The Seventh

[Skrappybiskit]

This is a poetic about a dude struggling with guilt and the consequences of actions, and the souring that comes after backhand sweetness.

The Seventh

Her feet tap lightly across the kitchen floor, like
they did in times past. How did
memory become attached to something
so trivial?

When she comes to bed, the sheets rustling
are the chafing guilt,
the singed conscience fighting back. I can
remember a day when
this was not so.

Kissing her holds no joy, like placing
lips on a manequin, moistening plastic.
It is the brief exchange
of saliva, making
me shudder,

to walk away with no explaination.
Outside, the air is fresh, the wind
is cold.

I have a cigarette, even though
I've never smoked. I glance up a disappointed and
frowning moon crowned with judgemental
stars.

All of this to say that there was once
I could read the seventh
without blushing.

-- Skraps

[cbluejays]

another fine poem...

after I read this one, it felt like there was a lump suddenly in my heart, and it felt like my breath stopped for a short second...that's how I know a poem is really good...

 

[xsuchgreatHEIGHTS]

Kissing her holds no joy, like placing
lips on a manequin, moistening plastic.

Good Poem.

I especially like the line that I quoted.

[Skrappybiskit]

A sip, now and then, from a glass half-full
isn't so bad, or so goes the
rationalization.
When fifteen, it's hard to see the bottom, hard
to know when to stop, to put
the cup down and back away.

But then again, it's harder to stop at
twenty-two, when it seems more like
evaporation than consumption. When it
seems like life is taking and not leaving,
like a pack-rat in feeling.

Ask an eighty-five year old man, who
wears a crown of celebration like white
gold. Ask your grandmother if she saved war rations
in little containers, down in the cellar
like preserves.

To not drink, the young mind say, is madness.
To drink deeply before death, to smile
at one lungful,
to not take in small mouthfuls,
this is not life.