Should doors close, you'll find me awaiting
Harking to aeolian whispers,
Watching the windows for your return,
Sitting in crepuscular stillness,
Should doors close, balconies will open,
Creating new possibilities
Of our passionate love reunion,
Look for marked jalousies, should doors close.
06.08.2020
Contest: Repeat the phrase
Title: Should doors close
Sponsor: Nette Onclaud
Lute
Curved, inviting, light,
it has the look of antique ships,
a galleon bulge of straight-grained woods.
Fretful cat-gut cords
coiled taut by silver screws
above the calibrated neck
conceal a thousand foot-pound pirouette.
Child of Sirocco and Spain,
veils, fans, brocade, and lace,
olive, vine, and orange surprise,
its plangent sound irrigates the moonlit air
peeks through black-eyed jalousies.
Dowland, Cutting and our solid Bach
crocheted arabesques of tuneful notes
like pearls, rubies, emerald stones,
to pluck or tease from that dark pupil
a winking smile of treble Sun.
...a true story
Her house was just a shell, a burnt-out ruin...
standing apart, the other houses still intact
with painted jalousies and window curtains.
She must have fallen asleep, the cigarette
still dangling from her arthritic fingers;
I never saw her without one.
She told me of her life in Poland during the war,
but not her suffering, she never spoke of that.
She smiled wanly as she showed me old photos
of family and friends taken on holiday when
she was younger, long before the ravages of war.
TV was her constant companion along with
her nurse and her beloved Pekingese,
always sitting on her bed. We'd talk for hours.
She was always interested in my schoolwork,
and why didn't I have a girlfriend?
Now she lay in hospital small and silent;
there was nothing I could do but hope and pray.
When they drew the sheet up over her I felt an
emptiness, but no tears came. Fourteen years old,
my first death close up. When I got home to mom
and dad, only then in their comforting embrace
did I sob my heart out.
Her house was just a shell, a burnt-out ruin...
...a true story
Her house was just a shell, a burnt-out ruin...
standing apart, the other houses still intact
with painted jalousies and window curtains.
She must have fallen asleep, the cigarette
still dangling from her arthritic fingers;
I never saw her without one.
She told me of her life in Poland during the war,
but not her suffering, she never spoke of that.
She smiled wanly as she showed me old photos
of family and friends taken on holiday when
she was younger, long before the ravages of war.
TV was her constant companion along with
her nurse and her beloved Pekingese,
always sitting on her bed. We'd talk for hours.
She was always interested in my schoolwork,
and why didn't I have a girlfriend?
Now she lay in hospital small and silent;
there was nothing I could do but hope and pray.
When they drew the sheet up over her I felt an
emptiness, but no tears came. Fourteen years old,
my first death close up. When I got home to mom
and dad, only then in their comforting embrace
did I sob my heart out.
Her house was just a shell, a burnt-out ruin...
Mauve tigers roam
Assiduously down the riverbed.
Roland, my soul’s wanderer,
Is getting the itch again.
Jalousies creak from frames high on the watch towers. Even
Ulysses begged for mercy in the Un-
Abridged text. Though
No one has to know about my tiger.
Are you inclined to pet?
...a true story
Her house was just a shell, a burnt-out ruin...
standing apart, the other houses still intact
with painted jalousies and window curtains.
She must have fallen asleep, the cigarette
still dangling from her arthritic fingers;
I never saw her without one.
She told me of her life in Poland during the war,
but not her suffering, she never spoke of that.
She smiled wanly as she showed me old photos
of her family and friends taken on holiday when
she was younger, long before the ravages of war.
TV was her constant companion along with
her nurse and her beloved Pekingese,
always sitting on her bed. We'd talk for hours.
She was always interested in my schoolwork,
and why didn't I have a girlfriend?
Now she lay in hospital small and silent;
there was nothing I could do but hope and pray.
When they drew the sheet up over her I felt an
emptiness, but no tears came. Fourteen years old,
my first death up close. When I got home to mum
and dad, only then in their comforting embrace
did I sob my heart out.
Her house was just a shell, a burnt-out ruin...
Your eyes spring forth flowers from my soul.
You come to me in dreams,
And as the jogger on the street.
You haunt me as the moon haunts the night sky.
You are the ghostly promise of pure love.
A woman cries against a brick wall,
A man anxiously changes lanes in traffic,
While others kiss on the beach.
While I in dreams feel the lightness of love:
The heavy warming wonder
Slipping out from my mind and
Reaching out through
The jalousies of my bedroom.
I arise to the incoherence
Of grogged and lumbering passions.
And then I slow down,
My feet on the carpet…
The cruel, cold fabric of the world.
The warm, softened fibers of the world.
The mind’s range and scope
And bounce against the light.
Times like these I seem to burn with no purpose.
My solar space, those silvery irises,
Skin as spirit,
Love the wandering ghost.
With fishnets and convertible spaceships:
I will catch you!
...a true story
Her house was just a shell, a burnt-out ruin...
standing apart, the other houses still intact
with painted jalousies and window curtains.
She must have fallen asleep, the cigarette
still dangling from her arthritic fingers;
I never saw her without one.
She told me of her life in Poland during the war,
but not her suffering, she never spoke of that.
She smiled wanly as she showed me old photos
of her family and friends taken on holiday when
she was younger, long before the ravages of war.
TV was her constant companion along with
her nurse and her beloved Pekingese,
always sitting on her bed. We'd talk for hours.
She was always interested in my schoolwork,
and why didn't I have a girlfriend?
Now she lay in hospital small and silent;
there was nothing I could do but hope and pray.
When they drew the sheet up over her I felt an
emptiness, but no tears came. Fourteen years old,
my first death up close. When I got home to mum
and dad, only then in their comforting embrace
did I sob my heart out.
Her house was just a shell, a burnt-out ruin...
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