AS BELIEF SLIPS AWAY

I wait
you disappear
I have adapted to the uncertainty
having studied the meaninglessness
of everything
as belief slips away

The celibate angels
are heading home
bleeding from the mouth

These diminutive princesses
are walking with a phantom
eyes filled with sleep

Glasses are lifted

A muted announcer
a dark-eyed lover
a tipsy comedian
imitates a woman
violently histrionic

You're as freaky
as a Fellini movie
those painted faces
in a room full of rogues

But the critics
questioning the old notions
have forgiven the abstract world
and so must I

So I wait
through the long summer
for the sun to set
in some gilded autumn sky
and you to come breezing by

WAITING GAME (a pantoum)

Poetry Potluck

One Shot Wednesday

I have led a life of great anticipation...

trading the hours of my days for the digits in a ledger--

biding my time; buying into the myth of security in numbers

and always believing that love was just around the corner.

Trading the hours of my days for that which gave me pleasure,

I languished in lobbies and watched the women of the world walk by,

assured the law of averages was in my corner--

a lonely sojourner playing the waiting game.

Watching the worldly women walk by,

I lobbied for a glance or a smile--

a lonely sojourner playing the waiting game,

still convinced that love was just around the corner.

And so, with a glance or a smile,

once in a while one would come my way--

curious, as she was, to see if love was just around the corner,

and for a while we'd fill the empty space with laughter.

Yes, now and then one would come my way,

but in the end those who wait are never waiting for each other--

mindful, as they are, of love that's just around the corner,

leaving just an empty space and the memory of laughter.

And near the end, those who wait will always hold a place for one another--

finding, as they do, a kind of purity in numbers,

trying to fill some empty space with memories and laughter...

leading lives of great anticipation.