Category: Love

Breeding Season

Golden
this heart, this plea
no makeshift proposal
I am smitten, hard bitten, sold –
be bold!
Be bold!
say you are sold, also smitten
accept this proposal
this heart, forever
golden.

(A mirror cinquain for Dark Side of the Moon’s weekly challenge.  I’ve also worked in the prompts of Fandango (makeshift) and Ragtag Community (bold).  Image is from personal collection.  A coloured version is available on KnutsonKr8tions at Redbubble.com.)

 

Crusader’s Return

This exile –
self-imposed, I confess –
wears thin with age.

Too many winters
braving the cold –
heart’s frozen rebellion
against Father’s tireless raving,
Mother’s queenly submission.

So many moons
engaged in a crusade –
armed with but a hollow sword –
the chill of time lapsed,
irretrievable.

Castle lights are waning,
death lingers in the air,
and only now, on this fateful
periphery, do I wonder –
measure the rage against costs –
blame’s righteousness builds
only walls – faults corpses
rotting either side.

Empty-handed, I approach,
cowed by the enormity of task –
bearing no gifts, no legacy –
only a paltry offering
of forgiveness – pray
I am not too late.

(Image provided by Willow Poetry as her weekly challenge:  What Do You See?  Also linking up with Frank  at the dVerse pub, whose theme tonight is blame and forgiveness.  Ragtag Community’s prompt is fault.)

Missing

Have you seen her –
the child we lost,
the one who lost herself?

born to a sister
breasts not yet ripe
for motherhood’s call

a passenger
on a perilous ride,
sweetness eclipsed

by a cacophony
of raised voices
the wails of women

helplessly trapped
a smothering drama;
how easily she escaped

slipped from our clutches
found comfort in the streets
preferred coldness of strangers

to the raging fires at home;
lost her to the lure of parties,
an elixir for the empty places,

found her once amongst
the debris of discarded needles
and the haze of sexual reek

the golden halo of youth
now matted clumps of shame
her beauty sunken in shadows

we’d taught her well, it seems –
the art of submission, how to
betray the self, embrace defeat

tried to pick her up, create
a milieu of normalcy, establish
homelike roots, but shams

do not last and she ran again
the echo of her absence a hole
ringing in our hearts, we are

guilt-ridden, apologetic, fear
the power of our inadequacy;
try to forget, justify, cringe

for the child we lost,
the one that got away,
the one that lost herself.

(Submitting this for Ragtag Community’s daily prompt: needle.  Computer is going into the shop so I may be MIA for bit.  Missing was first penned in October of 2017.

Love’s Angles

We voice love,
look off at better times –
eye on neighbour, comparing

I dance between hated father,
nice brother, grow quiet,
need touch, but never say

Were my heart strong,
spirit like a river come,
thanking universe…

Have joy though,
feel throughout.

(Friday is magnetic poetry day.  Play online. )

What’s In a Name?

What’s her name?
Simple question
from mother to son –
recognizing the love-lifted
joy of his countenance.

I cannot tell, said he,
you’ll ask too many questions.
Do I know her?
No, Mom, she’s Somali.
And Muslim.

I felt my whiteness
and all its privilege
slap me, stumbled

Of course she is welcome,
of course it does not matter.

Had no sense of the depth
of my ignorance, how heads
would turn, and vile strangers
attack, and his father shun them.

And how her own mother
would advise her to take his name
when the day of their nuptials came
so that finding work would be easier.

Had no sense of the depth
of my ignorance, how
everyday matters suffer
unfair scrutiny –

hold them in my heart
and pray, knowing my shield
of whiteness holds no sway
to protect them..

(Written for dVerse pub, where Anmol challenges us to address the topic of privilege.)