Better dead than living,
Better terminated than throbbing,
Better left than held,
Better abandoned than acquired.
Better understand than love,
Better pouncing than dancing,
Better challenged than agitated,
Better hungry than satiated.
Better feline than canine,
Better violence than romance,
Better cunning than running,
Better punched than bunched.
Better sorry than safe,
Better thrown than bowed,
Better disturbed than serene,
Better abused than adored.
Better soiled than vowed,
Better cuffed than chatted,
Better rough than soft,
Better fire than freeze.
Better statued than tattooed,
Better chaos than calm,
Better broken than forgotten,
Better strange than ordinary.
Better… always better.
You steal pieces of me and yet make me whole:
First, you remove the eyes
Every time you walk into the room
Then the ears
With the melodies of your voice, and your infectious laughter
Next you take the brain
With all the thoughts, dreams, and memories of you
Then the skin
That longs for the warmth of your touch
And the feet
That want to follow every step you take
And finally
My heart
That will only and always belong to you
Pomp and Circumstance
Pageantry’s paranoia
Who can’t see through it
~ Four-Line Limerick ~
A soda jerk I knew at work
offered customers an unconventional perk
When he pulled the handle on the Coke
~ Their seats would swivel, their rear ends twerk
The brew in Mid East
Is a high back that trigger,
Being cook bigger.
You say you love me and yet
I feel you hardly know me
I say I love you and yet
I feel an aching emptiness within
and fail to have a sense of ‘we’
It’s curious and odd to think we are in love
when we have no clue where this can lead
even stranger is how we are ok with that
Somehow we’re defining and redefining love
as we try to understand what’s become of us
AP: 3rd place 2025
Trapped behind a desk, first at school, then at work
Why on earth are folks such awful jerks
If we didn't like school, why continue to suffer
Just because some boss made a great offer?
Rebel! Break out! Do the unconventional!
Find a pursuit that's completely unmentionable
Spend a year searching for the 'missing link'
Move to the equator, build an ice-skating rink
Heed my advice, friend, and you'll never be sorry
Ta-ta and good luck! ~ Time for my noonday safari
Jan and Nan were not just twins but best friends,
so when Stan got down on one knee, he got
not one, but two, to say “I do.” Some thought
him blessed; some found it strange, but Stan thought he
got a good deal: two for the price of one.
Til the day Ole Stan made one wife cry and
met the wrath of two. Jan and Nan said Stan
ran. But no one could ever be sure. The truth
is, though, that Stan did could not leave town ‘cause
he lies deep in the ground by the old cow
barn where the twins milk the cows each day. They
tell them to be strong and not take any bull,
then they smile and go in and leave the cows
to trod on top of Stan, who got his due.
Let me contrast you with a rose in bloom
Whose unfurled buds exude a sweet perfume.
Eternal token of romantic zeal
On lease from heaven with a loving seal.
You, in comparison, with beard untrimmed,
Complexion florid and your vision dimmed,
Have no external beauty to extol;
Possession of long life must take its toll.
Not always temperate your moods break through
And like a rose you can be prickly too.
But though a shade of what you used to be,
You're worth your weight in gold to me!
16.08.19
'A summer's day re-do poetry contest sponsored by Michelle Faulkner
(obligatory words used : temperate, buds, lease, possession, heaven, complexion, eternal, gold, untrimmed, shade)
Unconventional is how we first met,
Unconventional is what we are.
Walls were surrounding me, yet
You still tried to crash them.
Brute force was your might,
While quiet reserve was mine,
For some reason I was in your sight,
You resolved to make me yours.
Unconventional was what you tried,
Unconventional was just our way.
Unconventional meant having to bide
Your beastly modus operandi.
Unconventional meant that you needed
To quit trying to crash through my walls.
Unconventional involved unimpeded
Ways to make me acknowledge you.
You abstained from mightily crashing
And instead started chipping away
Little by little, no matter my lashing.
How could I know where we would end?
You soon became my best friend.
Soon after, I fell in head over heels,
Love, then I was your girlfriend.
From there, it seemed so simple.
Simple is not us though is it?
Simple went for a dive out a
Window. Here is I now sit,
Wondering who we are.
Unconventional has been our life.
Unconventional no matter the strife.
Unconventional I am as your loving wife,
Unconventional is why I love you.
unconventional
mingling which
deviated from
the norm created
atypical interactions
in which the uncharacteristic
irregularity became normal
standard even within the
land of relationships past
Canine the king and Feline the queen
Were not quite birds of a feather
In fact they fought like cats and dogs
When they were reigning together!
One dark night Feline ran away
Canine was real mad about that
He caught up to her the next day
They all said, “He's quick as a cat”
He barked at her, “I am the king”
“Bow down to me now on that mat”
That's when all of her claws came out
She said, “We'll just see about that!”
She fought him like a bear they say
And for Canine it was a loss
Don't underestimate the Queen
Or she might be your bear to cross
A convention of unconventional warfare
It’s the Olympics of BS, the mind boggles
Unrelenting coverage; I try not to stare
Through my thick, round minion goggles
Slogans chanted numbly trump reality
Still, there are three sides to every story
Windmills fall; eclipse goes to totality
Attention shoppers, Kool-Aid spill on aisle three
I’m trying to grasp, the mindset eludes
That would make you cheer deliriously
Reality, as it’s wont, invariably intrudes
While they wink conspiratorially
And speaking of warfare, it seems I’ve heard
Special ops uses aerosolized narcotics
So instead of feeding us the national turd
Give the politicians aerosolized antipsychotics
7/28/16
Pillows and blankets
Shaped in a 'V',
Bottles and pills
In a wrapper-filled sea.
Drool on our faces
Clothes on the ceiling.
These are the nights
My heart is healing.
My head on your feet
Your toes in my hair,
A repulsive aroma
Sweetens the air.
It's the puddle of glop
Is that yours or mine?
It doesn't matter
We'll both decline.
Though we both know it's yours
You somehow persuade,
And I clean up the mess
You swiftly evade.
I open the blinds
To see what we've missed,
You gripe and you grumble
But comply when you're kissed.
An hour to be active
Before it's once again night,
An hour to argue
And tickle and fight.
All showered and groomed
Clothes still on the ceiling,
These are the days
My heart is healing.
The sky turns to black
From the momentary blue,
But my day isn't wasted
When I'm wasting with you.
From a distance, she sees
the groom in sweat;
moist with tears,
his lips tremble.
At the pace of voices,
she marches;
line of gazes: her path.
The contrast of white
against red;
petals are swept
by her trail.
Behind the lace
she gets a glimpse
of tomorrow
and yesterday.
She kisses her mother, who smiles;
as well as her father, who cries.
Then she reaches the arms
of the man:
august in coat and tie.
Together, they walk the road
made of velvet and wilted rose:
This day, they may be them,
but later, they will be one.
This moment, though,
makes her break;
and mourn like facing death,
for the image of bells and doves
is a mere illusion in her mind.
Today, the coil will be worn,
though not by the lady
in this poem.
For she is the one
in the weathered bench
sitting together
with the wedding guests.
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