Manifesto

And yet one more April PAD madness!

This came to me today



Manifesto





Almost 24 hours

and not one poem about you.



Not this poem;

this poem is about hunger and missing meals,

about poverty.



This poem is about eating air as the body cries for what it needs.

It is about shivering in the dark,

cold and alone as I pray for arms to enfold me;

about not approaching you for fear of rejection.

This poem is about feeling unworthy

of the smallest kindness

and building some noble romantic tale to tell myself

on some cold lonely night after you strode away -

perhaps true, perhaps not.



This poem is about a cry that has gone silent;

so desperate, without hope, it no longer seeks your charity.

In evening's concealing dark

it simply tucks itself into a closed doorway

curls tight into its vulnerable self

and awaits an unwelcoming dawn.



This poem isn't about you.;

it should be about falling into poverty,

about losing everything,

losing hope.



It shouldn't be about you.

Almost 24 hours.





Ariel

April 1, 2015

Vantage

April is National Poetry Month - and for poets there are Poem-A-Day challenges everywhere. A PAD today, this is based on the attached picture prompt (posted in Facebook's community "Poet", a space I started years & years ago and still co-moderate. It started with about 8 poets; it's now at 1,174 members, a global community!)

Photo provided by Rex Eisenbraun. Not sure who deserves the photo credit.



Vantage





Even from the distance of a black-and-white photo

I leaned out of frames to look for you.

Arm around steel girders, climbing grainy constructions,

I wonder if the wind will carry you -

like a WW2 postcard lost in the mail

and I capture you in my skirt ...

or perhaps like a tardy cargo ship tugging up a canal

I view you from my spyglass -

you will appear ... faded, monotone

but you with your scent

and that finger laid against your Cupid's bow.



For you, I risk that fall

and bring tucked inside that photo box.

For you, I would willingly gather dust and fade;

a memory that turns vintage warm when you will

chance upon it with shaking unsteady hands.

Perhaps then, with my leaning out of frames

and you peering through frames-

perhaps then we will find each other.





Ariel

April 1, 2015