REVERIE - I THOUGHT

I thought we’d like

the same music

read the same books

see the same movies

I was wrong

I thought short of merit

our lives would dance freely

in our own clumsy way

we’d see ourselves

in one another

 I thought

I thought candle light and flowers

would swirl waves of passion

we’d like the same wine

confront the same dogmas

thought you’d be love’s metaphor

the imagery I fashioned

we’d be souls entwined in time

inseparable together

 I was wrong

thought I’d never be bored

thought I’d never be lonely

thought your touch

would make me tremble

thought our love

would warm and cuddle

thought what’s yours

would be mine

thought what’s mine

would be ours

thought I’d free myself

to be myself

thought I’d see myself

in you

I was wrong

From "EMBRACE" by Shirley Howard Hall

Available on all on-line sites,  Amazon.com, all e-readers, and Barnesandnoble.com.

WORKLESS

I miss your

morning greetings

rewards

throughout my day

the challenges

your scripts impose

the benefits you paid

bestowing incentives

for bonus

rewarding each year

with a raise

enriching each hour

perfecting each task

applauding my genius

through praise

all I could be

you challenged

you broadened my outlook

my views

provided food, clothing,

and shelter

my dreams and ambitions

infused

in a world of global recession

at the realm of depression and gloom

my career, my job, my future

all gone

laid-off

andI miss it

©Shirley2009

VOWS

In holy matrimony
poverty rapes me
to have and to hold
in rancid tent cities
cold hungry and seething
in rat tainted alleys
I human it demon
at hells bleeding door

for better for worse
an ineffable darkness
in spirals of nakedness
sickness and health
in ribbons of hopelessness
women and children
in shelters on breadlines
as poverty’s whores

for richer for poorer
to loathe and admonish
lead paint and malaria
I pledge thee my troth
before god and witness
damn poverty’s vision
forsaking all others
damn poverty’s fame

in nuptial repugnance
privation consumes me
my rodent gnawed fingers
it brands with this ring
now begging on street corners
rummaging dump sites
now wed and impoverished
I whore in its name

SIRE

daddy believes in me
loves me with incest
grinding and gifts
from rich people stores

in morning time sunshine
like teacher in evening
like uncle at bedtime
on cold bathroom floors

his little princess
her perfect angel
his favorite niece
in pretty pink bows

despoilers of spirit
they defile and abuse me
in secretive places
so no one will know

that my daddy loves me
with unlawful fervor
like uncle at bedtime
his own little whore

©Shirley2009

DEPORTED

DEPORTED

illicitly
you eradicated my very existence
divested me of all
that was good in my life
amputated my freedoms
pilfered my citizenship
labeled me terrorist
radical activist
deported me vicariously

in the name
of homeland security
you
confiscated my happiness
smitten my wife and child
exiled and forsaken me
to a land I’ve never seen
to a tongue I’ve never spoken

I patriot
wartime veteran
born upon the humbled shores
of this great nation
did I not fret the drudgery
of your illegal wars
slave within the
bowels of your blackened mines
does my man-child not
bear the names
of your great leaders

I beg thee
in the name
of homeland security

rip the breath
from my asbestos filled lungs
singe the lesions from
my cancerous skeleton
bash this skull
of post-traumatic disorders

for
the gates of hell
are far more beguiling
than to be labeled terrorist
exiled and deported
to a land
I’ve never seen
to a tongue
I’ve never spoken

©Shirley2009