Poetry that is relatable and just what the doctor ordered
“Best” does not mean “only.”
“Safe” does not mean “solely.”
“Affection” does not mean “passion.”
“Difficult” does not mean “rationed.”
“Sacrifice” does not mean “gladly.”
“Painful” does not mean “badly.”
“Able” does not mean “easy.”
“Loving” does not mean “needy.”
You led him.
He followed,
Right to where we thought he wouldn’t go.
This life here
Is borrowed
But his children still call this earth their home.
You say that
You see us
So I wonder why it seems you just don’t care.
Birthdays and
Graduations
For them will not have their father being there.
His ears perked up, or so they said,
And shortly, he was out of bed.
Darkness shone; he grabbed a candle,
And softly, he slipped on his mantle.
He tiptoed, whispering, across the floor,
His eyes and ears searching for more.
The birdsong echoed yet again,
And legend tells what happened then.
His parents asleep, with a snore and a sigh,
Didn’t hear the door bid him goodbye.
And gripping his socks and boots in hand,
He louder heard the woodland band.
On were shoved socks and boots ever careless
And, soon, he tripped across the terrace.
The woods were calling, but he didn’t know
The dangers that called from long ago.
The loam was soft, the stars were dark,
Still he heard the call from in the bark.
His eyes made sure each moment was savored,
And curiosity made sure his candle never wavered.
His tramping steps from clumsy feet
Went patter against the forest’s beat.
It’s sad to say he never found the bird
That started the song he originally heard.
For though he chased the calling woodnote,
He woke, in bed, still in his cap and coat.
(CONTENT WARNING: This poem covers graphic content as narrative, read at your own discretion. Posted just as good poetry, not in support of anything else.)
“She walks in beauty like the night”
Nay, she is the very moon.
Her translucent face that gives a fright
Doesn’t leave us soon.
We stand in joy-awed rapture
At beauty reflecting the sun
Each diamond that is captured
In her tears over her no one.
She clutches them to her chest
Ev’n as they’re whisked away
Her one-night stand or noble guest
That her bitter words have slain.
She feels just like a monster,
As we still stand in awe.
She wonders what it cost her,
As she feels so cracked and raw.
She wipes the blood from off her hands,
Amazed that it’s her own,
Yet, as she wipes, the pool expands,
We watch and see the bone.
She pulls the cloth pooled in their mouth,
And wonders how it happened
Their argument had quick gone south,
And now, his face has slackened.
She clutches him, her own abuser,
Not one-time guest, but love,
She cries in grief, her own accuser,
The cloth was her silk glove.
He pushed her as an accident,
That’s how her bone was broken,
And now her blood’s her sacrament,
For her scarring words spoiled spoken.
Once was a peaceful opera night,
A marriage to be saved,
If only they didn’t ever fight,
She’d not have to be brave.
So I repeat, she is the moon,
Shadowed and alone,
And bleeding, lifeless, she now swoons
With her lover in their home.
It’s more than just forgiveness-
You might not have even forgiven,
After all they did to you,
You just can’t heal quite yet-
But you love them,
Thinking about them fondly,
Defending them when they’re missing,
Writing letters in your brain,
Things you can never tell them
Because they’d just be back
With their eyes and smiles and words,
Their hands groping for you or your sanity;
You lost track a while ago the difference
Cause it feels you’ve lost both.
To my abusers:
I’ve never stopped caring about you,
Just us.
I never stopped hoping your life turns out,
Just stopped asking.
I’ve never hated you, even when you hurt me,
Just couldn’t stay.
Peppermint, onions, oranges,
All sharp in their own sense
To tickle with knives
Or the writing end of a quill.
Spicy-sweet candy,
So layered you can smell the stripes,
Spiraling you into euphoria
Shooting through your nose
And tingling your occipital lobe.
Pungency of bad breath,
Also layered to assault our senses
With acrid points of muddy foods
That pierce our sinuses
And wrinkle our noses.
Energy in a package,
Dizzying and flash-popping
Behind my eyes, up my nerves,
Sweetness cloaked in sour,
Stabbing nonetheless.
Peppermint, onion, orange-
The only things Covid has allowed
To enter my nose
And puncture my brain.
When I was a child,
I had a monster as my friend.
He was as tall as a doorway,
With mud-streak fur
And a row of front teeth
That would stick out
As he tried to grab and eat me.
I’d yell at him,
Turning on the light,
And he’d run away to darkness,
To his family that lived
In the basement room far away.
I went there once,
Terrified for my life,
But monsters don’t live in the light.
Now I am grown,
And I still have monsters:
Unemployment, intolerance,
Bigotry, and old age.
They chase me down,
And I’m stuck in the race.
I can’t just yell at them this time;
They thrive in the light
And murder big dreams.
We all share these monsters,
But it doesn’t make them
Easier to face or less scary;
And we can’t really share them
Others don’t want to know,
But we hide in dark rooms from them.
The dragon’s eye in the wall
Stares back at me
Tells me all it can recall.
My heart feels so small
And to this muse, I speak
The dragon’s eye in the wall.
It knows each rise and fall
Of those with high pedigree
Tells me all it can recall.
It peers out to the hall
And hears the rustling trees—
The dragon’s eye in the wall.
The lines teachers would scrawl
It says might be the key
Tells me all it can recall.
And so I now withdrawal
Before hearing more decrees
The dragon’s eye in the wall.
Tells me all it can recall.
Prescriptive Poetry 