Since You Asked: This is What I Remember (A Poem for Day Four of PAD)

Silly me, I get so caught up in my head that I forget about my heart, so I threw away the poem I was going to post and wrote another one (the one below). I feel better now.

By the way, here is the prompt for Day Four (copied from Poetic Asides):

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Since (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles include: “Since the Last Time I Smoked,” “Since You Said Please,” and “Since When.”

What Do You Remember?

Since you Asked

When I think of you, I remember
how you smoothed back rebel
hairs from raspy forehead instead
of tonguing sugar-cubed sweetness
with your words. You stared out
vacant windows, revealing gritted
teeth in your eyes. I remember
how your trench coat nestled you
to floral stools at that pit stop,
you grasping teacup’s hand-
le and swigging down black
coffee like a gloomy nightclub.
When I think of you, I remember
feeling saved from myself. You pulled
a rabbit foot from my hat
with your charm, but in truth, like you,
it was only an illusion. I was your side-
show act, a disposable ass-
istant. So now all I have left is
to think of you and remember.


*****

Poem a Day - Day Two

Today's prompt for PAD: 

"For today’s prompt, write a voyage poem. In my case, we’ll be driving along the Gulf of Mexico, but a voyage can happen in a variety of ways–even on foot, or psychologically. Heck, the process of writing a poem is a sort of voyage all its own."

Brought Back from the Dead

Flight of the Short-Beaked One

She ascended clawed fingers
into his footless shoes, cracked
at the edges, a square of white
tape he hadn’t noticed stuck
to one side, she flew them
over, hovering like murders
of Corvus brachyrhynchos calling out,
interrupting his slumber, taunting her
that it was simply his time to flutter
a flightless voyage, for how can clipped
wings take to the whispering sky, how can
she, no longer a young crow, leave him
behind. Landing beloved wing-tips next to him,
she pecked his forehead, squawked
goodbye, his last sleep, from which
he can never die.

*****

Finding What You Love (A Poem)

Welcome to my first post for the 2014 April PAD Challenge: Day One. Today's prompt is as follows (copied from the Poetic Asides blog):

1. Write a beginning poem. Today is the beginning of this challenge. It’s also the beginning of April. But there are so many other beginnings: Beginning of a relationship, beginning of school, beginning of the rest of your life, and so on. Pick a beginning to write about.
2. Write an ending poem. Often, though not always, beginnings come as the result of an ending. Sometimes endings are cause for disappointment, heartbreak, or numbness. Other times, endings are celebrated. Capture an ending today.

Baseball Meditation

End of His Game

I beg innings of each baseball
game to go smoothly for that eleven-
year-old dancer in the outfield,
remembering when he smiled
and hip-hopped across a sleek
spot-lit stage. Later he dives
for second base, skins his knee,
off in the distance sirens ring out
over the oohs and aahs of spectators
sucking and spitting out his bliss
with their sunflower seed shells. 

*****