The Shine Journal

 

 

Furtive Moments

 

 

Painstakingly plain,

nothing abstract or obtuse.

No origami swans nor butterflies

awaiting my arrival.

 

Relationship scalded

by years of docile complacency.

Neither here nor there;

a mental landscape akin to tundra.

 

Literature failed me.

Always riffling through pages

franticly fastidiously flipping for

the rising action.

 

Never realizing that denouement

only happens precociously after.

Slipping, sliding until we ultimately

find ourselves back to a plaintive moment

 

 

Smeared Mascara (An Ode to Amy Winehouse)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amy Winehouse;

cracked out artist extraordinaire –

bitch-slapped a drunk student,

or was it an overeducated sort?

Swimming in pinstripes

and Wall-Street Journal

neatly folded under his arms.

A vested interest in mind –

crude jokes made cruel,

showcasing bravado.

 

Bring it on, I say.

Throw a drink her way.

Expose her beehive weave

for a tangled ratty mess.

Sell her extreme amounts of

black tar heroin(e),

or whatever is chic.

Everyone knows pain

and suffering fueled Mo-Town.

Plaster her image, make her feel insecure;

an album will surely follow.

 

 

Hint of  Winter

 

 

 

Floating dismally down the river

like an unborn thought

straggling around the rocks,

clinging to limbs

jutting at forty-five degree angles

causing me to see

your disapproving face

leaning not leering

against the wind-swept shore

I realize sentiment is dead

with the passing of autumn

into whispering winds of winter

Nestled not abashed

with the passing of our friendship

into something unfamiliar

silences, bravados and concavity

all rolled into simplicity

waiting for the spring thaw.

 

 

Bio: John is working in his spare time to break free of a life  of retail hell. He had his first poetry publication  with "Escaping the Night" on this site.
 

 

Motivation:

 

Furtive Moments: A spurt of creativity came from a song by Jonatha Brooke. The point where a person realizes that escapism is just simply that.
 

Smeared Mascara: (An Ode to Amy Winehouse): Her music is hauntingly beautiful, all created by a seemingly tragic (yet inspired) life.
 

Hint of Winter: The drifting apart of friendships /relationship as time goes on, people get older, and become different in their own ways.

 

Photo by Sophie Kia