restore fading faith in the human race.
Why do we make time for trifles of naught,
Isn’t there someone whom we have forgot?
Abandon for moments life’s wearying ways,
And show love to the lonely all of your days.
Discordant voices will promptly claim doubt.
“It’s a new day!” they will harshly cry out.
But the truth of the matter is this reality:
To live life richly requires a loving mentality.
Melissa Lont
1825 - 1911
How does one as low and humble as I
Sum up my life of 86 years
In a mere poem as brief and short-lived
As life itself?
And what is the secret to my long life?
What do I know that you, my friend,
Would like to know
About success and survival?
About good health and good luck?
My answer is this:
Do not complain and do not explain! Never!
And as for being married all those years to Doctor Lont?
Well, truth be known, like Hera,
I knew of my husband’s infidelities.
But I also knew to look the other way
And pretend to not see or know!
I admired Ida Kincaid for her sacrifices to maternity.
But I loathed Ida Kincaid for her matrimonial mendacity.
At her funeral in June of 1903
I aloofly stood across the way
There on dusty Broadway Street
Under the bulbous blue jacarandas
Screaming hallelujahs!
As Mr. White lowered her cream-colored coffin into the Netherworld!
And when Doctor Lont, my husband of 41 years, died of the consumption,
I did not cry nary a tear!
Why should I have?
Now I too am resting within this hard ground next to him.
Next to the man, my man in perpetual suspenders from Springfield,
My man who never ceased being a boy.
Every morning will be
glad for its noon
Not a drying debris of a
forgotten lagoon
Where fishes fret,
streamline too soon
To swim deeper like us
cowering in hustle;
Mosquitoes chance on a
scrotal hair- to shuttle,
To srike is di-
pain.Labourous fund's
fumble
Upon the rind and egg-
shell. And proud yolk
Aloofly dance, wiggling
slippery tail, chalaza folk;
Warm under pointy
squeeze of teat of milk
Puppies thrive. A pouch
opens to hold
Stuffs from a refined
periphery. Was it mold
The thrifty twilit and
stories of old told?
So this pouch remains
warm to our body:
We who its benevolence
steadfastly try, study
While we err and pride
swerve us, gaudy.
-c-Onyebuchi, 2011.
3rd Place in Brian's 'Any
2011 Poem' Contest.
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