DD Poem - A Divorced Dad Finds A Balloon

Hey.

It's my birthday.  And here's this week's Divorced Dad poem.

A Divorced Dad Finds a Balloon

Midtown on a Sunday morning

And you can hear the city holding its breath.

Hungover, the night prior worn itself to the dry nub.

He’s out to donate some old clothes, from his fatter self,

Before his chin grew hard and he stopped eating as much.

That done, he’s marking his way home,

And almost trips across a lost traveler, a semi-deflated

Mylar balloon.  Silver, with a rainbow and the words:
BIRTHDAY GIRL shining across the orb.

The string at the end dips and tests the concrete,

Like a cat searching for a final, clandestine place

To lie down, to offer death a present of itself.

He pauses.  Surely someone’s sad to have abandoned

This little treat, he thinks.   But, by the barely floating

Gumption inside the hobbling stranger, he knows

This can’t be true.  It was thrown away.  Thought useless.

And, with that resolution, he wraps the cord around his

Tawny knuckles, presses the film of the balloon to his cheek,

And they walk, together.  Side to side.

In an embrace.   It has been so long, so long,

Since he’s been held, by anyone, for any reason.

Balloon kisses him slightly with each step, as he cradles

The soft, tender undercarriage of its body.

It won’t be long.  He knows. A day, two. The air will cease.

He’ll wake up and find a shell lying on the floor by his black futon.

But now, this holy now, they are together.

TFLN Poem -Customer Service, Cunnilingus

Hey,

Here's this week's  www.textsfromlastnight.com poem.

(337):

Sincerely. Thanks. You could have thought of anyone sitting on your face but you chose me. :)

In a concerned effort

To improve customer service in the future,

Would you please rank the following questions

(on a scale of 1-10 , worst to best)?

1)How would you describe last night’s verbal patter/foreplay? Did it meet your desired levels of bon mots, whispered innuendo, and vulnerable coupling?   

2) What was your opinion of the room and its fixtures (i.e, the  Yayoi Kusama

Print, the muted, Spartan furnishings, the slight smell of sandalwood)   

3)Was ample attention paid to the precise style of oral ministrations desired by the requestor? 

4)How would you rank tongue speed  and dexterity?   

5) Due to the lateness of the hour and your urgent text which led to this impromptu  face-sitting, we did not explore other pleasures. You had reached out for some, and even attempted to unzip my jeans, and I gently brushed you away.  A call was made that your pleasure alone was needed this night.  Was that judgement correct?  

   

6) Based on your experience with this evening, would you recommend this service to your friends? 

7)When you finally fell asleep, and I softly removed your glasses and placed them safely on the ottoman, while watched your shivering ribs rise and fall, did you know that, for a minute, I leaned in close, right to your nape, felt your pulse resonate on my lips, and I kissed it? The only kiss we had that night?   

 

On behalf of the management, I thank you for the time and detail taken to completing this survey.

May you be always satisfied, and may I see you soon.

DD Poem - A Divorced Dad Completes A Crossword Puzzle

Hey.

Here's this week's poem.

A Divorced Dad Completes a Crossword Puzzle

6am in a tattered diner.  Orange, faded barstools

Sliced open decades ago by vandals, the plastic

Gnarled and pinching tight against the skin.

He’s on his fourth cup of coffee.  Eyes down,

Ballpoint pen scanning the last remaining mystery.

14 across:  “Dante’s Distraught Destination”

Nine letters. 

The silence of the diner is broken by a quartet

Of two gaggling couples, barging into a booth.

Still fresh from drinking, loudly holding conversation.

He shuts his eyes. Presses his pen into the empty pocket

Of the first box. Breathes and sifts more sugar into

The cup.  The couples prate:  Can you believe how many

Camera bags Chester has now?  I mean, honey?  Isn’t that just

Too much? /Not if I keep buying cameras/Remember, remember,

Remember when we had that tequila phase we went through where

We just couldn’t stop buying Peruvian hybrids/And now our cupboard’s so bare, you

Won’t let me work/Because you want to get a silly job like bartending.  I told him, Louise,

I told him, if he gets a bar job, there’s no way we’d see each other. Me teaching full time and all. 

Just two sleeping shapes in the same house/But think of all the free alcohol….

He watches, morbid with fascination.

Because he’s seen this horror film. He knows how time, the predictable sculptor,

Will carve them, suffer them. Sober them. 

And then, before his chin can quiver with the shared agreement of loss,

The answer, it appears:  A DARK WOOD.

Onto the page.  He slaps a twenty on the counter, an extremely generous tip for

Time, glances once more at the two merry couples, and

He walks.  He walks with no direct destination, but with purpose.

TFLN poem - Rectification, Roofies

Hey, Here's this week's www.textsfromlastnight.com poem.  Knocked this one off in a hurry because I'm behind on a lot of projects. But, keeping to a schedule of writing is a good thing for a body to do.

(815):

I mean, how am I going to build a relationship on trust if he finds out I roofied him?

 

You deepen the mystery.

That’s how you tender the hearth,

The smoky, seasoned coals of love.

Illusion must be kept.

Shadows and the landscape of fingerprints for sex.

Hair color modified, the original hue long forgotten.

There’s a door in the bathroom for a reason.

My ablutions, my quiet and waste-bearing time,

Needs to be apart from him.

A church of noise and water.

The beginning of it all shouldn’t matter.

So I slipped a pill in his drink. So he stumbled

Into my apartment.

So I peeled off his clothes and watched him breathe

Like a frightened goldfish.

In time, he shuddered to my insistent touch.

In time, we locked our hips together

And staring, chased the pleasure

Percolating from our hungry want.

What holds, what keeps, is the bleeding now.

And if I break this mystery,

All others will crumble

And I’ll just be another barely contained shape

DD Poem - A Divorced Dad Rides the Subway

Hey.

Here's this week's Divorced Dad Poem:

A Divorced Dad Rides the Subway

Outside. It’s always a dangerous gambit.

He’s prepared. Subway pass secured and tapping his wallet.

Each step down into the station becomes choreographed falling.

On the bottom step, a rat, previously hidden,

With its lower half pulped and savagely bleeding,

In defiance of his fatal condition,

Lunges past him towards the open air.

What do you do when you encounter your familiar?

And what happens once that kindred spirit has left you,

Most likely to fight and spit and bleed itself out for a few

Hours at most, until his tiny, determined eyes grow ossified

And the struggle ends?

He’s marinating on this worry, hands shaking as he slides the pass,

Pushes his hip between the turnstile,

And steps down onto the platform.

Thought chewing pensive upon pensive thought,

When out of the random circumstance,

A spritely  mohawked  woman in a jean jacket

Exits a newly arrived subway car,

Spies him, holds up her tattooed hand and exclaims:

High Five!

He turns, and with equal passion, slaps her hand.

He’s back in the connected, loving world.

Sidles into an open seat.

And covets that small, tender mercy of being seen.

Being known.

Hand to hand.