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 May 2013 MRR
LD Goodwin
for George
 May 2013 MRR
LD Goodwin
I'll be drinkin' white lightning tonight,
alone with my guitar.
tryin' to remember all the words.


*For George Jones Born: September 12, 1931, Saratoga
Died: April 26, 2013

The Window Up Above  
Songwriter: George Jones

I've been living a new way
Of life that I love so
But I can see the clouds are gath'ring
And the storm will wreck our home
For last night he held you tightly
And you didn't even shove
This is true for I've been watching
From the window up above

You must have thought that I was sleeping
And I wish that I had been
But I guess it's best to know you
And the way your heart can sin

I thought we belonged together
And our hearts fit like a glove
I was wrong for I've been watching
From the window up above

From my eyes the teardrops started
As I listened on and on
I heard you whisper to him softly
That our marriage was all wrong

But I hope he makes you happy
And you will never lose his love
I was wrong, I was watching
From the window up above

How I wish I could be dreaming
And wake up to an honest love
I was wrong for I was watching
From the window up above...
Harrogate, TN April 26, 2013
 May 2013 MRR
LD Goodwin
You want me to tell you what happened,
don't you?
You want me to bare it all,
every sordid detail.*
..... And so she sat there at the dining room table,
even now 20 plus years later, I still feel sorry for her.
How hard it must have been for her to say,
"I think we have become too familiar with one another,
and I need to find myself".
What the **** did that mean?
She has never said anything like that in the 10 years we'd been married.
What the ****?
I didn't know then, but those were euphemisms a friend had told her to say.
She wasn’t really all that good at communicating you see.
She took a bight of souffle and kept blankly staring at the refurbished china hutch,
the one she picked out at the flea market and said we would refinish it together.
We... never did.
I said, with a new found fear in my voice, "So this is it?".
I hadn’t yet felt the sting of actually getting a divorce.
And with a heart stopping seriousness in here eyes she said,
"I think it is."
Blood rushed to my head, like a car running a stop sign in front of me,
I crashed.
On my one shoulder was a devil that wanted to yell and scream and call her names.
On the other was the Angel of Karma, telling me that this is one of those moments in life
that you are either going to be proud of,
or regret.
So quietly I said,
"how can I help you find yourself ?".  
All the while frantically thinking.....
Think, think, think of something to say that will keep her from leaving.
Harrogate, TN  May 2013
 Apr 2013 MRR
marina
whispers
 Apr 2013 MRR
marina
i wish i could hold all your freckles
in the palm of my hand,
(sprinkle them across my body
and drown in them slowly,)

so i could carry a piece of you
with me, always.
&i; don't think the title will make any sense in relation to the poem
unless you are me.  so disregard it.  c:
 Feb 2013 MRR
Eavan Boland
In the worst hour of the worst season
    of the worst year of a whole people
a man set out from the workhouse with his wife.
He was walking-they were both walking-north.

She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up.
    He lifted her and put her on his back.
He walked like that west and north.
Until at nightfall under freezing stars they arrived.

In the morning they were both found dead.
    Of cold. Of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history.
But her feet were held against his breastbone.
The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her.

Let no love poem ever come to this threshold.
    There is no place here for the inexact
praise of the easy graces and sensuality of the body.
There is only time for this merciless inventory:

Their death together in the winter of 1847.
    Also what they suffered. How they lived.
And what there is between a man and a woman.
And in which darkness it can best be proved.
 Feb 2013 MRR
Raj Arumugam
Older boys telling younger boys “bad” jokes is part of the traditions in schools, much as the guardians of Elite Schools might deny it…here’s something that happened in the 1960s, and perhaps before too, and perhaps always….


“Who’s the best person to marry
when you’re grown up?”

asks the Senior boy
(with his double entendre)
in the shed behind the canteen


three juniors shrug their shoulders
and then one ventures: “Marry a traffic cop?”
“No,” answers the Senior
“Never marry a traffic cop
cos at the crucial moment she’ll say: ‘HALT!’”

Some boys laugh, one or two innocents scratch their heads

“I’ll marry a doctor,” says another
“Yeah?” says the Senior
“At the crucial moment
she’ll be saying: ‘OK -
you can put on your clothes now!’”


Now the juniors laugh;
they are getting wiser
but still an innocent says:
“I’ll marry a bus conductor”
“Oh no, no,” says the boy Senior
“She’ll be insisting: ‘Ticket, please! Ticket, please!’”

“I’ll marry Susan at the canteen
where she makes the best
sandwiches for all those who hunger,”

says the boy, obviously from a very charitable home
“No, no,” says the Senior. “She’ll be roaring:
‘Who’s next? Who’s next? Who’s next?’
And you’ll have all the men
within three miles
queuing up at your doorway!”



The juniors have gotten too smart now
Nobody offers any other possibilities
But innocents die hard
and there’s one last little boy:
“I’ll marry my teacher!”
“Well, isn’t she the best,” says Senior
“for at the crucial moment,
she’ll be saying:
‘Do it again! Do it again!’”


Now, the boys enjoyed it all; the girls never heard it, except when they married these initiates…and all the eminent people in the professions have been none the wiser…
Don't blame me...it was the Senior boy who said all that...and he cast a spell over me, with the power of the Ancient Mariner, to repeat it at the most odd moments...Yes, if you must know, I did end up marrying my teacher...
 Feb 2013 MRR
Chloe Marie
Days feel longer still and the nights seem old,
My hand it touches glass that bars my way,
I sit and see the winter winds blow cold,
Dreaming now of a closer coming day.
Hands soft with need and want will lift the gloom,
The world is gone we're buried in this den,
I'll see your smile sing back into this room,
Nights young with lips and laughter once again.
My heart it beats so sweetly for your own,
To kiss me now would make me weaker still,
A weakness that forever I'll condone,
Those lips that flame my passion, aim to thrill.
'I love you so,' my thoughts forever sigh,
You are the star, my life an endless sky.
 Jan 2013 MRR
Pablo Neruda
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
 Jan 2013 MRR
August
Flowers bloomed where you traced your fingers.
They grew as if fed by your caress.

And slowly, I became a garden.

My bleeding red Dicentras fluttered, as your hands lingered.
Tuberose & orchids twisted together, covering my dress.

Your words sprung up fresh new buds.

But Lavender began to spring up from the words you planted.
And from my eyes began to sprout begonias, purple and dark.*

I realized that you were not willing to accept that I couldn't grow orange blossoms.

You & I knew my soil wasn’t able to be enchanted.
So I clipped all of my flowers, and shot the lovely larks.

You said I wasn't worth tending. Was I not?

*You kicked the dirt and ripped up the last of the lilacs
Representations:
Dicentras - the heart
Tuberose - pleasure
Orchids - delicate beauty
Lavender - distrust
Begonias - deep thoughts
Orange Blossoms - fertility
Lilac - first love

© Amara Pendergraft 2013
 Jan 2013 MRR
TJ King
Pound, pound on the door
To my heart.
For I fear the swallowing stillness,
settling in like snow
On an old road.

Pound, pound until my veins,
Like dark mines, light up again
With orange bulbs-
And the voices of people I’ve been
Echo back
To my cavernous heart.
I will dance as the sound
Of their bickering
Beats. The walls. To life.

Pound, pound even when it seems
you are not welcome and only ghosts
Are listening.

Pound on that door
until your palms run red
And then listen,

While the echoes fade
And fall upon the rocks
Like Schroedinger’s cat,
dead and alive.
I will dance.
I will have danced.
Pound, pound
Pound, pound
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