abuse

Hashtag Avoidance

lillian30 Comments

It was a secret,
what really happened.

She swallowed it,
buried it deep.
But it festered,
gnawed at her.
Invaded her thoughts
at inopportune times.

Stuff it. Just stuff it!
She tried. Oh God she tried.
She could manage alone,
step up and lean in.
Efficient competence
clad in stern business suit.

She wore luminescent pearls,
choker style.
Eyes up here, buddy!
Words yelled at him,
but only in her head.
Feelings choked back again.

ME TOO she wanted to scream.
But it was a secret,
what really happened.
She swallowed it,
buried it deep,
again.

halloween-1720071_1920Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets where Tuesday Poetics is hosted by Merril. She asks us to write a poem somehow involving a secret. I am not a member of the MeToo movement….but this is my heartfelt concern for those who have suffered abuse and hold it within. Photo from pixabay.com

Tempest

lillian40 Comments

In anger walked I by the roiling sea
the taste of salt, like she, embittered me.
Rough waves didst crash against volcanic rock
and spewed their shards of foam, thus dousing me.

Her words of yesterday, I thought were talk
and thus I waited by her door to stalk.
Bereft was I, like sharpened rocks so bruised,
the knife now purged of blood and hurled to sea in shock.

IMG_9632.jpg

Written for dVerse, where today, Frank hosts, asking us to write a rubaiyat: a poem consisting of quatrains (stanzas of four lines) and, if using more than one stanza, employs a “nesting” rhyme pattern: AABA, BBCB — and each line is written in iambic pentameter.  It’s a poetry sudoku!  Also posted for Napowrimo, day 26 where the challenge is to write, appealing to the senses. Hopefully, without lookin at the photos, you can see, hear, taste and feel this poem! Photos are from our recent trip to Bermuda.

I am cold

lillian27 Comments

Ice cube pressed to lips,
nostrils flare at exhales
as shoulders heave.

Ignore the oppressive humidity.
Ignore salt tears and warm blood.

Let ice cold droplets dilute the red,
drip to chin, to chest
stain rug.

He seemed different,
until he did not.

Studio shooting - copyspace

Walt is tending bar today, this third day of dVerse’s fifth anniversary. He asks us to write a poem that reacts to this quotation by Sebastian Barry from his novel A Long, Long Way:  “I am cold, even though the heat of early summer is adequate. I am cold becasue I cannot find my heart.”