A Life Left Untitled (a Poem)

I've been spending too much time in hospitals and I've been working too much. I miss my poet friends. And I miss my poetry (although I have been writing other things).

She Is Left Open to Interpretation

A Life Left Untitled

She lost all identification
with herself. She used to take shortcuts,
but then became a person
in eternal mourning, her guessing game
was wrong. She was a box of kittens
left outside the Dollar Tree,
a stranger that came
to town. She was torn between
two loveless lovers, an impostor
and an oddities collector, a person
born wealthy wouldn’t have changed
a thing. The script from her last
rehearsal left a paper cut
in her heart, she was a person mistaken
for a movie star, knee-deep in cheating
herself out of life’s mysteries and ex-
plorations. She became her own
talking doll, left next to the bedroom
door, stomped on during that nightly walk
to the bathroom where she questions
her existence, questions whether this is all
there is, whether this is all
there is not. 


*****

Three Days of Doubt (a Poem for Day Three of the April 2016 PAD Challenge)

The prompt for Day Three was to take the phrase "Three (blank)" and fill in the blank. 

Doubt Never Tasted This Good

Three Days of Doubt

Three days of doubt added up
to dreams of fall
                         i
                       n
                         g
into last night’s sticky
smashed spaghetti noodles
clinging to my back
alley dumpster, added up
to love gone
through wash and dry, left
shredded and pilled
all over my favorite comfy man
                                                    ’s sweat
                                                               pant

                                                                      s

* * * * *

A Round Conversation (a Poem for Day Two of the April 2016 PAD)

It’s April! Yes, that means it’s time for another April PAD Challenge with Robert Lee Brewer (of Writer’s Digest). 

The challenge has a new format this time and (not related to the new format) I’m already behind. In any case, here is my attempt at the Day Two poem, write a “he said, she said” poem. I guess I had R. D. Laing on the brain.

We Go Round and Round

A Round Conversation

She stretched
out on the couch.
“Why isn’t sharing my
artificial dreams enough?”

“Because everybody”
—he yawned—
“ends up more captivating
naked, running home—”

“Sorry.”

“Sorry?”

She winked. “Want to live
in these pages?”

“Ask me about a free mirror
look, the reality . . . decreases
the ability to provide
temporary relief, make—”

“Love?” She smiled.

He shook his head. “Make
your . . . space . . . your own.”

A hummingbird hovering
outside caught her eye. “Why
are you so official? It’s unnatural.”

“Wasn’t it you that asked me about
your artificial dreams?”

“Yes, but what does that even mean?”
she asked. “I was just testing you.”

“It means we can talk about two different
things but think we mean the same.”

“Forget it. Just kiss me, and maybe 

I will captivate you.”

* * * * *