The Tangled Branch Discussion Forums

Dylan - brilliantly written, such warmth and love and reality.  I suspect most of us have seen this, been there, had to handle gently these concerns.................   broke my heart, and yes, I shed a tear of two and sniffled a bit.
Simply painfully beautiful.  Thanks.

Aj

Only a Summer kiss.

Timing is everything in comedy
and tragedy. 
She didn't say yes to my proposition,
that hurt, but
her lack of hesitation hurt most.

A few milliseconds
would have softened the blow,
she could at least
have given me that.

Her memory forever tainted
by that cruelty. 


 
 

Colm, she had no idea what she was missing. Maybe she was just embarrassed because she hadn't brushed her teeth after she ate garlic for breakfast. Embarrassment will cause girls to do weird things without thinking.

Haiku


Letting Go

My hand waves goodbye
my arms ache to cling to you
and never let you go

Deb wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 04, 2019 2:40 pm

Colm, she had no idea what she was missing. Maybe she was just embarrassed because she hadn't brushed her teeth after she ate garlic for breakfast. Embarrassment will cause girls to do weird things without thinking.

Yeah Deb...I'm only too aware of strange situations where I said or did something I immediately knew I shouldn't have...and didn't mean to do 
Being human and flawed...what else can we be/do? 
 

Next Summer

I will wake
to bright expectations
walk on the beach,
find joy
in chopping celery and onions
for the soup,
centered in my own home.

This summer
my mother continues
to die by degrees,
a horror story
unfolds as her body
curls into itself,
unseeing, corpselike,
life clings
to some inner core
against her will.

Oh I just realized I meant to post this in summer future

Indar, by its nature it could fit either.

Very poignant, Indar.  My heart goes out to you.  

T

Cidadas’ droning-droning-droning,
rhythms sawing through layers of memories
to summers in central Illinois...
Cicadias they were called back there
back then

by aunts
fixin’ to fry up some taters,
greazy and right tasty,
slice some maders
a young’n had just brought in
from the garden out yonder,
boil up some roastin’ ears and fresh green beans,
and bake a blackbury cobbler
out in the cannin’ shed;

and by uncles
fixin’ the ol’ widder woman’s chimbley
and others putt-putt-puttin’ up out of the bottom land
smellin’ like soy beans
and reckonin’ they was hungry enough
to eat the leg off a table; 

and by everybody
sittin’ down to bless it
and pass it
and declare it plum larapin

and by the cousins
who warshed up the dishes
out yonder in the zink
‘cause they hadn’t done a lick o’ work
all day
but who still fussed
about who would warsh, dry, put away;

and by the young’ns
showin’ their muscles to the uncles
as they cranked on the ice cream bucket
rimmed with salt.

And by everybody restin' 
in the cool of the evening,
sharing blackberry cobbler
and homemade ice cream
with the dronin’ of the cicadias.