Estimation

I smile sweetly
and
    don't know why,
feign agreement, casualty of
frame and form,
lay down- and you...
I struggle to know myself, so surely
                   know not you.
But I try.  I've tried.  Why must I keep trying?

      If love is a game, my strategy backfired, so I review, recall my
                           moves
to see where I've miscalculated and find it's been all along.
                    I've over and under estimated us both, danced vapid, showed weakness at every turn.

                                            Did I know what I was doing?

                                                           Was I drawing out, deliberately, exposing not your vulnerabilities but   mine,
allotting power in some grand scheme, my ego trumping reason so that when you beat me to the
            punch, I never knew what hit me?
                                         Was I unclear about who I was,
                                           where I belonged, to whom?
                                            Was I tiptoeing all over lines of caution, playing with that proverbial fire,  thinking I would not be
                               burned?
Or am I so unfinished in mind, I could not recognize your own growth implosion?  Did I wrongly imagine that
                                                                               your hands could fix me, get me right?
                                                                                            Did I lie, too?
                                                                                                          Truth is, now, I don't suspect I discerned your colors,
blurred my own
 and hoped for genius.

Do you lie now or did you then? Or rather
did you tip me off?

   I fear this all but most:
             the theory
             that at
my core,
I allure the worst.
        That I give to get, not love
 but condescension , that I might agree, take stock, confirm the liar that's lied  to me from start.

Congratulations.  Your triumph, my design.  Your mental reservations seem
               a sham
                and this colorable romance, artful.
Your absence of excitability swells ironic
                               in timing and in plot.
                                     My mildness
                                                   equals your composure.
                                                             Your performance lacked grandeur.  You alluded nothing but my skill is
such that I can translate even that.
Before your wonderful came something lovely but of that you wouldn't know.  Therein, your big mistake- ignorance or arrogant assumption that there's
   no back story.
                 There's always back story.

                           So now,
                                    what keepsake should I take? That last bold denial of assertion? That I might learn that dissapointment's one thing, disrespect another?  That preparing as I did for one, vain expectations blinding, ignoring counter evidence, I unprized myself?

But manifesting now, I'll expose us both, draw man from woman self.
               

To Taste You

Every mood was set
                    with
                     wine
or beer- it didn't matter.

You tasted better, when paired with
                             warmth of spirit
                                and me - I spoke better when sipping brandy or the like.
                                And those warm, summer porch nights, remember?   Where we
                                      talked away the night, impressed by our own drunken
                                               depth of insight, a tightly woven mashup of flavors, you and I, creating      essence as the midnight hour crept ever closer,
                                 The flavors of your words, round and smooth, linger like sugar rocks dropped, popping on my tongue.  We said then that we would no doubt become better with a little time.  How is it
                       that we knew, silly and young as we were.
                                             
                                                 I haven't had a drink in years but I can still taste the evening, wet
                                                                                                                                           with rain and desire,
    smell the plum mix of cheap elderberry, hear the craving inducing call.
                                           And now.
                                                  Now, I want to taste you sober, go back, hear you once again, know                  though different, it's still the same.



Prompt from: https://twitter.com/EDayPoems
article used:http://www.localwineevents.com/resources/articles/view/857/a-roundup-of-three-pinot-noirs-from-garnet-vineyards

Seattle

Do you remember walking downtown Seattle?  The aromas of,
  of course, coffee,
                       filling every space, mingling with all that rain to come, rain that
                                                                          had been-all that damp.
                                                                            And we ate pizza, Chicago style,
Italian style, whatever style because pizza was my favorite, along with you.
     And everything was affordable because we had no knowledge then of
                                            families or budgeting or mortgages. 
We
were
kids playing house.  Sort of.  Except that
                                                                 then I was never any good at it.
                                                                               We went
                                                                               when grey was turning green       
and we, too, were still so
green
and
at night, your arms around
                            me, long,
                                  like the branches of all those trees
                                  in that sad but promising state, surrounding me when
                                   I’d cry, my tears natural there where it rained all the
                                                       time.  My
                                                                   mood dreary
                                                                                       as
                                                                                       any winter in Washington.
                                                                                         No sunset noticeable in                
a place where no sun shines
and so I didn’t see we
                                  were cleaving but for a time
                                                           because Broadway plays and bookstore
                                                                           browsing were all that lay on the
horizon of my still young heart.
                                                 A life planned to echo youth and a hope that
                                                                                          you would always be my haven.
I saw Jesus in you,
                         you know.
                                        When time after time and trip after trip, you carried
                                                         me home and watched me sleep.  When
                                                                                      we sang in church and
                                                                                                           hiked mountains of forgiveness,
weathered headaches and hangovers,
roommates and pour the wine
and philosophical talks past the wee hours and I translated poetry into
French but couldn’t translate my own slurred language into sense.
                                             And your patience took me through.
                                            And I remember everything.  Things I shouldn’t
                                            And I don’t have a clue who you have become
                                                                                                                but
those memories form imagination and it’s not hard a stretch to find you well.




At Bluebell Books and accepting award from Hyde Park.


I nominate C Rose

We arrived in a whispery
winter
and I remember saying,
“This isn’t
     so bad,”
          as the snow danced down.
         Bundling the babes
                in
                 new coats
                           and
snapping photos
              of their delight
at catching flakes on tongues, their glee contagious.

And then,
      though the
seasons
came and went,
I fast
  found,
for me,
an interminable,
    inescapable, exhaustless
frost.

The winter of our discontent
lasted five weary
                    years,
or maybe, the discontent
           belonged to only
me,
I, blue, like the white, in spite of
                                    or because of
the sun, the brightest star-
that
tease.

I created two snow angels
in that promising white
     and they melted me for a while.
                                           I watched four children
                                                 then and there
                                                 take with ease
                                                 the
falling,
freezing,
slushing,
sweating.
      And I heated cocoa,
weathered blizzards,
      travelled roads of ice,
                drew warm baths
                          and soaked their illumination
when skies
        spanned
gray for days.
  And tried.
         Tried to
glean joy
                or at least, peace
by their example.
    They forgave the climate
but my heart was freezing in my chest.

I returned to winter
            during summer
to see my mother
but
   though bare of bite
    the land still scant
of anything I would
                want.

I sat alone
with no one,
knowing why
        I left.

Loneliness is worse than hell
         so, home now, in (some
        say)
unbearable torridity,
my heart glows
       at last
in good company.

Submitting at Bluebell Books and Tuesday Tryouts