School Valentine

George Hodan

For D.J. - My forever Valentine 

School Valentine

I remember those days of Valentines
in school
tiny paper cards
drawn from a hat
on teachers’ desk
as apart from love
as anything could be
and yet set each small
heart pounding
each small hand trembling
as we waited our turn
to be called and pick
our love
signed Yours Truly
in large
block letters

and now there is 
you
and only you - inscribed
forever with a smile
picked and signed 
with a steady hand

Love  

Shall we court?

Shall we court?

No, I cannot open my heart
nor float the thought within my head
if so we did  an incident
surely would occur which
would bathe us both in dread

Shall we court?
Why the plume of repetition?
Puffed again into the dancing whirling about me compressing air
We might very well land in court
Does your mouth not, as mine go dry?
How can it be you do not fear, how rare for convention not a care

No!  I do not share your worry
I think you have been seriously, mystifyingly, misled
Your love has been sown - thrown
Through the eye of a previously unseen needle
Hole in my heart, tightly sewn now with irrevocable sparkling  thread

We shall work out complexities
Clear a path for you and for me
And forever live in brilliant spun sun
Bobbing safe in a mythic, mystic, rare sailing ship
In a crystal bottle ball on the great aquamarine Coral sea

Yes!  We shall court and fear no
Waggling robed fractious fallacious finger crooked point
Take my hand, along with my heart
And let us for all that is sacred
In love, finally, finally, finally, leave forever this joyless, jaded,  joint 





http://sundaywhirl.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/995.jpg

Aw Ma must I go?

Aw Ma must I go?

I do not want to make a fuss

But I really, really have no intruss

Okay “in-te-rest” – Aw Ma must I go?

We went last week and now again?

You know I’m miserable times ten!

Great-grandma has a smooshy bust

She grabs me straight into her for the hug-I-must

Aw Ma! Must I go?

When will it be enough to prove to you

That I am a sweet boy through and through?

It smells in that place there! No, Ma it really does reek!

Why must I go and kiss her wrinkly, crinkly, papery cheek.

She, Great-Grandmother does not even know my name

Eight years she’s seen me and it is always just the same

Okay Ma – someday maybe I will get my wish and home will stay

What is that Ma? What did you say?

My wish will be granted when she leaves forever? Any day?

I know that is supposed to sad and guilty make me, my dear Ma

But honest – all I want to do is say ....bwahahahaha-har!
Okay, Okay!  Don't make that face.  I am getting into the car!

****  NOTE TO ALL READERS:

this poem was meant as a departure from my usual fare -  light-hearted riff on some of the little one's 

of today - who seem to feel no compunction about voicing their innermost (albeit 'bratty' hence the inclusion of Brenda's bwahahahahaha feelings)  In no way is this writer endorsing such behavior:)

Finally morning...

Finally morning

Finally it was morning.  Finally.  She had met him at the BookStore, the on-campus bar that was the shared joke among the students.  That night was no different, she supposed from others, although Becca had spent most of this first month away at the actual book-store or in the library.  He had a nice smile and soft brown eyes and the music was loud, and the place smelled of what she supposed was beer, a warm yeasty, uriney odor.  Over the music she heard a girl laughing "Yeah I told my parents I was at the bookstore too."  Maybe it was just her, maybe she was just too serious, but the joke didn't seem all that funny, the music was too loud to enjoy and that smell.  Well, she could tell herself that she had done it, she had gone to a bar and met a guy and so when the boy with the nice smile and soft brown eyes leaned over she smiled back at him.  She had promised herself she was going to have this night - just so she could be able to say the next time she turned down going that "YES" she had actually gone.  And when he asked, well actually yelled over the music and the general shouting "Do you want to get out of here?" well, she did.  It was October and a little chilly - they walked through the campus toward her dorm and he asked her if she wanted to go somewhere and have some coffee, and the lights were shining on the lawn, and glowing on the cobble stones leading to her dorm and the Student Center was shining straight ahead and wasn't this all part of it?  Going to a boy's place and having coffee.  They had been talking about Contemporary Poetry, he was a TA for the same professor in a different section.  It would be one of those memories that she would collect and pull out when she was much older from her college days section.  "Yes" she had said, and he took her hand.  It was going to be a great memory.  She could almost taste the coffee feel, the heavy mug he would have in his apartment just on the edge of campus, and if the building when they got to it looked a little dark, that was the way a graduate student's apartment should look, wasn't it?   It was going to be a great memory. She was still thinking this in some sort of stunned deluded shock as he opened a door to an empty room and pinned her against the wall - the only sound the ripping of her shirt.  And for some reason, through most of all that followed through that long, long, cold, pain filled night, even when she curled on the floor and he in some sort of sudden rage kicked the wall leaving footprints - she kept thinking that she could smell coffee brewing - somewhere.

in the mist

Lake Louise Mist by Andrea Schafthuizen

in the mist 

from the fallen book, pages flutter in the mist,

chimes scatter as wisps of straw in raw wind

as the child lies curved in sleep around the

tattered edge of his mother’s skirted hem

swollen lips lifted in sweet smiled sleep – 

as the chimes, the chimes, coalesce and carry

them clear -  past the sooted mirror of today

into the vast possibility of tomorrow

shimmering as light bounces joyfully from

golden scale to golden scale on

the gleaming body of mystic Ilsebill’s fish

rising, regal, real and majestic from a cerulean sea

listening 

to each innocent, exhaled breath 
each unwhispered wish 
about to be fulfilled 

Media Poem for dVerse Poets Pub

Photo by DBDuoPhotos at dVerse 

While You Were Gone

We talked

We touched

We slid melting

Ice cubes over

Sweat slick thighs

While you were gone

We danced barefoot

To the little radio

In the kitchen

Naked

Ate chocolate chip

Cookies and licked

Crumbs off our faces

Together

While you were gone

We laughed

Softly and hard

As the light fell

We sat face to

Face and fingered

Eyelashes

Until

With an unwarning whir

You returned

In blaze of light and

Blaring voice

And caught us

In reimpowered

Sixty inch eye

Shamed separate

we covered ourselves

And resumed

Our silent watch

Power restored

This poem was published in the current issue 65 January 2013 of BurningWord

http://burningword.com/