POTP poems :)

Potp will start off this game, with her 3 poems below. Can everyone please reply to this thread with the number or title of the poem you like best. You do not have to comment if you do not want to - nor give reasons why, just be honest about what is your favourite. This way - the writers will get to see what the public like, and what everyone's tastes are. Because we all like different things.

Thank you to everyone who comments - this game relies on you. :)

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#1
Blankets

If I don't say (something), I'm not sure how I will keep
my head up, letting the sun give me premature wrinkles
when all I want is to be alone, even if that means
being lonely all the time.

I always have to huddle with these blankets,
for I get chills at times I don't know, only when
moonlight is shut away by my bedroom blinds
and I realize I may never feel warm,
without being overheated, anytime soon.

I dream of an island, an island with beaches
only able to be shared by my husband and I
for we will know love doesn't lust or demand
or prey on vulnerable skin...
but ever since that weekend at the lake,
at their lake, not mine, my feet touched
a few feet of hardening sand.
It wasn't as soft as I imagined it, no,
it was lacking sunlight and proper care
from storytelling feet,
yet it felt good, freeing in a way I could
never understand before because freedom
is a political term right? Or does it have to
do with morals, never emotions?

And having the opportunity, somewhere
far in the future, to not hold back anymore,
be who I am and not distance myself
with I'm alright's and I'm not hot,
when I'll be able to end the anger, pity
at my mistakes,
and be understood by him....
that is what I look forward to.

Not finding out I have just successfully
launched my career or paid the mortgage
on my first house (before the age of fifty)
and published a collection of older poems
where honesty was an off and on mood,
none of this.

I will be with him,
and no matter if we are in the same state,
country, or hour, all I long for the two of us
is a moment (however long God allows)
between the ocean and the shore,
so I can say breezes are not framed
for decoration on my skin
but that I can sense them, making
chromatic scales on my neckline
as he and I rest, speaking out
the balance of warmth and saltwater,

throwing aside the blankets we
had kept sewing in case our depression
grew in words and strength, a body builder
never satisfied.

But those blankets are for picnics,
checkered hopes and tiny, mad ants-
they were not meant to keep us tucked in,
forever.

#2
Elderly

What will your last smile stir inside
of me? An absence of mind perhaps,
where asylums try to guard me
but I have yet to hear an end
to the violin's cry;
Mendelssohn reverberates back
to me, sore throat, bile rising,
dull eyed...
I am nothing like your favorite
concerto.

The repertoire of you is locked up,
somewhere where knuckles bleed
and as I grace my fingers across
the caved in walls,
I realize, you are burdensomely
close.

My soul was not composed in the
right key, for you needed E minor
but somehow I have turned flat,
unable to be your enrichment.

I am a lonely wanderer,
crossing bridges at half past dead,
feebly following the shadow inside
my shadow...

and there is no reflection to examine.

#3
Territory

She was art; you were an answer book.
Nothing about you was tinted dangerous
until you sported treasures, each with a
jagged edge.

This was your deception.
You proudly stated you would
smooth them over by a startling kiss of
chilled rhubarb lips.

You snagged every teardrop from that weeping sunset,
planning to smear it across your palette and
arrive at her doorstep with watercolors,
nodding your head, "see? we understand each other".

She used every fingernail to touch the muddy paint,
in complete denial that she was living in a bottle,
only rebelling against her vines so she could
be the tolerable one.

She never lived by the ocean, never visited
sandy dunes 'til her back moaned with sun's
"I told you so" and she thought she could
fill herself with zephyrs,
but they always were a sidewalk ending
as she awoke to a small, one bedroom apartment.

You haven't brought her to safety,
you've only sharpened the edges of her bottle.

This was your territory, for you reconstructed
a human being, one who gave her soul
so you could add on to greed, buying steel
in mid-morning traffic and signing contracts
without her agreement.

-
You made her believe that to breathe without you,
there would be no air at all.

Hmm - tough choice, struggled with 2 and 3, but I am going to go with 3. I like the wording of 2 better probably, but then this is about what I like best, and what I would enjoy most reading again, so number 3 it is for me.

:)

It's 3 for me.

# 1 for me...

Although I feel it should be revised to sharpen the images and to give a smoother logical flow, #3 is brilliant!

I think 1 is potentially the best, but it could use tightening up. I like the phasing in of companionship with isolation, of dreams with intolerance of social constraints.

Second would be 3, both for the consistent message and the depths with which you layer the portrait of the dominator.

2 is clever, but a bit too clever for being so esoteric that the audience is limited.

Thank you guys so far! Especially for those who gave feedback and perspectives; I agree, #1 could be polished up a bit.

Interesting views, keep commenting people, show us what your favourite poem above is :) xx

Number 2
Number 2 with no doubt.

Actually the three are good, #1 seems more of the prose type. It is good too but #2 is my fav.

Love all of them, but number 3 shined a little brighter to me! :)