painting - Lilac Dove

Free verse poem: Belongings

This is a free verse poem about attachment and detachment – defeat on behalf of simplicity’s sake.

I didn’t expect myself to still feel like this
And my mother laughs because it’s only been a few days
But I feel like it’s dragging on
It’s dragging on
And we didn’t even come to the conclusion of what would become our song
So what am I here to do
Sitting in the corner of the modern, moss-green, vibrantly street-lit café,
A damsel in despondency,
A variation of your favourite four-course strings
A broken-down parlor path with a shiny diamond entryway and glass slippers lining the blizzard-sinking ships,
That match my cruelty
My taste for rabid tongue
The whispers I wouldn’t let you utter
And the hesitation you’d be lucky to never have suffered

*Portrait of Princess Tatyana Yusupova (1850) by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, oil on canvas*

A chance for melancholia to clash with the force of nature
To detract from a foreign film
A lost, aching still
An avalanche of surprise
Beguiled by sheer imagination and phosphorescent icing

That smothers a kingdom like the holiest ghost
Always bittersweet to the liking
Made for sharp, pristine vengeance

*Sans Titre (Untitled) 115 by Eliane L. Guerin, oil on canvas*

In my own reserved portrait of solitude
Gazing vibrantly at the majestic cars that drive by
The classics, the tragic
The ancient and recumbent
Reoccurring in stunning ways I could not even think to properly illuminate in due time
Typing
Silently
Wishing you were next to me
Smiling
The way you do
The way you do
So magnificent
Eyes glimmering in concave and crimson, blue
God, I was this close to being obsessed with you

I feel like
A teenager
An angry one
A bitter fool
Mad at myself because I brushed away the
The fleeting thoughts of nah, he won’t like me if I say that
Nah, he won’t like me if I wear that
Nah

*The Bath (1874) by Alfred Emile Leopold Stevens, oil on canvas*

I’m moving in circles because I forgot how to dance
I forgot how to feel alive
I trip over my own words
Everything is in disarray
I thought you were going
I thought you were going
I thought you were going to make it work
I thought you were
I thought you were
I thought you were going to make it work with me
I thought you were
I so thought you would have
Made it work with me
And that would be
Meaningful
Hopeful
Spontaneously planned
Crimson and clover all over
Soft rubber bands

Now you’ve got me in a pit and you
Hung up on me
I threw my cellular device on the street
I don’t want to talk to anybody
Anybody at all
Anybody at all
Anybody at all
Anybody at all

I’m not writing another poem about a boy that doesn’t have the strength to come
Tell me it’s not working
Stand there in your clandestine flesh
Stand there, giving me a real piece of yourself
Look at me with dandelions in my hair

*Mending the Gown (early 20th century) by Adolphe Borie (1877-1934), oil on canvas, figurative artwork*

Don’t say I’m too charming for you
Tell me I’m too alarming for you
Tell me I scare the living daylights out of you

And you’ve got other girls calling you
Answer the phone in front of me
Take the flowers out of my hair
Push me down on the tar-stained sidewalk
Bully me like you do on your bad days
Get your way

That’s how I want you to leave me

Not like
Not like
Not like
Not like
Not like
Not like
Not like
Not like

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Open-Air-Interior-barcelona-1892-Ramon-Casas-i-Carbo.jpg — *Open Air Interior Barcelona (1892) by Ramon Casos i Carbo, oil on canvas*

Worn desperation
Mixing in fevers of separation

But I thought I
Belonged

Thank you for reading, & be sure to visit paypal.me/LilacDoveCA to buy me a coffee for my birthday on September 14, 2022.

Thank you for your support – currently working on the cocktail party poetry collection.

xoxo

Free verse love poem: Speaking volumes (white florals)

I’m in the pool, with your gentle gaze moving toward the horizon
Smooth riverbeds, crashing yet
Solemn
Tender in their collapsing wake
My sovereign ways trap you like hurricanes
Find slumber in the rectitude of my rendition of a classic painting of a
Prince attending to a young queen
Dismayed at her place, though in a quiet peace,
That glances violently towards a moral upbringing
A softness I couldn’t portray

The Dressing of the Favorite (1857), oil on canvas, by Henri Pierre Picou (French, 1824-1895)

A sea-foam fog dynasty I swore was mine
I told you the truth
It mattered to me
I found thoughts in my mind that I couldn’t hold back, entirely
Though I did my best,
To provide you with rest
My satin sheath, vibrant with scarlet cardinal fibers
The delicate breeze, like rapture
Golden but never, truth be told, reflecting lightning that makes marks in the sky
A tribute to no one
Is every structure soon to fall down?
The bolts unfastened, my lace dress & ultramarine form
A silhouette only God could have created
A boldness that scares away anyone who isn’t
Strong enough
To hold a woman in his arms and
Not want to change her

The light pink August calendar I have on my contemporary glass tabletop
That forgot the date when we
Began things
Paved was our course with giving looks at each other like we’re in a vintage film
A theatre for just the two of us
Hopeful dedication
Watching our past conversations and having new conversations about those from before
We don’t run out of things to talk about
But when you find me watching the cars on the road pass by us, viciously,
Counting the trucks
Taking note of their model and make
You see something in me that I could not tell you
Not because I can’t find the right words
I always find the right words

*Along the Siene, Winter (1887) by Frederick Childe Hassam (American impressionist painter, 1859-1935)*

I don’t know what you know
And I don’t know if you know me
But when your gaze becomes increasingly familiar, I cascade into a
Reflection interrupted by the silliest words you stream together
A childlike ambiance, golden in accuracy
Crisp like a wave’s current
Interjected with passing a cigarette lighter
Getting higher
From rays of the subtle light of day,
Muted only in temperament
Dulcet on the edges
I told you I was yours
I meant it, of course

*Le Baiser (The Kiss) (commissioned by the French state in 1888, carved between 1888-98) by Auguste Rodin (French sculptor, 1840-1917)*

We stop at the gas station; you run in to the corner store; you bring me honey green tea
For your girl (that is a friend)
Patient and kind
A dove’s brisk white feathers
Softer than mankind
Rougher than a woman’s fingertips
Comfortable in the chaos
Surrendering to a time when you could count the green specks in my eyes
And smell my white floral perfume

It seems as of now we have moved on to the Heavens
Where you call me Venus
And I mistake you for someone I’ve never known before
An oceanic climate to the boulders we create
When we feel inclined to say
Why do I like you so much?
Why do I like when you’re rough?
I do still find, thinking to myself, whether I’m good enough
But when the porch light comes on,
I move the thought along
To the binder where I keep my disarrayed opinions
Resolving to find
Some water to allow
My throat to stop tightening when I get up during the night
Patience, my ever-present accomplishment, finds its way to you
Presenting an elegance you couldn’t get from anyone else

*Improvisation (1899) by Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935), oil on canvas*

I find myself in spaces
When you are absent
Distress being transient
Because your face is

A discernment I couldn’t get from anyone else

The Aleutian mountains and the disintegrating cliffs
Couldn’t mask the foundation I thought we’d bring
Resolving to find
Some water to allow

My throat to stop closing when I sleep at night
I wonder if styrofoam composure could fail to observe my fright
To weave in serenity in light shades of pink,

On days like today, I’m unsure how to drink
Come, lay in bed