Category: poetry

Genie Unleashed

Artistic sensibility
hungering for the exquisite
craves expression

The critic guffaws
decries creativity
starves the impulse

Who unleashed
such nonsense,
such magical thinking?

To think beauty
once espied
can be replicated

and by such an amateur –
the unskilled hand
an unworthy representative

But the artist, unleashed
knows only magic –
the genie will not be rebottled.

(This is an edited version of a previous post. Art my own.)

Compulsive Clotheshound

I would befriend hesitation,
take her shopping with me,
invest the time, but impulse
is my constant companion.

Hesitation, born of shared
trauma, labours over pain-
filled decisions; my need is
palpable, throbbing, must

suffocate it beneath layers
of numbing fabric, weight;
afraid to show myself, afraid
that she will find me, block

any progress, or worse, make
me pay for these layers of
stolen moments; encounter
crazy reflected in her eyes.

(Found this little gem hidden away in 2016 poems. Art my own. Current theme is ‘Women Entangled”)

Dear Dad

I miss your wisdom;
could use some about now,
confidence lacking

Life’s what you make of it,
you’d say, and
You’re doing a good job…

Truth is, I’ve made a lot of mistakes –
call it stubbornness or stupidity-
but I failed to plan, Dad

Not bemoaning life
It’s been really good
and I know you did the same

I’m just tired of doubting my self
Watching the rest of the world
reach their goals and then retire

While I can never tell –
am I doing a good job
am I even appreciated?

Remember the day my marriage died
and I came to you, crumpled
spewing anger, defeated…

And you cried with me
raging on my behalf, said:
Goddamn it, you deserve better than this!

Funny that through all the pain
your walls, my walls
you, alone could see me

Tragic how I only understand that now
death and years separating us –
my need for you still raw.

(Image my own – cut and paste with AI)