My Silent Valentine
We met in spring and Oh! I loved you well!
Your sweet words sucked me with a magnet’s pull.
Your hands were flags upon a victory wind.
I told you secrets never meant to tell
And crocheted you droopy articles of wool.
My hair for you was grown and kept unpinned.
We parted in the fall with much hot air
Expended in explaining lying facts.
Your lips built a canal; each flatulent word
of ego and self-justifying prayer
floated merrily down in streaming tracts,
written by an inner idiot I’d never heard.
Now I have no love, no heart’s delight
Beyond a rainbow garden and a good dog
That live beside me and are truly mine,
And a solemn headstone clean of praise or spite
Where beneath the earth, beside a crumbling log
you are finally, sweetly silent, Valentine.
February 2011
Posted for A Saturday Celebration, Valentine's Day at the inimitable One Stop Poetry
Image: Les Amoureux (Soir d'automne, Idylle sur la passerelle) by Emile Friant, 1888
"My Silent Valentine"
ReplyDeleteLoved it.... so nicely written!
Well shut my mouth, sugar. His rap got a trifle old, did it? I love love love the middle section with the canals and the inner idiot.
ReplyDeleteI'm told that worn-out loves make ideal fertilizer. Another sardonic gem from you, Missy.
Fabulous poem, it drew me in and I kept re-reading it.
ReplyDeleteThe picture seems to suit it very well too.
This made me feel so sad!
ReplyDeleteaghh...never trust a guy who wears a pork pie hat
ReplyDeleteDear Readers, If it's my evil, cynical nature making you sad, that I can understand, but if the poem itself is making you sad, I can only ask that you please read it again, or look up the word flatulent or something.
ReplyDeleteThank you Rene--you restore my faith.
ReplyDeleteTerrific read, as always, Joy!!! I love how you slip in lovers of their own flatulent words...hahaha and how they end up as all air even on a headstone. A beautfiul painting to match, too! Thanks so much, oh so so much!
ReplyDeleteoh - this started so romantic and ended so sad...fabulous write though...the sweet words sucking with a magnet's pull and the hands like flags upon a victory wind...loved it
ReplyDeletehaha...love it...flatulant words...snort. and then of course the punch line...or was it a shovel to the head...or colonel mustard in the library with a candlestick...either way, enjoy the silence...smiles.
ReplyDeletesilence is golden...
ReplyDeleteI'm loving reading Valentines cuz everyone's is different - people dying, unfaithful, some aren't real
Glad you posted this for One Stop to enjoy
and from my sick mate - Cheers!!!
lol @ Rene
ReplyDeleteHa! A dead Valentine. Nice one. Love the language of the second stanza. And there's no better companion than a dog.
ReplyDeleteA rainbow garden and a good dog can make up for a lot. I really enjoyed this, hedgewitch.
ReplyDeleteI loved the way this was written. In light of this though I see a sense of strength in letting go of a love that was untrue, "dead and gone" ~ Excellent wordplay! =) ~April
ReplyDeleteAdored "written by an inner idiot"......loved the rainbow garden and good dog....and especially "the solemn headstone clean of praise or spite." Love your sardonic streak a whole lot!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteJoy,
ReplyDeleteYou are a form maven!
Time silences the spite.
Almost. I had thought about such a past, just this week. I had to wash the silence down with some bottled water.
Trulyfool
Dear Hedgewitch: Ohh I love this! I particularly like the lead up and then switch. I was thinking, that this was a lost love not a dead one! Good thing that crumbling log gave me a visual clue! I'd be thinking the old fart would be back again to crush the roses!
ReplyDeleteDarlin' this is the most honest Valentines day poem I have ever read.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how can a 'grumpy old witch'(as you called yourself at my site) write such a beutiful poem?
ReplyDeleteEvery line is a bunch of amazing metaphors about a love which was and remains in a form of 'those were the times when I believed and now look what that they call love has left in me'
Simply superb
♥ anyway! .)