Saturday, September 5, 2015

Oh, play pretend


Oh play pretend - damn the demanding
silence – Come back and play pretend.
Send flying verses over my head folded
like paper air-planes holding your secret
inscriptions to me– your patient progeny –
Oh play, play, play pretend and banish the
capped stench of grief and death alive under
the scars – stanch the scarlet river running 
beneath protestations of healing – Feverish, 
infected with yearning - I cry under my calm 
coolness of fabricated, fatuous, “moving on” –
Please! 
If I cannot have you back –
and I can not have you back–
Oh play pretend! 
I have waited five and twenty years now since
footsteps echoed from your shoes rather than
walking throughout my heart, my mind, my soul.    
Oh play pretend and for just one moment – Live.


33 comments:

  1. Like a prayer, this. Touching. Painful. Beautiful.

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  2. Would be easier if we could just pretend... heartfelt write.

    Lots of love,
    Sanaa

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  3. Such an emotive plea...it is often the very best things and people in our lives that leave us unexpectedly and prematurely... imagination and memory sometimes isn't enough to bring back fully that which we loved..

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  4. That emptiness of grief is so graphically displayed in this poem. It is so hard to recapture life when you no longer feel complete. (Thank you for your comment on my piece for the Sunday Whirl. I do post separately to both the Whirl and the Whirligig so this may confuse!)

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    1. Thank you - you know how very much I appreciate your comments. I emailed you that I am confused about the "Whirl" of which you speak... Has Brenda Warren's Sunday Whirl returned? or is this another? Would love to give it a whirl :)

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    2. Yes it has been back a few weeks at https://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/

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    3. Hi

      Oh my goodness - Thank you!!! If not for you I would have just remained waiting and waiting.
      Interesting because some of the wordle words were the same. I thought the "whirligig" was just a fill-in while Brenda was moving about. Okie dokie. Thanks so very much.

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  5. so poignant lines...the longing is palpable....

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    1. Ahh thank you so very much Sumana - to touch another is the greatest response I could ever hear. Thank you.

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  6. Very moving poem, Pearl. I understand the feeling of wanting someone back, or if not...at least being able to, even for a short time, pretend with all one's heart and mind that it is indeed true. That the person IS alive!

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    1. Mary thank you so very much - I am thrilled that I was able to move you with this poem. So very much appreciated.

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  7. I do pretend, but rarely with the partner you plead for. I feel the longing.

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    1. Aww Susan wonderful to connect with you. Thank you so very much for the comment.

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  8. Wow. So heartfelt. The repetition rips at any semblance of control, of stoic restraint, and lets the floodgates open with the grief of loss that should never have been. Stunning. I feel this one deeply. Thank you.

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    1. C.C. I am humbled by your comment - thank you so very much.

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  9. The play pretend is so often the only way.. It soothes the pain, but never really leaves.. The pain of such an echo,

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    1. Thank you Bjorn and thank you for picking up on the sense of the echo in this poem.

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  10. Pearl this was so emotional, moving and raw...prayer and pleading....beautiful!

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    1. Thank you - your comment touches me deeply ... so very much appreciated.

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  11. I love this, and honestly felt Dylan Thomas lurking somewhere inside of it. Perhaps it's your urgent tone. Nicely done.

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    1. Matthew - Oh my goodness - thank you - just the mere mention of Dylan Thomas lurking anywhere nearby is a comment I shall cherish forever. Thank you ...

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  12. I especially love the closing line. Five and twenty years is a long time . This poem is alive with feeling, Pearl.

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  13. what a nostalgic read.
    seems almost as if the writer were pleading.
    left me with a sense of longing.

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  14. thank you for the advice Dr. Live life!!!

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  15. So heartfelt! A beautiful blend of anguished grief and the light, happy times recalled.

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  16. Sometimes, as your poem suggests, pretending IS living. This week I say to you, Pearl: WOW!!!

    Strange Little Songs

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  17. Very touching, the love that's left after .

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  18. I enjoyed this very much ... pretending ... how often do we continue to pretend - since only pretending can we make life livable. Beautifully written and very profound. Bastet

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