Empty
My heart is so empty when you are away.
From my heart.
I need your love too wash .
The empty feeling away.
From my heart.
I need your sweet love too.
Wash over my soul.
Unanswered
The night was tied to me
like a stone but I refused
to close my eyes.
Yet one more word within
the margin of accomplished
thought was needed.
Too little too late, but it
has been very late, though
at one point enough.
And so, as I have often
asked myself, as though you
were me – Why not?
This way there can be no
harm done. But had you
even thought of me?
© Ella Wagemakers, 04.59 Dutch time (= 22.59 EST in the US)
Prompt for Hour Fifteen
Write a poem that has a chance of being very meaningful to someone you are very close to, or someone you want to be close to.
My Frenemy
Neighbor’s mischief monster is at it again
Big wet nose on my lap
Muddy paws on my toes
Must move soon or i’ll be trapped
I cannot bear the thought
His breath on my face; so smelly and hot
The drool on my skin
His fur on my clothes
Wet from his romp in an algae filled swamp
Look away!
He knows your weakness for sad eyes and sniffles
Soft brown shades of amber and copper
Filled with the wonders of the universe
Learning your face
Watching your smile
Eagerly waiting
Too late
He has you now
Go get the secret toy you got for him
yesterday
Hour 14–The Beanery, Grafton, West Virginia
It was the breakfast food, the best diner food ever
Home fries and eggs over and toast
But let’s be clear
It was the only place within thirty miles that served breakfast all night long to college kids and rail men in overalls and other nocturnal dwellers
it was the last gasp of the heavy railroad industry right there forty years beyond its glory days in the 1930’s in the basement of the railroad station carved of great stone depression, decades of gruff shoes and soot had worn the ground floor that opened onto the tracks
ambiance like that
with a large waitress in house dress and apron, a kindly mom-type who took no guff
politeness was required or she’d roust ya
Poem #15: We Had Two Gardens
It was enough, the wild asparagus growing outside the fence,
unconditionally for the entire family, but only
my parents would eat it. I would pretend to wield dry tiger lily
stalks as rapiers, pretend that our property extended
beyond the painted stakes.
When everything was growing, I would feel claustrophobic
never venturing out of the backyard, smaller than the leaves
that walked with me in their own winds.
The forsythia behind the travel trailer, still and warm,
like a sulfur bush fondling its half-life, soon
as summer ceases.
Two gardens that my mother never found satisfaction,
uncovering wild myrtle from the woods between our house
and the neighbor’s, tangled in leaves from last year
and leaves from years before my birth.
The world within our meager acres enough to
frighten our mother to bits if she couldn’t see us.
As a child I never knew whether to stop my dog from tearing
up my mother’s flower garden, or laugh from a hidden distance,
and wait for the screen door to slam,
scrambling through the garage and into the front yard,
eavesdropping my dog getting “a talking to.”
I couldn’t keep the gaze of a flower,
not even the tallest tiger lilies, still higher
than the tape measure my dad would seasonally determine my growth by,
not the tiger lilies, like children’s finger paint, the
infant hands reaching towards curiosity and its excavation.
Lost
Lost of words
thoughts just passing by
observations are yawning
Surprises awaits
the mind hates
to be numb
and quiet
hope still says
you will find
the voice
in the end
Tropical Holiday
Heat-haze thunderstorms
Afternoons asleep in shade
Bird calls fill the air.
Cinquain
Magic is the making of rhyme
Out of tiny sweeps, and ticking time
Reaching into the ethers eternal
To extract a small, ripe kernel
That bursts into bloom!