Picture a Sentimental Lady

That photo
I looked happy
But the picture
 is not an x-ray of emotions
It merely shows a laughing face
sharing moments with her children
Under a pinkish, bluish sunny sky
The dark rose coloured glasses
 A shield

A picture doesn't lie?
It hid the weight
Of a malevolent marriage
Nearing its frightening end

Years later
I stared at it
Mentally peeling the photos layers
Remembering the woman
Who'd learned to conceal
The truth of emotions
She did feel

COLD ROOMS

The table separates us
Unsympathetic raging
Pushes around me
And comes within reach
I move away
Again and again

Finally, you take it with you
Down the dark hall

I watch you walk the barrenness of
Ashen carpet
Stark and cold
Stained with bad blood
I don't want to know where you go
Because you don't care
Where I am

What should have been
Walls of love
Are enclosures suffocating me

Impulses

We seek to understand
The impulses that drive us

Womanly traits
Not always weak or servile
Male traits
Not always discordant or violence-driven

Girls use their wiles
Women gain position with their strength
Girls beguile, their femininity a tool
Women wear it with pride
Girls belittle men
Women respect men to begin again
Girls submit to male abuse
Women stand against it
Girls hold onto the fairy tale
Women know when to let go of the child

Boys posture their masculinity
Men exemplify masculinity with honour
Boys don't show feelings
Men do
Boys use their fists
Men protect
Boys don the cover of power
Men wear it to shape a better world

Bubble Garden

In this vast rolling country
We take pleasure in the park 
at the edge of our city
We watch our sunsets
where colours mingle in the winding garden
And the antics of people amuse
In the bubble garden

In this garden I am one

What great force singled me to be here?
Sheltered
Out of harm's way
Out of war and famine's way
Out of dictatorship's way
Out of terrorism's path
Free
It's so good to be!
Simply be!

Will the bubble burst?

The Taxi Shines

The taxi dazzles
Artists, poets, actors, the rich, the poor
Complete the life here

The colourless taxi creeps its worst
Sequels of failed connection
The taxi's rushing razzmatazz brushes the midnight cowboys
Who have lost midnight
In a city of romance, glitter and shine
Park Avenue beset by the quest for money and power
In this town of urban decay
Its reputation of un-emotion set against the Empire State Building
"The nearest thing to heaven'
The actress was known to have said, with emotion

The taxi shines at the Plaza Hotel
For the "dark poet" who carries the images
Of the angry, passionate, deluded, and psychotic
Life races with him through dressed streets or naked ones
And great movies are made in parody or in real terms
The citizen walks through without a glance
Dispassionate
The lone taxi near Central Park makes spectacles of the homeless
The actor seeks anonymity among them

The rushing taxi gains momentum moving back in time
Their space was amoral and crime ridden
Still, they gave us Matisse

Real time gives them hope
The subways kinetic energy
Tolerating mix, diversity
Living next door

And monuments
One less
A change in the skyline
But not in spirit
A new monument will blessedly heal humanity
In a broken place

Falling In Love:)

Falling means diminishing, declining, failing, deteriorating
Why would anyone ever want to fall in love?
But I always want to fall in love...

The falling starts easy
A bruised stubbed toe, pulse, pulse,
Could that be the pulse of burgeoning love?
"Yes!" and I fall head over heels!
I get up and stumble around the red flags
Trip again
Get up and run into love
With arms outstretched like on the beach at the movies
In the wind and the rain
Yelling, "I love you, I've always loved you"
In the wind
In the rain

blindly, I heed the bumps in the road
Yet, I yield
And stand at the fork, confused and foolish
And I need to kiss him
And crawl around on my hands and knees
In the sand at the beach
And I want to do other things
In the sand
At the beach

No more! I have it all together
Am more accomplished, sophisticated-even
Smart in the ways of love
"I think"(shrug).                                               


                                                         Paulette Elozia

Breaking Up

It began with optimism
Almost intimate
Almost complete
Almost peaceful

It wasn't enough...

Losing out on love
is sort of like
missing a layered sunset
All rosy and violet
We almost caught it
But, it had faded to dusk
And it was lost in the long,
cold dead of night
It was over

Eyes burn with memory
Heavy and wet like dew laden grass