Dreamboat Annies

Windswept through adolescent anomie

Trying to find a place to take root

an identity to shelter me

No clue what I wanted

only this-

Someone to want me

To be diaphanous

desirable

To be a Stevie or

a Dreamboat Annie

I listened to the music like a disciple

and though I couldn't play a note

I wanted to join the band.

my friend and I in a lame attempt to be Ann and Nancy

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Ella's Edge, Fashion

Fall To Black

"arting" by lolamouse

The summer heat has overstayed its welcome

and autumn chill is finally in the air

The gold and yellow fall down to the earth

and when I think of you, I fall to black.

October's fading light brings melancholy

Spirits resurrected from their graves

Your ghost haunts dusty corners of my memory

I see you in my dreams and fall to black.

You came to me so suddenly

You left that way as well

I try to be okay with it, but

Sometimes it's just hell.

The morning sun awakens tired limbs

but soon there will be frost upon the grass

Without a winter, there can be no spring

I close my eyes and let it fall to black.

They've Been Together

They've been together for years
They're remodeling their home
They call their dog a spoiled child

Their pain is neither Democratic nor Republican
Their fear is neither liberal nor conservative
Their tears are neither gay nor straight

Illness doesn't know politics.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Sunday Mini Challenge, Sevenling

Dramaturgy

We draw the curtain on today
The scripts and props are put away
Tomorrow's lines remain uncertain
On today we draw the curtain

We move like players scene to scene
Do we remember where we've been?
Always something more to prove
Scene to scene, like players we move

The page is done; the lines are said
Make up washed and costume shed
We crave the solitude of one
The lines are said; the page is done

But you can see inside my shell
No one knows me half as well
From you I do not ache to flee
Inside my shell just you can see

With you I need not wear a mask
I set aside the actor's task
When truth can be hard to construe
I need not wear a mask with you.

submitted for Poetic Bloomings, In-Form Poet, Swap Quatrain
and Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Open Link Monday

What's the Buzz?

photo by lolamouse (s. tardio)

Buzzing bees working

Covered in sun and pollen

Summer's harbingers

Thoughts For a New Year

Savor the sweetness of today's fruit

Tomorrow's fruit is yet unripe and bitter

Yesterday's is now wine

photo by lolamouse (s. tardio)

 L'Shana Tova (wishes for a good year) to everyone. It's the season of Rosh Hashanah, or the Jewish New Year. 

 submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Sunday Challenge, Poetry for the Firefly Jar

Soar

image source

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Out of Standard With Izy

Die Smiling

Our bodies no longer carry children

They carry disease

dysfunction

No second glances on the street

nor

second looks in the doctor's office

We learn to become

our own admirers

our own detectives

The young ones are praised

for beauty

for bearing children

We are reviled

for wrinkles

for bearing scars

and pain

Our time has come and gone

It is unseemly to demand more

Expected to deteriorate

gracefully

and if we must die-

to die quietly,

smiling.

Summer Nights

Summer Night, Albert Bloch (1913)

The summer nights play on and on

You move like a sax solo

languid in the heat

dreamy, bluesy

Like a sleepy cat you stretch

The air wicks off notes of jasmine 

honeysuckle

into the thickness

We wait

for the ending measures of summer

with sweat in our eyes

and syncopated heartbeats

while the summer nights play on

and on.

submitted for The Mag,  Mag 133