Tag Archives: future absence

Beach Wreck

Posted on 14 June 2024 | Leave a comment

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

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Saline Rivers, Fresh Tides

Posted on 3 June 2024 | Leave a comment 
"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

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The Nearly Departed

Posted on 27 March 2015 | Leave a comment

An elegiac ode

The time has nearly come,
Her next phase now looms on the horizon.
We can feel her excitement: with it the air hums.
She counts the days aloud; one chokes on a tisane.

“What will you do when I’m gone?” she inquires.
Comes her friend’s reply, “I’ll be sad.”
“The person who replaces me will be so rad,
You’ll forget me in a month.” Aye, if that were desired.

Nay, not even then:
Life of the party, the party planner;
Infectious energy, flirtatious manner;
Always in memory, e’en if not in ken.

Another swallows hard, hearing;
Her mannerisms still endearing,
Even as she is heading out the door,
Perhaps to be seen nevermore.

He’ll likely have to leave soon thereafter:
Ghosts of conversation, lingering laughter,
Conjured up at every corner, echo ’round his head;
For his body and brain become lead.

His absence will start with a change in lunchtime venue:
In the break room he’ll become persona perdu.
Lunch hour will be for music instead of food,
A means to dampen his brooding mood.

And yet that won’t be enough
To fill the void, to try to forget.
He’ll still have to hang tough:
No paillette can steal the vignettes of this brunette.

Some might say she would have stayed,
That he could have made it so;
But to her desk he no longer strayed.
His head says he chose wisely;
The pain in his heart betrays a “No!”

In a month’s time you think he’d forget?
Au contraire, mon chéri;
Forgive the expression and be not wary:
In this matter I think you’re all wet.

©2015 H.K. Longmore

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