A dreamy poem
Last night and half asleep I wrote a poem
About love not expressed but understood
A sad story of two unhappy people
Both unhappily married to someone else
I spoke the poem into the night
It sounded emotional and I cried a little
In the morning, the night poem was forgotten
I was too lazy to try to recreate its mood
A fast depreciating currency,
Pity arousing like an emergency
His low earning not an excuse
For a now irritating celibacy
And choice of a lifelong recluse,
Whose quitting ought to have been with immediacy!
In closely knit societies the first outlaw,
Easily emerging the night’s gossip served raw;
In every ranking the lowly esteemed
To take up the rear among the fondly dreamed,
Be he a scholar or a voice,
A guidance counselor or one whom children rejoice:
What the hell has been stopping him from the Holy Sacrament,
If he has in a wife’ foreseen an Ornament.
Always outdoor activities shunning
But in the nocturnal hours shining,
If not among his likes the Unhappily Married,
Who when not bemoaning their marriage, already buried
Are enjoying his clever bachelorhood
And mistake avoiding manhood!
“Dead folks can't hurt you none. It's the ones that are alive,
you have to watch out for.” Grace Metalious, Peyton Place
THE FOURTH FLOOR OF NOWHERE
The back room on the 4th floor of nowhere,
nowhere but our love, hidden from the lips
of those hustlers and backbiting peasants.
Spring to Winter, we’d get our kicks and kips.
We’d stash water bottles, cash and her
stare, where no one would bother to look.
Her blackmail ended our tryst and her life.
We played her game but not by her book.
We knew one day they’d go room to room,
key in hand, a skeleton to find, no remorse.
We’d have goosebumps near each other
but be careful to keep our eyes off course.
Forever is a long time of regret and forget.
A tongue that dared to cross our path, so
unimportant, forgotten, a regrettable life.
A backroom hush but a ghostly shadow.
We don’t dare recollect our lust of youth.
The handholding, the kiss, rose petals in bed.
We are unhappily married to our secrets.
Life in Peyton Place is to keep promises dead.
9/8/2020
Craig Cornish’s The Fourth Floor of Nowhere Poetry Contest
Love at first fall
When I first met the girl, who had fallen off her bike,
she was ten years old, and she said to herself I’m going
to marry him and I was not a party to her plans.
When we met again I had been unhappily married and
happily divorced, I fell in love with her but worried
about the age difference of about 15 years.
This made no difference to her she had loved me all along.
From thereon she took charge I liked to go out drinking
I loved smoking, but this ended.
She loved me and I her and that was enough even for
my bewildered soul.
We have been married for forty years, and I have no clue
what to do without her and I don`t really mind but I still
wonders how a ten years old girl could be so sure.
Ever since my 1st love
I had nothing but females waste my time
and all I kept finding
was unhappily married women
who I was wishing that could've been mine
but its like I'm running outta time or running outta patience
or maybe I need to slow down
wit love because I swear I been chasing it.
Patience is a virtue. Love is like
a unfaithful woman she's bound to hurt you
question is what do you do to find the right woman?
you couldn't to stay so true to you
do I castr my net on the other side of the lake
or do I chill for a minute
put it in cruise control and hit the freeway.
Maybe I need a woman who's been threw something
because it seems like I was
fallin in love all for nothing
I can fall in & outta love wit a girl at any given moment
but since I'm a grown man
I accept it any mistakes I make
like a man should
but if I could take all this back God knows I would
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