Daily Archives: February 3, 2016

If you’re a poet

humor, humorous poetry, humorous verse, humour, poem, poems, poetic license, poetry, poets

if I called a rose a daisy it would still smell the same
but the rose may be unhappy to have the wrong name

if I accused you of cowardice when caution was required
I would be to blame when your anger was fired

if I called you a grouch when you felt depressed
you’d be even less happy and you’d feel more oppressed

if I called you silly when we couldn’t agree
what kind of person would that make me?

if you rename cheese and you call it chalk
nobody will listen to you when you talk

but if you’re a poet you can break this rule
the licence allows you to play the fool

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©Jane Paterson Basil

She left me snowdrops

addiction, dangerous love, drug addiction, drug psychosis, drugs, experimental poetry, psychosis

she sends
innocent looking texts
begging my attention, with
overblown love, extravagant kisses
and oft repeated claims of how she longs
to see me,of how greatly she misses me
her words sometimes timerous,
occasionally belligerant
but more often with
faint humility.

she left me snowdrops

however her words sound I need to ignore them,
sincere they may be; I know she adores me, but I also know she wants to destroy me
and as the months stretch, my grief for her recedes an inch
as if she were already dead

but she left me snowdrops
fragrant snowdrops, promising spring
and fresh beginnings

I get regular reminders of her damaging acts,  her statements
to the cops, exempt from facts, false allegations of rape and abuses,
directed at any man who flatly refuses to satisfy her single important aim
by feeding her collapsing greedy veins, and anyone who’s careless enough to care,
will quickly fall into her snare. her former beauty has long since fled,
so she sells ugliness and shame instead. there are plenty
of men with degraded tastes; there are plenty
of men with a longing to abase.

but she left me snowdrops
snowdrops, shy, downcast, not quite meeting my eye
fragrant snowdrops, promising spring
and fresh beginnings

I know her serenade is designed to trap
once she’s lulled me to sleep she’ll bite and snap
she has a dangerous ability to drive me mad
stealing my mind of all the sense I have

but she left me snowdrops
snowdrops, my greatest floral weakness
snowdrops, shy, downcast, not quite meeting my eye
fragrant snowdrops, promising spring
and fresh beginnings

she is broken, I am ripped
I understand she wants to slip
beneath my skin, and break me apart
so she can sink her teeth into my heart
thinking it will finally make us one
tie us in a death-knot
that can never be
undone

so she left me snowdrops
my beloved, lost child left me snowdrops
tiny, dripping tears

©Jane Paterson Basil