I’m Really NOT Trying 2B A Player: Revolutionary Romantic Blogging Free Verse Lament

Great.
I try
to be nice
to a woman.
I talk
to her.
I’m interested
in her.
I try
to find common themes
we can connect on.

I probe
not to manipulate,
but because I’m interested
in people,
especially women
would might
be right
for me
eventually.

I’m kind.
I don’t try
to string them
along.
I simply try
hard
and harder
and even more
to see if
there might be
some way
we connect.

When,
at last,
we don’t connect,
not really,
I try to be honest
and direct.

Maybe I’m not direct enough.
Maybe I need to say
“Thanks,
I’ll see you around,
but I won’t be asking you
out any more,
because I just don’t feel
“it”.”

But I don’t,
maybe because
I don’t want to hurt
her.
She is,
after all,
a daughter of Heavenly Father.
He loves her.
I wouldn’t want my daughters
to be hurt,
so I try to protect
all of God’s daughters
from that hurt.

That doesn’t make me
a playah.
I’m not trying to manipulate
or seduce
or lie
or be sneaky.

When she calls me
a player,
especially in my
Church’s culture
and society,
it’s like me
calling her
a slut,
a skank,
or worse,
(which is something
I would never do).

Yet she seems to think
it’s okay to warn others,
to tell them
that a month or two
of long-distance phone calls
(because I was thousands of miles away),
followed by two dates
that didn’t go well,
is somehow misleading,
is somehow wrong,
is somehow stringing her along.
That such actions
somehow make me
a player.

It doesn’t.
Because I can’t help
the way she felt.
I can’t help
what she thought about.
I can’t help
what she dreamed of,
or what she imagined
our future would be
together.
When together
doesn’t happen,
it doesn’t mean
it’s my fault.
It just is.

Now I have
a reputation
I don’t think
I deserve.
I have women
who won’t go out
with me,
because I
inadvertently
hurt a fellow
single woman
by not falling
for her.
All I can do
is write,
complain,
whine,
and ask other women
to come see
for themselves.

Oh, and to all women
who brag about how sisters
protect each other,
it might be wise
to get facts straight.
What you are doing
is gossiping,
and it doesn’t look good
on you.

Cold May Day: Revolutionary Blogging Free Verse Lament Poem

May Day
always
was,
in every way,
bright and cheerful and
colored with blossoms
from our yard.

Roses.
Lilacs.
Dogwoods.
Camellias
Kornblumen.
Straw Flowers.
Daisies.
Periwinkle.
Rosemary.
Lavender.
Camomille.
Sage.
Mint.
Grape Hyacinths.
Sometimes even late tulips
and plum blossoms.

Full bouquets,
ding-dong-ditched
on doorsteps
for the neighborhood,
for children’s teachers
— piano, dance, acting, spiritual
and intellectual —
and scholastic staff.

Surprises
for them
and us.
Messages
of love
and remembrance
and appreciation.

But children grow up
and teachers grow old
and people move away
and on,
and invitations
for the next generation
are forgotten,
and friendships
are dissolved
or wither
and die
from lack of care
or abuse.

This year,
our last here,
blossoms are few.
There is a cold,
constant rain,
and even if there were flowers,
there would be few to
grant bouquets to.

Sorrow permeates
this day,
our last May Day
here in this
botanical wonderland,
where everything grows
and blooms
and thrives
except cacti
and prickly pear.
Ironic that,
as our time here
dies,
Spring is so slow
to arrive.

I would take a photo
of the late dogwood blossoms
and the just-emerging,
faintly-scented lilacs,
but my battery
just died.