- Non-Erotic Poetry
- "Ghost of Marriage Past"
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“Ghost of Marriage Past”
Spring cleaning early
I come across
a cobwebbed album
shuttered frames of
happiness, hopes
dreams in the making
Aged innocence captured
on Kodak paper
4x6 glossies reflecting
oft used emotions
Life’s positives
from negatives
flashbulb yesteryears
cuddling,
coddling,
caressing
hearts’ confessions
whispered in
a shared bed
of shared tomorrows
Some tomorrows never come.
Vintage pages of
jaundiced subjects;
burnt umber edges
arching back with
dormant stiffness;
hunching over
in arthritic spasms;
misaligned tabbed corners
their culprits’ crippled blame.
Yet familiar faces still...
Blue eyes hemorrhaged red;
flash induced tapestry images
bleeding to opaqueness tint
myopic visions blurred
to anemic distress
Yet within the weak
and bleak collage
stand two straight and strong.
can’t quite make out these next...
it’s been so many years between...
no...wait...
sadly,
I recognize them now.
Faith’s accused of
jumped conclusions;
double exposures
to jealousy’s
mottled wrath
in
dark
darker
in darkest room
and gloom developed
and hung to dry in
dimming light of trust
restoring nothing
salvaging even less
Vividly transparent
these last few scenes...
forced unbroken smiles
and unforced bruising tears;
backgrounds clashing
in hushed shades
of an undeserved pallor
and pale concern
vaguely wanting
hardly needing
barely mourning love.
A door slams
and I blink;
my book of revelations
lying in my lap.
its dust, not I, undisturbed.
Clawed etchings
drawn in and
from my mind
reminding me
haunting me
hurling me
into a dead lifetime ago
exhuming regrets as
I resurrect still
this spousal apparition
- COMMENTS
Angelscuckabout 11 years agoI will never look at my old photos in the same way again. Bravo!
CaPic267about 17 years agoSeemed so real til the door slammed. And still seems real even if dealing with dreams and memories. CP
OSoBuffabout 17 years agoSometimes it seems daydreaming can be as real as the reality that's too painful to confront.
EmJ0385about 17 years agoLost in reverie, in the dusty attic, memories can take on a life of their own and in this way become more powerful than real life. EM
BikeNutabout 17 years agoLiving through such strong memories and not once opening the album -- deep scars?
LeBrozover 17 years agoThis poem was mentioned in the Archival Review thread, in a picking through Lit's archive of over 34,000 poems.
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duddle146over 17 years agoPhoto album revives old memories of another lifetime ago with it's joys and sorrows and regrets. Such a sweet melancholy set of verses. Beautiful!
WoodlandsGiftalmost 18 years agoIn my first submission to this website (Danser) you left me with a generous compliment. One that looking back now I have feel I have failed to live up to. I have recently written again, and it will be quite possibly my final post here upon release. I thought before reading this how much I had changed as a writer since I started. I think, had I the chance to write my last submission again, it would now be different. I only hope these words can serve as one authors way to deliver a compliment to another. Keep an eye open for, "Our Life, Our God, Our Everything". I think you might like it.
