Tag Archives: jealousy

Touché

Posted on 13 May 2016 | Leave a comment

A touch is made to lamé
With blade épée,
One’s mettle to assay;
Or for swordplay.

Another is to allay
The dread of possible fey—
A rope, not frayed,
A climber to belay.

One touch doth bewray
An attitude blasé
Toward fine bouchée
Or rich pâté

To one’s dismay,
A touch someday
Arises from sashay,
Dress, not step, soigné.

You may find it cliché,
Often child’s play:
A touch to parlay
One browsing goods you purvey.

And though it lacks visé,
This is no hearsay:
Loving touché
Alive through envié,

Becomes not forté
But Woodsman’s wedge doth convey;
On a line partway
Betwixt foray and force play.

Intended to assert revendiqué,
Yet with gentle touché,
A chasm généré
Between source and marqué.

© 2016 H.K. Longmore

Leave a comment

Posted in poetry

Tagged , , , , , ,

Warning Signs

Posted on 24 December 2014 | Leave a comment

A warning sign for some medications:
Do not take this with alcohol.
Another alongside the first:
Do not operate heavy machinery.

It’s important to understand
The reasons for the warnings,
Lest in contradiction
One finds self destruction.

A warning sign for construction zones:
Hard hat required.
Another near the first:
Danger High Voltage.

How many ways must it be said
To drive home the point
If you don’t know what you’re doing,
You’d best keep out?

Life is full of circumstances,
Has a plethora of situations
Where heeding warning signs
Might reduce pain and suffering.

A warning sign for emotional abuse:
Provoking others to jealousy.
Beware the heavy machinery.
Another right beside:
Abundant employment of the silent treatment.
Do not consume with ethanol.

If another’s versions of events
Make of them a saint and you something less,
Danger: High Voltage.
If always those versions vary slightly from what happened,
Beware: an attempt to take control may be ahead;
Hard hat required.

© 2014 H.K. Longmore

Related Posts:

  • Dating Emotional Predators: Signs to Look Out For – this article is what inspired this poem. A quote from the post: “I cannot count the endless number of abusers I have met who begin their ploys with superficial charm accompanied by self-absorption and an actual lack of empathy or substance…. Skilled predators are quite charming and you can easily learn to see through this by observing the way they exaggerate how they feel about you and their glib ways of showing you that they ‘care’ when they really don’t.”
  • 21 Warning Signs of an Emotionally Abusive Relationship
  • Why I Didn’t Realize My Relationship Was Emotionally Abusive
  • Spotting the Signs of Emotional Abuse – “Since emotional abuse can occur in so many different ways, it’s often difficult for a loved one — or even the abusers themselves — to recognize the signs of emotional abuse. Making things worse is the fact that many victims of emotional abuse become ‘brainwashed’ into believing that the abuser really cares for them.”

Leave a comment

Posted in poetry

Tagged , , , , , ,

The Cupboard in the Corner of My Atrium

Posted on 13 December 2014 | Leave a comment

My Atrium is no ordinary shop:
No wares are peddled,
We don’t do consignment,
There’s no cash behind the counter.

Here behind the fence
Of my serous pericardium,
You’ll find, if you request,
Emotions—free of charge.

But if you want an emotion
From my Atrium,
You’ll have to step up;
Step up to the counter and ask.

But if you want jealousy,
We’re fresh out.
Well, that’s not right:
We no longer stock it.

Jealousy is messy,
It gets in the cracks,
Turns the grout green,
Stains white things black.

Jealousy does not produce
Manliness nor masculinity;
Those are both best
Grown internally.

So when we find
A trace of jealousy
On the floor
Or oozing down the stairs

We fetch the mop
From the cupboard
In the corner
Of my Atrium.

So, what will you have?
What will it be?
You’ll have to step up to the counter
And make it known.

If you’d rather get your fill
From some other,
That’s your choice.
There are other customers at my till.

But the portrait I painted
While you stood outside
Window shopping
Is etched into the wall.

And there it will remain—
Whether you give your wants a name,
Or never come to my counter again—
In the middle of my Atrium.

Now, where’s that mop?

©2014 H.K. Longmore

Leave a comment

Posted in poetry

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Metronome and the Score

Posted on 12 November 2013 | Leave a comment

I demand your attention, first and foremost.
Do not consider Melody, don’t with Harmony cheat.
At your party, I am the host.
You can find me after the key: I am the beat.

Relentless am I, so mind the ligature.
And unless you see bird’s eye view,
Sequence keep and count me true;
Else reap the sequitur
Of ignoring my signature.

Should you try to force my hand
Doting on members of the band
Or giving devotion to the tempo,
I’ll plant no jealous seed, give no heed—
We’ll fail to find crescendo.
Annoyed? Take it up with Jack Dempsey.

Try again my affection to win
By focusing on a riff
The riff will be lost in the din
And my affection in the rift.

But keep four on the floor
Or accentuate the off beat in four-four
You may begin to feel
The tapping of your heel
And find that you more than the score I adore!

Copyright © 2013 H.K. Longmore

Related articles

Leave a comment

Posted in poetry

Tagged , , , , , , , ,