(In Paris in 1904, Lily - deserted wife
of composer Claude Debussy - recounts
her suicide attempt among the statues.)
What do you do?
I couldn't bring myself
to write a "you're untrue"
type letter. It wouldn't do.
They're coming
back from Jersey now,
he and his fat old woman.
What did I do?
How did I let him down?
I would take him back
in a heartbeat,
despite this indiscreet
and ugly business,
the talk of the town.
What did I lack?
Next Wednesday marks five.
If I'm still alive,
I'll pass it alone.
He's got his old crone.
How did it come to this?
How did I miss?
He begged me
to be his wife.
If not, he'd take his life.
What does anything mean?
I didn't have a plan.
Just insupportable pain.
I wandered about in the rain,
nursing the revolver in my purse.
I passed the Madeleine
and Strasbourg, in black,
and knew I wasn't going back.
Between the Obelisk and Brest
I held the damn thing
to my chest.
The rest's a blur.
I woke up here in the Hotel Dieu.
They said it's lodged,
the lump of lead,
behind my heart.
It has to stay there.
Far too near
a vertebra to operate.
At any rate,
I'll wear his souvenir
until I'm dead.
Intrusive thoughts are bothersome at night
when I’m in bed, prepared to go to sleep.
My mind keeps racing, and it’s hard to fight
those ear worms which into my brain may creep.
I’ll hear the chorus of some new hit song
unceasingly repeat, repeat, repeat,
or maybe there’s a thing that I’ve done wrong -
like something I’d said that day indiscreet.
I’ll lie there thinking why I was so dumb.
Then other thoughts kick in out of nowhere,
persisting like the beats heard on a drum.
It gets to be almost too much to bear.
Enough! There’s one sure way these thoughts will scram.
I down two capsules of Temazepam.
My rose-tinted lenses get me through the day
My world isn’t plagued by the white, black, or gray
Just rose
My rose-tinted lenses show me only love
Not any hate like the kind you hear of
Who knows?
My rose-tinted lenses made me “naive”
They say I only saw what I believed
I suppose…
My rose-tinted lenses make all flags red
Which is probably why I didn’t see her in the bed
Her clothes
My rose-tinted lenses hid your deceit
How could I have missed, I’d already been beat
So exposed
My rose-tinted lenses aren’t even real
They were made up to help me deal
I oppose
I believed you would change
I should’ve known that was out of your range
Just shows
My rose-tinted lenses have turned red with defeat
I’ll admit I’ve been beat
Your betrayal was indiscreet
But our story’s incomplete
We’ll wait and we’ll see
How rose-colored lenses provide what I need
Be it planktons ye feed on or small fish
Afloat in sea on pair of fins as feet,
Whatso waters may have fancied your wish,
Perhaps it was lake as your safe retreat
From fishermen or anglers indiscreet.
Perchance as Cod, your oil livers did cure,
A gourmet chose you for a choicest treat
And picked ye up from a shop floor secure.
O Beauty, fit to be in a fish tank,
What pity, you’re on a kitchen platform,
What travesty of destiny’s fair norm
That you were looked at just as lifeless lank.
Yet, O departed fish, we find you fine,
A fair dish if consumed with table wine.
______________________________________
Sonnet |05.06.2024| fish
The beauty on the beach was indiscreet
Some would say that she was a tasty treat
Her teeny weeny
Peep through bikini
Made all the girls cry as they couldn’t compete.
As for the guys, beady eyes opened wide
The beauty then took them all by surprise
Her balloons went pop
Then her thong dropped off
The beauty had nothing to hide but pride.
The pages written in my book
Are pages made of second looks
They tell the days of happy sad
And sometimes sprinkle crazy mad
The game is played and often lost
By those who fail to count the cost
The dreams I have are often false
And failed the chances come across
The search for love bewilders me
And often leads to poverty
Incredible insanity, indubious integrity
It always makes a fool of me is what I see
It’s incomplete she makes of me
She always makes a dunce of me
Indiscreet to her degree
Insatiable this thing I see
We learn the truth at seventeen
That love is often just a dream
A hindrance and waste of time
The author of an awful crime
Laying claim to those we name
Becomes a hopeless silly game
Knights would strive and pawns would fall
The Queen's last move would end it all
To sing a song a serenade
Write the poetry feelings play
Hold the pillow while I lay
Pretending solace while I crave
The end begins to end it all
The days we spend in love must fall
And nights to come with melodies
Of love and what it makes of me
(To be sung to the song, "Seventeen's" music)
Once Pat was approached at the corner street
By Johnny, with his offer, indiscreet.
She pulled out her poet's wit
With sharp metaphoric grit,
And blew his macho off into dead meat.
