Are you glad that we two met
in someone's dorm room -
alcohol and youth and us,
strangers in the night?
A course of pain and pleasure,
inexorably
set - do you regret we're not
strangers in the night?
In a lattice-lit dorm room sits a writer.
A discarded chemistry book lies beside her.
because ideas are hitting off her, like a collider.
Why does writing make her feel alive-er?
Cause it helps sort out the feelings inside her?
Repose is something grinding-study denies her.
Now, rhyming isn't her primary desire
the connections form, almost, despite her
poetry’s at it best when it comes unaware
“Oh,” she thinks, like we’re going there?
What she writes might eventually be shared
with that awareness she vowels with care
picking words when they seem the ripest
shaping phrases like some sort of stylist
she may be less of a poet than a typist
Her default is to narrative - like you read in novels
cause let’s face it - cold-poetry is as dead as vaudeville,
as buried as silent movies, letters and opera,
have I come to dig up Caesar, like a fossil?
.
.
cold = straight up
The hair was standing at attention on my neck again.
I was being watched. No doubts this time.
Validation comes on my spine and neck first.
I looked beyond the bushes, wondering if it was an animal.
Someone said my name. I waved automatically.
But no one was here. I was alone in the swirl of twilight.
Only a block to walk between the library and my dorm room.
The air turned cold, and I felt a quick urge of panic.
Was someone following me? My shoes clicked down the walk.
Slap. Slap. Slap. Slap. Slap. Slap. I was going faster now.
I turned the corner and there she was. My doppelganger.
Standing with my friends, howling at something.
My legs stopped walking. I shook my head. This made no sense.
You didn’t make it! A voice said. I turned to see my grandmother.
When the chandelier fell on you at the library.
Was there time to warn my roommate?
I ran over to her and tried, but she did not look at me.
What is wrong with her? I asked my grandmother.
She gave me a hard lined mouth look and faded away.
The next ones to come were not as kind.
I was torn from my friends screaming.
Dorothy could not wait to become eighteen, so she could move away.
She loved her parents, but they were smothering her.
You have to be in by eleven.
Call us when you leave work.
Let us know if you are not coming home for supper.
Do not stay out all night unless you have permission.
She was tired of their rules, their Christmas carols and their Christmas house.
Her mother always had it decorated from side to side with Santas and snowmen.
In December, not every month, but thirty days of this was way too many!
Dorothy moved away to college.
She loved her new life.
At first.
But then….
She realized that no one in the dorm noticed or cared
If she got home by curfew or if she got locked out for the night.
No one cared if she did her homework or if she failed her classes.
December came and there was no explosion of Christmas in her dorm room.
Her roommate did not decorate, and all she had was a Christmas stocking.
She could hardly wait to drive home after her finals.
Her mother had decorated the front tree, the driveway, and the bushes.
Her heart leapt with joy when she opened the door to the Christmas house
She felt loved now.
With precious children you’ve been blessed.
You’ve guided them with loving care.
While helping them become their best,
your standards have been high, but fair.
You’ve breathed their names in every prayer.
Your eighteen-year-old, college-bound,
is packed; a distant dorm room waits.
She says she’s ready, but you’ve found
you’re NOT. Emotion permeates
your being; your resolve, abates.
Now like a fledgling on the wing,
she’ll take her flight and find her way.
Embrace once more. Release; don’t cling!
Your love and pride in her convey.
Then—you must let her walk away!
November 23, 2021
entered in the "W" New Poem Poetry Contest placed 3rd
Sponsor: Constance LaFrance
A wall of Jacobean era lattice-windows
line my dorm room - my private eyes.
How many freshmen have watched
the gilt harvest moon from this seat?
I keep them open, for cool breezes,
and the comforting the sounds of life,
in overworked, needy moments.
.
.
.
the university opened in 1706 - I guess I'm not unique
To be on a positive note about VMI here is my VMI Poem.
Pat Boone was in the VMI movie. Sometimes when you
criticize something it may raise up your dander but
make you start educating yourself at the same time.
In uniform can always see
What always did satisfy me;
Keydets march with much pride
With a feeling of warmth inside.
We were all present in a parade;
Glad we received a passing grade
And another thing we must reveal;
VMI seems to have so much appeal.
In our dorm room we had to wait
Until we finally would graduate;
Friends and family had been there;
Saw VMI that is beyond compare
I take another bite of sweet pumpkin pie
Wondering why I deprive myself of her company
Most of the year, only allowing her to grace my mouth
on Thanksgiving week.
You can take the rest of it home, our host offers.
Seeing how totally enamored I am with her.
I put aluminum foil lovingly around her top
Begrudging my four-year-old cousin’s plea
“I want to taste pumpkin.”
He does not like it, of course,
so his unthinking mother throws it away.
I dig it out of the trash seconds later.
Tiny bite marks will not stop me from
devouring this piece in my dorm room.
