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Today's poem or short story prompt is "lamp".
Done kissing Justice in that meme,
ReplyDeleteBack solo on her island scene,
She lifts her lamp beside the door,
Of dear sweet Justice now forlorn.
Lamp Smasher
ReplyDeleteNot a super heroine
Nor an evil villainess
Just an ordinary woman
Fed up with her husband's hobby
Of finding broken lamps in the garbage
Every trash night a new promise
To make the lamps whole and right
Instead years later they sit in corners of the basement
Halogens Pull Strings Goose Necks
Torchieres Three-Ways Chandeliers
One day I asked him how many days did he figure till he retired
He told me that was at least thirty years away
He'd be working into his 70s
I knew it would be about that time he'd get around to fixing them
As fixing the rollers on the closet
The screens for the cat clawed window
And the faucet that ceaselessly torments me
Has taken the last five years
That is why last night
When he was out jogging the neighborhood
Keeping his legs in the buffed condition
That is a requirement for mental & physical health
I took each lamp
Carted it up the basement stairs and
Threw it down the self-same stairs
(I knew I would have to destroy them as years ago
I had make the beginner's mistake of hauling them out to the trash
In the morning of course they were back in the basement)
A part of me sagged as I threw the lamps
I'd stop believing the promises
Had to acknowledge what was clearly happening
My part in the incomplete
So I took the step he could not
That is why I am called The Lamp Smasher
That is my story
Catherine Powers
July 22, 2013
Copyright 2013
GRANDMA'S LAMP
ReplyDelete(a false memory)
i asked mother just last night
if she thought it would be all right
for me to sit in bed and stare at
my night light
she asked if maybe I was scared
of something hiding over there
something i thought might catch me sleeping
unawares
i told her that it wasn't fear
that made me want to have it here
that lamp that grandma gave me and said
keep it near
i loved her so and now i miss
her chocolate cake and bedtime kiss
and looking at the lamp lets me
reminisce
my mother nodded, gave a smile
and scruffed my hair (as was her style)
and told me that I could stay up a
little while
Mike Fedel
July, 2013