March 30, 2023
Beguiling spring, how bold your arrogance
You shameless season painted in conceit
Parading up and down each city street
O'er hill, through dale, you flaunt your elegance
Each tree, each flower, bathed in decadence
Each gale, each breeze, your moods so indiscreet
Each dawn you send your birdsong out to greet
A vain display of your benevolence
And yet each year we welcome your return
With song and poem, we celebrate your style
We rush to be the first to photograph
A daffodil, a bud, a waking fern
You always make that winter wait worthwhile
On every heart you leave your autograph.
Daniel Turner
It produces flashes within clouds
It is dramatic phenomenon weather
Blend of thunder and lightning mood
With stormy stream it comes rare
Sky of the dark cloudy night is gashing
Groaning, screaming to indiscreet sense
Tearing, breathless falling apart everything
All blowing away slowly to nothingness
Black to white and white to black moving all
Integrate to scatter gradually convert alone
Lightning as radar standing unseen on goal
Defying any thunder walk long to freedom
No frequent no rare mess we need to survive fair
Let’s we take care, cherish conscientious nature
©Mahtab Bangalee
Chattogram
19/12/2022
As a hurting song is being sung,
At a white polo shirt is flung
What can have been a cow’s dung
And on same it foully clung
And on a nearby face hung;
All a hurried indiscreet challenge
By one refusing to change,
As though it is beyond his range,
The idea pointblank strange
Or one’s denial of a sweet orange!
At last, the fastest arrangement for a detergent,
Lest victim should arrange his brother sergeant…
“Once again, the quick-to-burst temper
Proving it can with a lot tamper.
After the chill
Of winter’s freezing
Snowflakes and winds
Breathing flurries
Indiscreet – blowing
Cold, clear colors
Heartless reflections
After the biting
Fury of winter’s ice
Shuddering frost
Staggering with aloof
Melancholy, breeding
Razor edged cold
Over trembling skin
Naked against the sharp
Stillness of gusts
Tossing tender flakes
After Winter
Has finally exhausted
Its dreaded bitterness
And it has pressed on
Leaving only a memory
Of its vile viciousness
I reach toward the light
Of a silent and warm - Spring
Sunshine bursting with rays
Of lemony yellow kindness
Smiling down on my spirit
Will I ever be able to comprehend life?
Awesome life, Life enigmatic,
With its woes and worries
Its joys and jubilation--
Without a prelude or an epilogue attached.
When I am unable to understand Nature
With her simple gurgling and bubbling brooks
The gushing streams and the calm placid lakes
The splendorous falls and the magnificent mountains
The verdant hills and emerald green valleys
The virgin woods and the pristine environment,
With her tiny puddles of restless oceans
some grains of sand and breaths of fresh air.
How then must I understand
The infinitude of life?
Ravaged by death, disease and destruction
is still so enduring,
With all its misgivings and failings
is still is so enticing,
With falling short of fulfilling one’s aspirations
is still so endearing,
With all its indiscreet ideas and foolish dogmas
is still so captivating;
Why were we born?
If it’s to live a life…
Why?
Oh, why then
must we’ve to die!
~02/24/22
~Contest: F Form
~Sponsor: Constance La France
~Theme: LIFE.
"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer."
Psalm 19:14
Discretion drives an unpredictable wedge
into sheltered, relaxed, indiscreet lives.
Its thunder designs to whet the cutting edge
of thinking which stays safely in the archives
of routine – same-o grungy words and garbage.
An effective author might sometime contrive
to create a more concrete channel for language
where skillful articulation wants to thrive.
Virtue mixes committment and knowledge
smoothly, so God’s Word (truth) and tact survive.
October 27, 2021
Dance of innocence, to divine cadence
Vibrant exuberance in nonchalance
We are all upbeat by magnetic heat
Sitting thus at Gods feet, with bliss replete
Head-heart balance, with love in alliance
Bliss the quintessence of divine essence
Self-luminescence, Gods own radiance
Love embrace indiscreet, knows no retreat
Dance of innocence
Essence of presence, aligned with conscience
Upright stance, immersed in a prayerful trance
Love sweet greets, once lower mind we forfeit
Heart the love seat, where polarities meet
Self-effulgence bursts forth in full brilliance
Dance of innocence
13-May-2021
Plunged to terrain plagued, tasty female options
Surge of adrenalin pulses choices unsuitable
Piquant aroma pulls him closer, allure accosting
Sentient favours solacious flower so beautiful
Hurtled descent drops watchful onto hillock haze
Swayed seed laden willow heads have halos
Hedonistic impulse picks silken stems with craze
Seraphim surround a torn aura in dewy daos
Preordained mistake palates spasmed heartbeat
Shrews drawn to Stu allude to transformation
Prurient dripping pores warble wanton indiscreet
Strident serpentines permit desire incubation
Heathen has escape, wrapped parachute harness
Preparing his tortured innards for due launch
Hazards bring unbridled enthusiasm for newness
Pride hides a tarnished ego, attempts reforge
11th February
Whenever waking,
Lady tailor making
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