Category Archives: my writings

Trashed

It was too personal, said far too much.
As for that one, I liked the imagery,
But it had no structure or rhymes as such,
And got no boost for lack of symmetry.
And that one, that one I tried to salvage
But the sands of time have not dulled the pain,
Nor have torrential rains become flame's bane.
So the bit grinder its soul will ravage.
Add to the heap this one I won't retouch;
Not that one, to which I cling: cripple's crutch.
Keep those on dreams that I've yet to obtain,
But let go those that are far too arcane.
Spare those that speak of my little cabbage,
Or of Christian journey telemetry.

Author’s note: i started a poem the other day in which I tried to salvage another that i have no intention of publishing, with a note explaining:

“This takes some bits and pieces from an unpublished poem that evolved over the course of about a year. One version of that poem took a dark turn after six or seven stanzas. One version was too much of a “when you know what you don’t know” situation. The most recent version of that poem doesn’t end as hopefully as I would like, though I think it does capture the sentiment of “things are falling apart, no matter what I try to do to hold them together,” or, “this is not how I pictured things would be a year ago” with an unstated “can we go back a year and get a do-over?”  I generally liked that poem, but often end up having to explain myself to some of my followers, and it was maybe too personal, and in some minds, lacking context, could be seriously misunderstood. So, I’ve opted to canabalize that one in favor of other art.

Ultimately I put that in the WordPress trash, providing the inspiration for this poem.

Copyright ©️ 2024 H.K. Longmore

The Moth and the Post-Workout Shower

Laundry room: sweaty clothes deposited.
Bathroom: bathtub water set not too hot.
Bathtub: shower stop up, cold posited,
Stand back, let that flow pass me by, I wot.
Under shower: water warmed, start the soak.
Tile wall: crawling upward, a smallish moth.
Amygdala: spray it off, spray the bloke!
Basal ganglia: let live, be not wroth.
Under shower: turn my back and lather.
Cortex prefrontal: rinsing fixation.
Window sill tile lip: condensation.
ADD: watch drip lip-water gathered.
Tile wall: moth takeoff, on silence bent.
Water drips: direct hit! Down with intent.

Copyright ©️ 2024 H.K. Longmore

Beach Wreck

Author’s note: I initially titled this “#4” because it was the fourth of my “sauna sonnet” series, and I was trying to develop a habit of writing sonnets in the sauna during my post-strength-training sauna sessions. Lest some future historian discover my poetry and chide me for such an unimaginative title, I decided to give it a different name.

Across the distance of days long and dark,
And through fields littered with chords from our past,
Solace seek in knowledge, high water mark,
Try to make joy brought by your grand smiles last.
But it's been so long, the miles fade away,
White sands pass o'er the wings of time, beach-wrecked.
Waves at my feet mock recall of that day,
Digital palms lessen rip tide's effect.
I do not fear the shame of going back,
Nor the possibility I yet lack,
But if I see your face never again
I'll let sands trade sanity for bliss,
Dreaming always of that last parting kiss
We never had, through one lifetime or ten.

Copyright ©️ 2024 H.K. Longmore

Hanging On Too Long

Sentimental doesn't do it justice,
It lacks the depth of hope unrelenting.
Delusional doesn't account, just this
Doubt for which I'm constantly repenting.
Hope springs eternal, but muddied waters
Are wont to flow from a well nigh to dry.
The flame, of hope, of love, burns far hotter
Though it be quenched by eyes too dry to cry.
Yet in holding on too long, I may lose:
I may not see missed opportunity;
May not catch meaning of your fleeting glance;
Until it's too late, and time seals my fate—
But I'll hope and pray that you may perchance
On rethought, let Cupid's arrow find mate.

Copyright ©️ 2024 H.K. Longmore

Silence, Ye Fears of the Avoidants!

For my sister, who correctly guessed this was inspired by her situation when she read it.

It was smooth sailing when first you two met,
You clicked as random parts of happy dream!
You knew no commitment, to make you fret
Or stare down the dream, in eyes a harsh gleam.
But something made it real, took scene from seams
Of dream; into realms of possible let.
Reality, to your head a hard beam,
Or in your eye it makes vision all wet.
Now your system's in fight, flight, fawn, or freeze.
To confront your fears, excruciating.
To run away, not look back, it's a breeze.
Break-up could be ameliorating.
The solution's not terse, won't fit in verse.
Confront fears, or worse, relation in hearse.

Copyright ©️ 2024 H.K. Longmore

Saline Rivers, Fresh Tides

"Come and play with us!' His fellows called out.
"Come dance with us!" Peers tried to remove doubt.
He put up no fuss, nor yet did he yield.
They knew not the reason future revealed.
Me, now, options weighed, I'd like to have played;
I'd like to have leapt and danced through the glade.
But, uncomfortable in my own skin,
I had saline rivers to cross.
For the victor is the field,
But also for the beaten down.
Both, one day, will wear a crown.
And know ye that I ye kin?
I float no better on fresh tides than salty currents;
My welcomings of the same, recurrent.

