He shouts when telling you what to do,
like teaching me to draft his bicycle though I already know.
But I cannot forget his laugh when I tell him to shup up!
His burst of rounded puffs of air, joyful and sardonic,
forgives me and bolsters my spinning feet on their way.
He yells as we set up camp in the drizzle of a Vermont forest, fashioning a light from a bike lamp, while giving instructions on tent raising and starting a fire.
He could annoy the hell out of everyone, yet we loved his unfailing optimism and the life in his excitement.
No doubt he laughed even as his bicycle hit that cement wall
and he sailed toward his end.
4d ago
May 30, 2026 at 4:02 PM UTC
Is it a person or a place,
A thing whose soul I can never know?
A warrior howls with the wind
in the trackless wild.
Or a peerie lad running through sand
on St. Ninian's ayre?
A maid swimming
in an unreachable isle
or the luffing of sails
in the harbour at night.
An expanse of heath
with a bird above.
A person or place
That I'll always love
Mar 26, 2025
Mar 26, 2025 at 8:46 PM UTC
I was thinking about the blast
of neon colors in a film
and the New Wave Music
and Marie Antoinete pastels
But in my childhood
it was as if we had other hues,
a small box of crayons at hand,
or that the world was seen through
Kodachrome film.
There were lollipop reds and purple
and dungaree blues, lake and skies,
lemon ice yellows, setting suns
and lush summer green.
In scratched lenses, children seemed to play
as if inspired by the living colors,
imagining that their lives would last forever.
And even as they grow, it immortalizes them.
But, like life, the colors decay
and we gaze at scenes of sepia and moss,
with ochre grass and reds turned brown.
We must attune memory to remember more.
And using suspension of disbelief,
Elders, middle-aged and children gather
Like the neolithic ceremonies meant for gods,
But celebrate, not the stars or stones,
Rather the lives we have lived or have yet to taste.
Mar 17, 2025
Mar 17, 2025 at 4:04 PM UTC
If I were not old
I would paint the house
and shore up the insulation.
I would go out and **** the garden
and cut down brush and vines
that have taken over the yard
and suffocated my flowers.
I would put in a metal fence
and plant roses around it.
But I am too old for that
and I may die here one day,
in a darkened room, caught
inside the crumbling plaster,
whose windows are covered by ivy,
which reaches its fingers across the walls.
It is almost as if the errant plants
strive to imitate the flowers
I used to bring inside and
place in bouquets to brighten
my world, no matter how small.
I shudder to think what will be,
now that the flowers are gone.
Mar 8, 2025
Mar 8, 2025 at 11:20 AM UTC
“I used to be disgusted,
Now I just have to refuse
The allure of money and status.
Before, I could be happy just being me,
Saying “No” to anything that I didn’t need.
But now, she’s told me I’ve got to choose,
Between her and the life I want,
Must either be a corporate shill
A shallow, capitalist dilettante,
Or be myself, and lose her good will.
I am so close to saying “’goodbye’”
And testing her just to see,
If she really means what she says,
Or if she has fooled herself
As I did for so long.
Trying to be like big brother,
Upright, moral and honored (by some),
But something in him was lacking
“And as I saw through it,
I knew I did not have the nature
To pretend I was that grand
Or could sink that low
in hidden plots to undo those he envied.
I watched her in the dim light
Of a place where the punished toil
And I was consumed with hatred,
And a wish to set her free.
How can I save her from this charade,
This bourgeois masquerade?
When she notices my clumsy efforts,
she asks me what it is I want and I reply,
‘All I ask is to practice in my own style,
Colorful but honest, riding the edge”;
Her response is inscrutable but
She likes it when I con the corporate ******
And joins in with a new name and a sly smile,
We drink tequila and don’t pay,
Leave some loudmouth with the bill and
hedge our bets as we kiss in the evening breeze.
“Apparently, a kiss was more powerful
than me acting as an imitation drudge!
And a night in bed together satisfying enough
to draw her into my world.
I would show her little ways of breaking rules,
the cheat with no one noticing,
building up our own little universe,
rebelling against the system in subtle ways.
Oh! Those were golden days and I was happy.
Yet now, years later, she has gone far away,
perhaps for good, though I don’t see why.
When I call and ask, she will never say
what I can do to bring her back.
Granted, my life has turned around,
perhaps to something she dislikes,
but she leaves it for me to guess
whether it’s too flamboyant or just a mess.
Yet I refuse not to try so hard, hanging on the sound
of her cherished voice on the phone,
its flat, restrained notes telling me:
“You are alone”.
And still I love and hope.
Sharon Talbot
February 28, 2025
Feb 26, 2025
Feb 26, 2025 at 4:53 PM UTC
“Another night in London; I’m alone again.
He’s out there somewhere thinking of me
Or maybe someone else.
Come stand next to me,
Pour yourself some virtual tea.
I’m sitting in the garden waiting,
Waiting for you to convict yourself
Sitting here, loving him and hating you,
You who thought only of yourself.
I loathe you, but I must please you,
Must outwit you to save him
How does it feel, now you’ve enslaved him?
“I take you both back to our sitting room to sort
It out. Say it’s a domestic but we know that’s rot.