Grandma gives me a thumbs up
as I leave to go back to college.
Next year I will make another one
just for you, she says.
In the silicone era with the translucent sheen
From some college puke's dorm room, onto your screen
Your tweets, your memes, your high school, your blues
A new iron curtain to supply all your news
A pic of her breakfast, I thought Why?
That's when I knew they were getting us high
Posting lives lived in shrinkwrap perfection
Touting it all via daily reflection
Their goal is to sell you whatever they choose
Maybe you'll get it, anonymity we lose
Bubble-wrapped bimbos sporting bouncy foot gels
Affirming advantage for upgrading our cells
Promising an end to little disorders
Magic blue pills sure to throb in short order
A new generation, lost in space
And Plastic People in my face
And Plastic People in my face.
My body flips me off and I fall down
Into the sunburnt grass;
It's telling me “It’s time to sleep!
Just look how good this bed of
Uncared for dirt appears in the
Afternoon shade?
Pray, tell me why you will not
Dream now when your
Dorm room didn't catch a wink?”
And I smile at its
Upturned two middle fingers and say,
“Well body, it's actually time to write for me.”
With breathless zeal I did the deed
In this, Pandora’s dorm-room bed,
Self-gloating how I did succeed
At wheedling such a pert coed,
A playground chum, for years I’ve known
This blithe tomboy with pigtailed locks
Whose beauty, swiftly, has so grown
That I unsealed Pandora’s box.
Oh! Involute our lives will twine,
Amity quashed, once more, by tryst
And all because this lust of mine
Considers women millstone grist.
So now, too soon, does deep regret,
Companion constant in my life,
Deride this fling I did beget,
It chides me for this latest strife,
With dread it fills me that, this morn,
I must snuggle with face contrite,
While she extolls a love just born:
I see no hope to flee this plight!
December 8, 2016
Three Choices Plus Two … Poetry Contest
Sara Kendrick, Sponsor
I saw her to her dorm room, and asked if I might have the pleasure of
her company later for dinner. She coyly accepted my invitation.. One hour
later I picked her up. She looked enchanting... We drove out to Woodstock,
home to Blenheim Palace, the ancestral seat of the Churchill family.
There we enjoyed a casual meal, laughing again over the misadventures
of the afternoon. As the sun was beginning to set I led her outside the
restaurant and down the lane to the corner. I told her to keep her eyes closed.
When she opened them she saw a vista she would never forget;
the palace, high on a hill, a fairy-tale vision, with pastureland sloping down
to a lake in the foreground dotted with swans, all bathed in the glow of
the setting sun. She stood there, speechless for a moment. I squeezed
her hand and we gazed into each other's eyes. Not a word was spoken.
We were both grateful for the day we had spent together.
It was just the two of us. Time had stopped, and only that moment mattered.
It seems at least one dorm room is the dwelling of a bum.
I visited my son and saw big piles of grungy clothes.
leftover fast food, open garbage--things a mother loathes!
Sloppy sons so seldom seek to scour sickening scum.
Kerry- 18 y/o male of mixed descent, sits at his desk in his dorm room and pens a letter to his dad.
Dear Mom, (Rips paper out of notebook and balls it up)
Kerry
Dear Dad,
Not to long ago you asked me why I no longer speak to you. I remember seeing you with this guy. I remember seeing him move his lips. I remember seeing you punch him in the chest. Then I heard what you told him. You called him scum and you spit in his face. I wanted so badly to know what this guy had said to make you disappear and have this stranger appear. What did this normal looking guy or……just human being say to you to turn you into a monster? Huh, Dad? I remember running into this guy and he remembered me. I asked him what went wrong! What did he say to you! He said: Dear Dad, I’m gay! And when I told you this, you called me scum and spit in my face. I don’t talk to you because all gay people are contagious and I’m afraid you will contract what I have. LOVE!
Villanelle for Valentine’s Day
Remember we danced to Charlie Parker on the dorm-room floor?
Our hearts were staccato and wouldn’t heed a rest,
And I read you a poem: tides crashing my love into your shore.
Gentle jazz carried us, on currents, across the floor,
Your laugh against my cheek from my whispered jest
When we danced to Charlie Parker on the dorm-room floor.
My heart was bass booms, it was something you could not ignore.
It beat with a mallet, a roller falling against your breast,
And I read you a poem: tides crashing my love into your shore.
You heard mine, your heart always singing to implore,
My rhythm was awful, steps stuttered, it was not my best
When we danced to Charlie Parker on the dorm-room floor.
Finally I began to dance, to float, knowing it was your
Heart that I heard, singing over tides’ waves’ crest,
So I read you a poem: tides crashing my love into your shore.
Our dance was a music, a tide we could not ignore,
On my shoulder, my heart, you took your rest,
As we danced to Charlie Parker on the dorm-room floor.
And I read you a poem: tides crashing my love into your shore.
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