The skies a colder blue
a painting unfit for further
details to a mind
failing
to accept facts
of a divorce.
It's over.
It is
sometimes I
imagine I see her
talking to another
in these crossword puzzle
streets vertical blind
alleys even its horizontal
structures mock.
She moves in
dream state slow
vanishing when I get close
for her to notice
whiskey breath
in redacted black corners
of streets with her name...
I shiver in my coat
not from cold
when he touches her
until I close my eyes
decrying this madness
and turn back
when skies darken
like everything else.
I pass 2 or 3 bars...
I'm no longer
allowed in.
Make way home
to evade the inevitable
past
while needing
a more present tense
but ah, all
there is
as always
since she left
is what's missing.
*********************************************************************************************************
This Present Tense
by Rp Verlaine
Rp Verlaine lives in New York City.
He has an MFA in creative writing from City College.
He taught in New York Public Schools for many years.
His first volume of poetry- Damaged by Dames
& Drinking was published in 2017, and another – Femme Fatales
Movie Starlets & Rockers in 2018. A set of three e-books
titled Lies From The Autobiography vol 1-3 were published from
2018 to 2020. His newest book, Imagined Indecencies,
was published in February 2022. He was nominated for a
Pushcart prize in poetry in 2021 and 2022.