We sit across from each other, he’s silent;
I am not. I analyse your past, the lives you took
And you stare at me with a killer’s face,
Your hooded eyes and rubber mouth,
With its fake smile relishing death.
“You know I know the real you,
But he must too.
Can he forgive you?
He must do it or
One of us will once again
Be shot through by you!
Which of us will it be?
“But this is just a calculated pause,
In a long con; do you realize
How close you came to ending up in a box?
You aren’t the only killer in town.
You have angered others beside me;
If my brother could howl, he would have;
He just sneers and has you followed and
Every move you make is being trapped.
Your dowdy clothes fool don’t me now,
Since I remember your assassin’s gear,
So clearly, just before you shot me.
And I know you weren’t just being nice,
No pistol could be that precise.
But now the question comes:
I give you the choice I never had:
Do you want to live or die?
Your husband won’t want you dead but I…”
She stares him, black defiant eyes,
He marks the seconds with fibrillating heart
He has never known her, from the start,
Do killers possess some hidden cloak
Like his lover’s naked mask?
Her theory of self-portrait disguises
Leads him to a sudden change of plan
“Why didn’t you come to me for help?”
He had forgot how well he lies.
And he sees that she knows it in her eyes.
There is only one solution for both.
Jan 18, 2025
Jan 18, 2025 at 1:57 PM UTC
In the once noble house,
almost all is taken except
The walls, the lath, now held on
by a cleat of wood and lace
that redeems the letcher,
denizen of Sussex wetlands.
Of late the chalet is latched
only by hate, and the letch
chats with outlaws in the storm's eclat
of thunder far off.
No knights or maidens remain,
nor any ruler of demesne
and the treasure is born
off to other kingdoms.
The well is dry and
fields are bare.
And in the end, all depart.
leaving doors open to the wind
and gate down to the woods.
And broken the way
down to the sea.
Jan 8, 2025
Jan 8, 2025 at 12:31 PM UTC
We were born in the forest,
Living in the shadows,
Clinging to our loved ones
In the dark, under the trees.
Life was good then,
We had picked fruit from branches
And swung on them for joy.
And there was no greed
Or jealousy.
Over millions of years,
We lived in harmony,
Until the forest changed;
The garden shriveled and
Faded away as we watched.
Our lives were rearranged.
Some among us ventured out.
Giving in to our sin: curiosity.
We turned the grasslands
into pavement and stone
And we endured pain to walk
Down in the street, surrounded
by canyons of concrete and steel.
The powerful gather now
and hoard what was once shared.
Hors d’oeuvres are served,
Placating the hunger of the omnipotent,
that is never stated;
They will keep taking from us
As long as we allow it.
Even as they wallow in wealth,
They plot to plunder riches
and destroy the world,
scraping the land
and scouring the sea.
But one day, some loner, a rebel
May emerge from the shadows,
Dark-clad, filled with inchoate rage.
He will find like-minded souls
Who use the new machinations
To topple the oligarchs,
Empty their accounts
And give them to the world.
Chaos may follow,
But out of it a new humanity
Might arise.
Jan 5, 2025
Jan 5, 2025 at 2:57 PM UTC
Now that we are on in years,
celebrations change and dwindle
to little remnants of tradition.
We are two stragglers
from life’s journey,
Left behind by the young,
No longer nurturing him,
yet tied to his well-being
even as we wait for his call.
I celebrate Yule not in our home,
but by imaging his joy beside a tree,
his exchange of gifts with her.
And I recall the first Christmas
with my husband, falling asleep together
under a mammoth tree filled with light.
We made ornaments for fun
and poverty didn’t matter.
I wrote a poem for him,
decorated with scenes of our life.
And now, we are too weary
to celebrate like that.
It is as if we pore through a box,
a ragged thing, dragged through time,
looking for souvenirs of joy
and memories of the life we had
when he was here.
Dec 25, 2024
Dec 25, 2024 at 11:01 AM UTC
You know I love you
You must know all the things I do,
Big things, small things,
Despite your worry, I will not go.
But sometimes you annoy me,
With lots of small things,
Is it your way to avoid me?
Or do you miss the pain it brings?
Toilet seats, left up all the time,
Open ******* boxes all over the pantry,
Crumbs on the floor and ants in a line,
Towels stuck in the microwave; I'm angry!
Why can't you do these simple things?
It's not a lot to ask.
Don't get me started on your room:
Clothes and junk are just too much,
And in the other one, A Temple of Doom,
Your record collection sits untouched.
Downstairs, there’s a pile of tools,
filling up the dining room,
It'd be great if you used these "jewels";
You're so attached they should be in the bedroom!
They're just lots of small things,
Why won't you clean them up?
To me they're irritating things,
And they just keep piling up.
All the small things
Sitting here for twenty years.
Are they the talismans
Against your fears?
You used to bring me flowers
To show me that you cared.
Now you shop online for hours;
I sometimes forget you’re there.
When you ignore the small things,
I’ll dig them out of a pile
And see what money they bring;
You won’t notice after a while.
Maybe in twenty years more
I’ll have all these things
Whittled down and cleared
And we could be each other’s things
Once more.
Sharon Talbot - 2010-2024
Dec 18, 2024
Dec 18, 2024 at 4:11 PM UTC