Per several interesting comments from my poetry discussion group, family, friends, and instructor, I have revised my three poems.  I feel they are tighter and the clarity for my intention is more obvious.  I’m leaving up the originals, so readers can compare the differences.  For other writers and readers, the process of how a work evolves is often deleted from posterity.  I’m throwing back the curtain and revealing the inner workings of a struggling poet.

 

Velvet Cake

My mind swims with thoughts of velvety cake.

Taking a bite, blood specks dribble down my chest

And over my heart.  The life we have crumbles,

Before my plate.  Can it be too late for us and our children?

 

No, I won’t think of me or the us of lore, but only of cake –

Sweet, salty, and for me – sadly cheerless.

Drowning in cream cheese frosting, I cling

Upon the raft of what we were before we ate sour comments.

 

The dike upon my plate is slowly weakening, crippling

Beneath the weight of my desperate commemoration.

All that remains are bitter morsels of confection.

We have drifted away and so has the velvety cake.

 

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Death to the Faucet

It would be much too dangerous to talk about;

So, I will speak of the leaky faucet.

Drip, Drop, Dribble.

It rumbles and rattles my soul.

Fix it!  I’ll get to it!

Those wanting phrases resound in empty rooms,

Devoid of sympathetic pleasantries from mourners,

Gone back to their own lives, loves, and leaky faucets.

 

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Mundane Existence

Lizards and cupcakes on my mind

Wandering into a mundane day.

Salutations to the lizard as it scurries into my home.

Unplugging from common domesticity,

I tuck away my vacuous existence.

Shall I make raspberry cupcakes or plain vanilla?

Vanilla then, how boring and true…

The circle of monotony is revisited, and yet,

How often does a lizard come to play?