Copyright ©️ 2024 H.K. Longmore

Songbird

“the liquid coolness of things drawn from the bottom of springs,” said Thoreau, of the song of a wood thrush.

A song I’ve yet to hear, but I’ve been told I should, paired with a wonderful singing voice, awaits out in the future night. Or perhaps it will be day when I hear that lay.

Will that song remind me of drawing water from the well of spring? (A task I’ve never done.)

Or will it evoke the heat of campfires on bitter winter nights?

Take away my breath as I plunge into a glacial lake not yet warmed by summer sun?

Restore it; a rescuer’s timely arrival on the scene, as waves wash my breathless body on the strand?

Will anticipation sour the grapes? Or sweeten the long awaited musical embrace?

I’ll pray I’ll hear it someday, even if only by His grace.

Copyright ©️ 2024 H.K. Longmore

Protected: Summer’s Tail Consumed (password is “I consent to see” (without the quotes), by which you consent to see medical pictures that contain blood, blisters, open wounds, and other unpleasantness)

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Ancient Discovery

Author’s note: this one has been sitting around in my drafts collecting dust. While I work on my next post, I thought I’d blow that dust into the wind.

Discovered by man anciently
Holds the anthropologist;
Robert Frost believes
The world will end with this.

Bono sings of one unquenchable,
While Billy Joel wails, “we didn’t start it,”
And Natalie acknowledges
This house is by it consumed.

Many have been notable,
Including Chicago and Rome,
Blame laid on the cow and the Christians.

Always accompanied by heat and light,
A tool to cook and sanitize,
A weapon to destroy.
Useful for filling urns,
Required for a pyre.

Often made a metaphor
For love and hate alike

Peter Garrett sings of beds acquainted with it,
As well as something
Twenty times as hot
As the hottest stuff in Gehanna.
But there may be some thing hotter still.

Copyright © 2023 H.K. Longmore

Don’t Die

"Don't die!" she said.
The words echo through his noggin.
"I'm trying not to," he casts his reply
Into the night sky, into the past.
Years have passed since that sentiment
Was testament to her heart.
What ails him now may be more
Than his level ten nature mage's ken.
He's giving it time,
But each day the problem festers,
If color and intensity and size
Are fine attestors, the problem is winning.
Thoughts spin back to the start:
Conceptual change and a heart to mend,
The power of forgetting found.
He rethinks the time approach.
Perhaps necrotic tissue
The issue has become,
A dermatologist
May get to the bottom of this.

Copyright © 2023 H.K. Longmore

Statistically Significant

Author’s note; I wrote this a while back, but decided enough time has passed, that it was time to dust it off and put it out in the visible universe.

Apart so long,
His heart began
A mournful song,
For his tears to gan.

Desire to see her
Once again, intensifies;
Until similar features
Trick his eyes:

Others, he knows,
Are not her,
Yet seem for a moment
They could be.

These hold his gaze
Until at last
He is satisfied
They are too dissimilar.

But it seems
The greater his longing,
The less similar
Another must look;

At what degree of dissimilarity
Will his eyes cease their tricks?
What is the threshold to keep them
Statistically significant?

©2023 H.K. Longmore

Out to Lunch

Allow me to set the stage:
The stage was set,
From strings to winds,
Percussion at their back.

Trombone scans the audience
Looking for familiar face;
Between strings and lights,
Sees none.

No matter,
Though life-changing it could be:
Now is time to focus,
Now is time to play.

Trombone shifts to euphonium;
Focus, his shadow.
Back to trombone,
Shadow maintained.

Applause over,
Ovations ended,
Instruments
Clear the stage.

Brain out to lunch, shadow stays;
Trombone turns to talk to tuba,
Then bid farewell until next time
The orchestras combine.

Leaving the stage,
To retrieve his shell,
Trombone's brain
Returns from lunch.

"By the way,"
Trombone brain says,
Replaying the recording made
While out to lunch,

"Someone called out,
'Nice job on the trombone!'
While you were talking to the tuba."
It may have been that familiar face.

Already gone from the stage,
And minutes passed,
Trombone
Picks up the pace.

Back on stage,
Putting instruments in case,
Trombone searches remaining audience,
Finds no familiar face.

Trombone leaves
To put all gear
In his car,
Then enters again

In search of that voice,
That face.

Crowd thinned,
It was clear,
The Complimenter
Had left.

Trombone replayed the compliment,
To identify the voice;
Memory obscured by delay
Before the replay.

Time steals clarity,
Memory morphs,
'Til Trombone remembers it
As if compliment was heard when spoken,

Leaving Trombone with the guilt
Of ignoring the Complimenter,
And the effect,
But not the intention.

© 2023 H.K. Longmore