Poems Between Lovers
After the Vows: Poems Between Lovers
Available now via Diminuendo Press (and the usual places).
You are not Orpheus
You are not Orpheus, love, nor would I
have you be, and I will not slip in to
Hades hands. Understand my love is new
even when mundane is the order of
the day and I wish for words of passion
and wit. My days are incomplete without
a kiss from your lips, in a smile or pout.
Fanciful dreams in romantic fashion
still find their way into the world around
me, but now my prince has a face I can see
and when I look in your eyes, I see me.
My name in your voice is sweeter, I say
more musical than any poetry,
or song, Orpheus ever thought to play.
Siobhan M Pitchford
Aphrodite in Your Shadow
So well you take me as I am. I fear
to imagine what would be should that fair-
fortuned force that fogs your eyes suddenly
shed the scales that put me in your vision
as you describe it. I see no such man
within my mirror, but thank the heavens
that you see me so. And how do I see
you? Aphrodite shone as bright, I’m sure,
yet your steadfast nature is earth scented,
unlike Venus’s too fickle fragrances,
therefore so much the more desirable.
Yet, how can I compare you and be fair
when she is myth and you of fleshly make
she I wonder of—you I worldly hold.
David M Pitchford
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David M Pitchford
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and still I see what I saw then – perhaps now through a fog yet ever clear in my heart.
I have grown blind and dumb.
Poetry has deserted me.
It was a good life while it lasted . . .
It will never leave you, buried so deep
within your psyche – perhaps it’s hidden
in that place silenced by circumstance.
It was born into the life led before
this plane of existence – whether pirate
or poet in Coolridge’s company.
Re-written in prose, your muse is now new –
release for that voice no longer silent,
heard beyond your inner ear; it is fresh
welcome solace to a world of readers
hungry for words they cannot know they need
- or want – until you pen them in their way
putting story – fantasy – hero rare
on the page and into their hearts and minds.
~ aigofe
Sunday Mornings—Now
It’s Sunday morning; I lay on the floor,
with my dog, wondering what you’re doing
right now. I want creamy coffee, a game—
yahtzee, perhaps scrabble, as music plays,
shuffling one musician to the next
at random. I miss quiet soft chuckles,
laughter teasing me when I pirouette
in front of the stove or shake curvy hips
as I flip bacon, crisp under broiler.
I wonder if you’re reading the paper,
relaxing in your new home; this one gone,
forgotten in the newness—love renewed
from that sweet brief encounter years ago
. . . how did it become more than our time here?
I wish the dog had hands to roll the dice.
that always was our dog’s tragic flaw—lack of an opposable thumb
But he is way CUTE enough to get away with it
Brunch with the Fish
You are a thousand miles away from me,
and I am with another man’s wife—is
honesty betrayal when the truth hurts?—
shopping for new fish to populate her
freshly acquired aquarium (though
I will not know for two more weeks that it
is solely hers, when the fever breaks and
she informs me that I am to be out
as soon as I am well enough because
she has reconciled with her husband), and
having brunch with her sons, whom, despite my
best efforts, I am uncharitable
in assessing as inferior to your
sons and mine—in some manner—I’m alone.
Honest Betrayal
I have heard it said ‘the truth hurts’. I know
this is true; experience has taught me
to breathe deeply and accept discomfort;
acknowledge survival is possible.
When I want to curl beneath the covers
I have learned to throw them off, to stand up,
face the betrayal I feel – realize
I am not alone in the sensation.
Whether in response to my anger or
through self-preservation, he feels it too.
Hours spent playing the part of victim
won’t change the mis-stepped path that got us here.
We’re both betrayed in ways only we know –
the decision to heal is ours alone.
©Siobhan
May 7, 2009
Oh and how God has damned me for the fool I be . . .
No new
no renewal
meager paucity of sweetness
but . . . some would say I had it comin’ to me . . .
Pondering Betrayal
Where does it begin? He betrayed her, she
betrayed him, I betrayed you, you in turn
turned upon yourself with ruthless harm—we
betray ourselves and each other as though
it were a virus passing among us.
How often is it we make each other
sick? By proximity or contempt or
by accident . . . where does it begin, in
our intentions or misunderstandings,
conflicts of loyalty—betray the one
to remain loyal to another? When
does the fever break? At the word ‘forgive’,
or in the thought that perhaps some mis-step
was an honest mistake—a foolish choice?
Note: there was too little room inside the sonnet to cover the points of maliciousness or deliberate betrayal. That is for other poems – perhaps better left to other poets.
A Foolish Choice
The elusive ‘they’ say I am foolish
to ponder life within his arms; those of
betrayal. Why put myself in harms way?
I ask – silent and out loud – where’s the harm?
I have ever seen the love, never seen
the wrath in physical form aimed my way.
Obtuse? Perhaps. An intentional slip
sideways into misunderstanding –
an honest step toward the comfort missing
from life; the familiar pattern we’d built
over a decade of getting to know
one another – not realizing
we were drifting farther apart . . . maybe.
Yet, is forgiveness such a foolish choice?
Foolishness
Every choice we make is from some bias
or another—whether foolish or wise,
rash or deliberate. It’s our human
condition to color each choice one way
or another . . . or several. So many factors,
seen and unseen, known and unknown, conscious
and un- or sub-conscious, these biases
color our world and circumstances, our
very lives (at least, how we perceive them)
into the portrait of ourselves. Each one
of us a work of art in multiple
dimensions—who’s to judge the value of art?
Every choice is but a coloring on
life’s canvas—only consequence can judge.