soft puffs of air
you beside me
exhale, exhale
night quiet sounds
I smile, loving you
eyes close shut
lullaby of puffs
love
Papa
It was too much. I should have known.
He’d worn long sleeved shirts for almost fifty years, since the Allies liberated Buchenwald. And so they invited him to come. This new museum, with its hall of portraits so high you had to crane your neck. A pile of shoes and a boxcar, like the one he rode after Kristallnacht. “Get me out,” he gasped.
We waited outside for the walk light. Construction workers poured tar onto new pavement, near the numbered sewer grate. That putrefying smell. His face blanched as he crumpled to the ground. And I knew he was gone.
Friday Fictioneers: 101 words. Photo by C.E. Ayr
This World or the Next
Memories shimmer
stretched taut
like a spider’s web.
Tubes, wires,
stainless steel
monitors with beating blips.
You lay there in that present space
but somewhere far away.
Then, like a marionette
whose master dropped a string,
your eyes jolted open
and you returned to me.
No photo. Thankful for every day.
The Meeting Place
In my dreams
I often float to Neverland.
No fairies or pirate boys,
just a place where memories live.
Images once trapped in sepia tones
slip through the web of synapses.
The loving dead come visit me
as if to soothe my soul.
Their smiling faces calm me
into a deeper, softer sleep,
assure me, whisper to me
happiness exists here, on this side too.
Erotica, I Give in to Thee
The kiss
mouth probes deep
like humming bird
seeks the nectar of life.
The touch
skin to skin
gentle dancing fingertips
massage, caress, progress to joy.
No words
guttural moans and gasps
penultimate vulnerability.
Oh Erotica, I succumb to thee.
My body smiles, hums and throbs
as it melds into his.
Word Press Writing 201 Final Day Prompts: the word “pleasure,“, sonnet (14 lines: stanzas of 4, 4, 3, and 3 lines — rhyming not required in contemporary sonnet), and apostrophe (speaker in poem addresses another person, a personified object or emotion). I’ve enjoyed the class!
Diamond in the Rough
Oh
So
cold
Immune
ToLoving
RoughTimes
ColdShoulder
HurtMeDeeply
ColdHearts
ColdLike
IceAnd
Dead
To
Me
WP Writing 201: create a CONCRETE/SHAPE poem employing the word/meaning of COLD, and employing the device of ANAPHORA (repetition of same word at the beginning of multiple lines of verse).
…and the Blind Shall See
Her face, my map, my guide
in this moment of charged silence.
I touch her eyes, feel cool wet lashes
sensation on my fingertips
questions in my heart.
Fingers move quickly to dampened cheeks
trace rivulets of silent tears.
Drops of fear or rejection or what?
Her lips purse together gently
in a bird-peck kiss upon my palm
press deeper, part slightly in a moan.
She leans in and I read her yes
hands grasp mine as we enter
this divine communion called love.
Thank you, God
for this gift of touch
for this woman who lies with me.
For joyful tears, now mine
from sightless orbs that see.
She loves me as I am.
Motivated by WP Writing 201 prompts: map, ode, metaphor
Life Regifted
Angels here among us
dearest, stay with me.
Over and back you hover
return to earth my plea.
Extinguish not, like inifinity
deny death’s call and stay with me.
This poem, dedicated to the love of my life. Life regifted for two years and many more: you came back to me. Thankful for every day. This poem is an acrostic: the first letter of each line spells out a message (Adored). Photo from on board ship on a Panama Canal cruise.
Morning Aperture
Boundaries between this world and the next
blur as I stand in mist
feet upon the earth, arms raised
billowness seeping from the sky.
I tip my face into the hovering cloud
spirit worlds surround me
and you are here,
my cheeks moist from your caress.
Slowly, sadness comes with warmth
as sun clears the air, blues the sky
eyes tear to realize
I am grounded, and you
are truly gone.
In response to Daily Post Challenge: Boundaries. Photos from dome car ride near Anchorage, Alaska.
Color Their Love: cherished series, opus 10
Their love never showed itself
in word or touch.
It simply travelled
through a colored atlas
of their own making.
Sunday rides in a battered Buick,
state highways traced in orange.
Twenty-fifth anniversary in Hawaii,
circled in pink
like their matching floral shirts.
Retired early, she insisted,
they sold all their worldly goods.
Left a three bedroom colonial
for a small motor home,
and rambled through forty states.
College towns starred in blue
for the young at heart.
Green highlights for favorite parks
and the Grand Canyon’s purple X,
the greatest site of all.
Now, in a pastel assisted living center
map of colors upon her wall,
she gazes out the window
at red and yellow tulips,
his ashes beneath their blooms.
With quaking hand
she touches coffee cup to pane,
then slowly to her lips.
This, their morning kiss, a ritual
now the road is still.
lillian the home poet 