Just one face

Time wrings the beauty out of everything -

the morning now just shattered shards of light,

the depth of darkness sucked off from the night,

the moon crushed, forlorn, like a crumpled mothwing.

The road’s shell shocked, the world’s a drunken camp,

the heart of workdays stifling, oppressive,

the weekends frazzled with no rest to give,

the days hamster wheels, the sun a rubber stamp.

Just one face in the crowd means breathe and dream;

just one glance, one word can forge a connect.

Just one face missing and decades are wrecked

and years become an angsty high-pitched scream.

We either speak too soon or speak too late;

the chance knocks once and does not know to wait.

Write...Edit...Publish...August 2014 : Taking Chances

This post is being scheduled for Write...Edit...Publish  the monthly bloghop hosted by Denise Covey, where the prompt for August is "Taking Chances".   More details on the sidebar at top-left, please do join in and spread the word.


My entry is a short verse, poetry is easier to write than fiction in a time-crunch :) and poetry is also a constant and a comfort I hang onto during avalanches of change. I am bang in the middle of one, an avalanche I mean, we have just moved to a new place and settling down is taking forever. Keeping fingers crossed for a hassle-free transition. I will catch up with you all as soon as things are sorted.  Meanwhile, stay well and happy reading/writing!

All the chances I did not take

made poems running down my spine

and shadows walking over my grave,

my moons nudged out by the skyline;

the earth-warm routes that lost their tracks

got down and dirty in the fields,

hopped-on hopped-off without a map

in grasslands and rhymes that free-wheeled

into words and worlds as vast as wind

and love as ocean-blue as songs;

the forks of swallowtail yearnings

and dreamdrops fallen diamond-strong.

Read the other entries here.

Romantic Friday Writers Challenge 44

At Romantic Friday Writers Denise Covey and Donna Hole host a cool fortnightly challenge every other Friday.  This entry is for Challenge 44, read more about the challenge here.   You don’t have to be a member of RFW to participate, so go on over there and join in.

 

For the last challenge at RFW, Madeleine did a very interesting entry to illustrate the role of different POVs, which has influenced this post. My thanks to her, and to Denise, Donna and all the supportive community at RFW.

 

I.

You offered up bruised berry lips

in the morning, a small smear of latte
flicked off by a delicate fingertip
but the 8.20 to the city
was about to get away

 

I should have kissed you

taken your mouth in mine
Now a crushed frangipani moue
a quiver of lipline
nag at time

 

 

the work hours subtly cleft

peach and velvet hardly there
brush against the intercept
weird reminders everywhere
around the desk

 

I should have kissed you

brushed first the mystic
corner and then the honeydew
sucked off from bare dawn lips,
drunk in the morning musk

 

Over the city, far in the west

the sky flames coral and brick
a disgruntled sun sets
in shades of yesterday’s stale lipstick,
radiating pinpricks of regret

 

even cars parked in neat rows

streetlight glinting off high glossed
metallic pink curves and furrows
point to the moment that’s been lost
hard to forget

 

I should have kissed you

just once, breathless, slowly slipped
into that heightened oblivion...the train’s late, and anyhow
you’re working the evening shift
you’ll be gone

  

the evening is dark and chill

the house  an ominous silhouette
the shrubs in the garden are stern and still,
details grossly inadequate
and the lonely porch light battles on....   

 

 

II.

 

Skin to skin the entire night

with you as we slept
the curtain cracked with morning light
when you left
and still I ached

 

 

the smell of coffee, rumpled sheets
and men’s cologne
the faint strawberry feel of cheeks
a strong jawbone
in places nicked

 

oh, the rasp of a neatly clipped

bushy moustache
on pulsing, plump yearning lips
and the warmth, the rush....
but the door shuts on a poor bargain

 

I should have kissed you

walked up to you when you didn’t
stop; taken your mouth into
mine, breathed in the musk and mint
there and then

 

there’s still the dent on the pillows

to curl into
the memory of a sensuous, slow,
fragrant night’s languor in lieu
of the man

 

and I relive each touch of your lips

just hours before
from the left ankle to the closed eyelids.
Quiver once more
replaying angel-lace and deep electric,

 

hardly breathe

as I recall
each brush and bite, the slow seep
of fire and ice, the rise and fall
of bodies and souls totally rapt

 

I should have kissed you when I could

but now I’ll wait
till you’re back again in my arms, and it’ll be good
because I’ll have to anticipate
what’s given up in thoughtless haste.

 

WC-419
FCA