I cannot fall asleep.
I cannot sing a tune.
The forest at my window creeps.
Like soft wind rubbing a balloon.
Hear the end where the air seeps?
Poetry is jejune,
And Love and Laughter make not a peep.
Life, spoiled so soon
—a hired goon.
Gone any felicity.
Gone the hushed and whispered savior's prayer.
cupid enrobed with pearléd dimity.
The carpet's patterns cont. swirling in the air.
Tonight the red brick of the city
Shaken by an earthquake's rare ensnare.
Poseidon bless me with your ring,
A diamond and string.
Poison apples oft
Give freedom to their eater.
This skin is much too soft.
The smoke smelled of the cedar
of the woods where I grew up.
Mother's car that was a beater.
Grandpa's military loft
where all the trash was strewn,
a beggars throne.
Categories:
dimity, desire, introspection, sleep,
Form: Ottava rima
DEMI-MONDAINE
You belong in silhouette to the dream’s theft
And weft with paid desire, look all adoring
At the man who’s made your life bereft
Of actual household dreams, he says it’s boring
Fresh linen, dimity and damask blue
Would be my veil, too, for daring
To ask: did it happen to you too?
And: when did your sorrow go past caring?
Don’t try to leave this room without an answer
Or you’ll turn back – the swathe of silk
In my eyes - you see, at heart a dancer
Each night I come home with the doorstep milk -
In the big bad world to be a cinch in style,
In the good small world to be a bright tear trickling.
by Rosemarie Rowley
IN MEMORY OF HER 2008
Categories:
dimity, allegory, child, freedom,
Form: Sonnet