.Nostalgia.

Write a poem or poems about the past.  Can be of any Era.  Make it vivid, unique.  

No Limit on Entries
New or Old
24 Line Min ~ 4 Line Max
1 Week to Enter


***example***

circa. 1979

11 p.m.

Brooklyn

multi-colored
dance floor

disco
  balls
strobe
  lights

a Donna Summer
record spins

maroon dress
with a thigh high
split
a glittery pin comb
in her hair


1979

***

         bullets never get lonely


sometimes my brain takes off in a 40’s black&white direction

yeah, Bogart tough-&-cool
sittin’ at his splintered desk with his fedora
pushed back, tie loose, and then:
“she walked into my office on a pair o’ legs
that could burn down Hitler’s heart.”

beat up from the grime & the crime on the streets.
pursued between jobs by a scandalous muse; he
holsters his Beretta & picks up a ball point, to deal
in hard-boiled poetics. conjures up an ode to love,
his beautiful, heartless mistress, written on the back
of an unpaid bill…

nights full of danger & deception, whether tracking a
wayward wife, or exchanging noir dialogue with a
seductive but lethal blonde, who tries to con him with
those Bette Davis eyes.

hours that stretch long & boring, followed by blood-
pumping moments of gunfire, brilliant flashes breaking
the absolute dark. with or without the symphonics:
Mozart in riot gear. heartbeats like jungle drums, until a
man screams…..& dies.

sometimes the moon offers a brief vindication: soft music
& a doll to kiss away the heartbreak.
maybe the dame with the legs…

A letter from the Mountains

Dear John
The ice is thick the snow is deep
The sky is blue but unmerciful still
Its heated cauldron is so up high

Since we landed on this white wasteland
The jagged peaks around us loom
Like dragon’s teeth planted on the ground
My heart is breaking as I say this

Our son, yours and mine
He breathed his last today
He was broken deep inside
In both his body and his spirit

I weep, no, I wail, I grief
For him our only son
Born of my womb
Consecrated with your love

Our first born
Our beloved
Would that I died in his stead
Would that I know where heaven is

I would trade myself for him
So you will see your son once more
So you can embrace him
My beloved husband

My Love
It has been a week since the tragedy
I see no signs of rescuers
No humming of helicopters

There are little sounds here
Except for the screaming winds
Gushing through the plane’s broken wings
Almost all have perished

For food is gone and morale is low
Along with the others,  
Our daughter is fading away
Just six, she is so sick

My beloved John, My husband
I am one of two that’s still alive
I am fading fast, I feel so light
Our daughter’s in my arms

Dead those four days
I leave to see our son now
There is light around us
Roars of clapping thunder

Rotating lights and flashing lightning
Waves of screaming voices
I can’t see them but they are near
Are they angels of death then…


(this is an old poem I wrote about a plane crash..modified it a bit)

Carlos Gardel Sings Better Every Day
 


Chafing laundry
across an
old-stilted-block
Berthe Gardes
spilled
midsummer-lyrics
and arrangements
into the
crisp-baroque-ambiance
Birds
stopped in their journey
to relish the
splendor in her
lone voice

Her sin
giving birth to a
bastard-phenomenon
whose baritone cylinders
would ignite the
midnight market
Later
imploding an airplane
A curious defeat
of voyage

Ending an
epoch of
musical-virtuosity
Propelling an
indulgence of
lust-filled-appetite

In
smoke-stained-bars
the world mourned
to the sounds of
orgasmic-cadence

Which continues
to drench
open legs of
Latin-pirouetting
worldwide


[.]


This is an "old write" entry

Billie
 
orchids frame the portals of her executioner's escape  
 
though she's never seen the bitch in her true form  
just dressed as a White Lady  
 
her whorish twin pimped out in small doses  
by the same men who own her and her melodies  
 
she sings of Strange Fruit  
dangling above magnolias in Georgia  
and bluebonnets in Texas  
 
nectar of the fruit  
fall like sunflower seeds  
blackened husks cracked open  
and spit out  
 
only the flesh is needed for consumption  
so till the soil with more shit  
as long as it all looks  
 
pretty

Charlene (1976)
 
the scent of moonlight was trapped in my nostrils when  
 
chortles of the cockcrow overflowed from my ears and drowned my eyes announcing another chance  
 
a mere man-child  
my lanky limbs begged the aching between my legs to cease  
but I couldn't help but think about her  
 
she was licorice and smelled of nutmeg  
 
breakfast was calling  
 
my grandmother would pulverize tablespoons  
of charcoaled beans  
so's they'd simmer into liquid midnight  
 
there was cornbread  
honey toned like my grandma Lina  
Bacon  
eggs  if the chickens were layin' right  
 
but I loved my sips of coffee best  
slurping her in  
her texture warm and wet  
echoes of a Carolina blossom  
 
she became my tutor  
and I learned to slowly savor  
the notes of bull grapes and  
juniper and  
oak skirted in Spanish moss    
 
my first kiss tasted like coffee  
 
now coffee tastes like my first kiss  
 
Mornin' comes  
 
And I still ache like a boy.

The Black Box
Tonight as I lay in bed
Thoughts of the past float in my head

I remember looking at your picture, tracing your face
I even had it covered in a protective case...

Tonight is bittersweet because of the box, the box that saved my mind
But time isnt so kind, the box is hard to find

In it is the hoodie with some bluegrass bands logo
The framed picture that you sent... I couldn't let go

I hold the box, I won't open it at all
I open it and I know I will fall

A tear falls slowly down my cheek
For your love is simply not what I seek

I just want to know... do you have a box too?
What color is it? Is it blue?

You remember... I know you do
But why have you remembered when you could have forgotten too...

Tonight is bittersweet as I let the fact it'll never be the same
Blend into my being, so let us begin over... hello, what's your name...
Written by BlueBeastGirl

Grandma's House

Early on, I was interred in your garden
while you lie buried in a window frame,
head cradled by grey smoke.

You left me to somber obscurity,
the tender china heaped in Sprite,
pressed chicken, a fuzzy saliva
of gramophone lovers.
My guts churned wrought-iron

as I gazed at a Jesus-blood tinderbox
then we slept velvety as if our dreams
were drenched in Deitrich-pink silk,
and they were.

In the bathroom a scent of Dove bars
and feces. You'd settle all satiny
against marcasite morbidity
and sickly thimbles of creams
and it was then I saw you clearly -

a styrofoam head
blanched lovely by despair,
eyebrows fine as pencil lines.

Miss BlueBeastGirl it was the very last line of your "box" that did me in as I can relate. . .so Congratulations.

and Senor Lobo. . .there's just something about Billie Holiday. . .it's her 'Good morning, Heartache' that gets me every time. . .Congrats

and Miss toniscales. . .I don't have much memory of my Grandmother's so I enjoyed yours. . .Congrats.


~ Devlin.

I really enjoyed reading the reflections presented by everyone ... Just incredible.

Thanks for the nod Devlin, but everyone here was (is) the real joy.

CONGRATS! bluebeastgirl and toniscales!

Thank you so much for hosting and for the nod, Devlin. Bluebeastgirl is amazing, and no one can ever compare to the great LSP. All the entries were exquisite (have to give mention to Mr. Feddeler's consistently ensorcelling work). Proud to be among you talented people... Thanks so much again.