What happened, dad?

Why are you all sad?

Nothing, my son,

Those are tears of joy that run.

Come on, this is not a time to lie,

Just tell me why you cry.

You are too little, my boy

Now go, play with your toy.

I’ve never seen so many people in our lawn

Now why don’t you tell me what’s going on?

Dear son, don’t you whine

I tell you again, things are all fine.

Dad, your tears can fill a huge pail

Tell me now, what is this you veil?

Oh my son, from you nothing can I hide,

Yes, I am broken because someone dear died.

What? If I am here with you, my dear father,

Tell me, who distanced us from mother?

I knew you would go violent

That is why I kept silent.

Okay dad, I don’t want you to explain

Just tell me, who led us to this pain?

My boy, just think, who does such things?

Who can do such a blunder, but John Rings!

Leave it to me dad, don’t cry anymore

I will come back in a minute, but he will be no more.

Don’t, my son, don’t leave your dad

For you are only ten, this is too bad.

The next day’s newspaper,

Had the headline of a murder!

With little Jack in jail, this poem ends

But the story is yet to begin, my friends.

immune my body against these nosocomial pathogens,

cleanse my tissues from the infection they’ve caused,

save my cells from these metastasised devils.

operate on my brain but don’t wash it white,

remove the tumour and stitch my skin with fibula.

my limbs feel numb; say it’s because of anaesthesia,

’cause i’m afraid of post-operatve dyskinesia.

my eyes are too sensitive to light and too poor to see in dark;

buoyant rays burn my tears and promises trigger my fears.

let the adrenaline rush in my veins as my arteries are blocked.

let me breathe carbon; my lungs are prepared for holocaust,

but i won’t bleed to life because my blood has rusted.

peel off my skin and you’ll find i’m just like you

don’t show mercy then, karma will strike you.

*

*

*

I had forgotten it was my first post :p Thanks for the challenge.

its raining outside

the patter of the water droplets

hit the roof, the sweet sound

of autumn welcoming our city.

im sitting on my living room floor,

right next to the fire place

the lighting is dim, the main source

coming from the flames in front

of me. the room smells of apple cinnimon

as i refuse to purchase any other

candle scent.

when i look out of the window,

the sky is a soft gray

she isnt mad

she is simply expressing herself

by crying about how harsh

the summer had been to her.

the raindrops on the window

race eachother

as if who ever reached the window

pane first would be deamed

the winner. i mentally bet on each

raindrop i focused on.

i let my breathe fog the window

my cold finger draws a sad face

but i dont want it to be lonely

like its creator

so i add a happy face close by.

the sun begins her goodbye

promising the moon would replace her

to keep me company.

Loneliness…

Darkness…

Sorrow…

No tomorrow…

Solitude tightly holds the hand of this poor man

It pierces his skin with its glass fingertips

Makes him bleed

Makes him cry

Solitude’s hand is cold… so cold…

The poor man’s soul shivers

He wants to run, but he can’t

Solitude won’t let go

Not now

Not ever

Maybe when Death comes to collect

The poor man hopes…

For background, this was entered in a challenge that asked the question: What do authors feel when killing off a character?

~~~~~

The kind soul; the empathizer; even the lighthearted- bound to a thousand deaths by literature.

What’s left? The pain? The ruin? The cruel parts of the world? I continue writing, adding yet another knife to the mere words on the page. Who will be the next one to kiss the hands of Death?

Into the climax.

Will it be the jokester? The generous? Possibly the honest? Or maybe all three.

After: the brave. The faithful. The shy.

Personalities written away from the narrative.

And in the grande finale of it all, I kill off one last character with a stroke of a pen- my humanity.

No more fear of the long dark night,

while using the bathroom with light off,

Learning to spend some time with the naked self,

the most tender part of the self,

the delicate and slow part of the self…

The World are doing their pushing, rushing and hustling…

I am just here sitting with the most vulnerable part of me in this eternal darkness…

feeling and sensing some loneliness,

and some soft meager voices.

I pleaded a license for myself,

one more chance to take a break,

to break free from this old life’s binds and shackles..

and get some ease and rest from the inside-out.

Everyone is working hard to prove something to the rest of the world,

but I just want to dive deeply

into this black bottomless peace,

to gather all the missing pieces

of my serrated fragmented

long lost soul.

No more struggling or fighting off,

the endless inner fear towards this long dark night;

No more running away from this abysmal depth of life

No more silencing towards the discomfort of this long time suppression,

No more living or reliving in the eternal dread

towards some hell’s-week-like bootcamp

Tonight, I dare letting my inner voice out…

to the almighty authorities,

both visible and invisible.

To the most intimidating ones who rule this very kingdom

of unbreakable societal system..

To those who casted such unshakable shackles upon me

I dare you to look right into my heart

I dare you to look upon the most vulnerable and tender part of myself…

the unadulterated and ulcerated inner wounds..

Which me and many weaker ones like me,

have been bearing,

for century long inwardly,

yet were being so ashamed,

and dare not even talking about…

No, no… no more being pushed away…

as secondary, as inferior

as lack of status to be heard,

or even to deserve a voice of my own.

I dare to the rotten root of very system

to look at the jagged line of this

century-long painful gash inside my heart…

They are mine, yet they were yours too…

They are the weights of shame and guilt,

that your almighty hands have been trying so hard to suppress, to hide, to walk pass

and yet eventually pressed down upon me.

No longer being silenced

Finally I am exposing this raw tenderness

Right in front of your eyes

Please look at it.

just be here with me for a moment…

It’s been century long…

it’s been ignored for too long..

Today I dare speaking out this most gentle soft voice

Directed to you

Everyone deserves to be heard and respected,

Every feeling deserves to be valued and validated…

No matter how small the voice is,

or how insignificant the life is,

to your authoritative eyes…

I dare letting all my unjustified helpless voices out

and I dare facing the consequences as well.

Let the stormy punches coming down at me harder and stronger

I am no longer shunning away...

I am here waiting right now,

with all my silenced inner wounds from the past,

with every single tender pieces of my raw existence,

that I have been gathering,

After you have trampled upon them repetitively, and tossed them around in different parts of the world,

throughout the years.

To you, me and many like me were just a joke,

Yet to me, that was the most beautiful and treasurable part of the soul,

more precious than any diamond in the whole world,

After life-time searching,

after being separated for so long,

from my tattered dignity

and fragmented soul…

The one being suppressed,

the one being trampled upon,

tossed, teased off in gazillion places..

I am here to take all my pieces back!

I challenge you,

I challenge your absolute power and biased cruel crooked system,

with my raw naked tender feeling,

and pure vulnerable authenticity,

with my everlasting tenacity

and impenetrable perseverance.

I will swim through all the long dark nights

in eons of time,

since darn of human civilization;

I will thwart through all layers of fire in the land of the dead;

I will scour deeply and thoroughly

through all mire death fields of my lineage of unavenged ancestry,

to gather every single one of my fragmented soul brothers and sisters back,

to confront you with your very crime.

I am bringing back

all our past silenced voices

to Confront you

with every severed missing soul fragments

and every single cut you have done upon each of our tender inner hearts

We are putting down our own two feet, standing stronger than ever.

with no more trembling fears,

Hearts, are not parts!

“There’s a weird bug on me.” the man told his inexplicable companion as they waited, crouched behind a bush. He picked a tiny stick-like insect off of a jacket cuff.

“Shh.” said the other man. He parted the dense coniferous foliage of the shrubbery with long, thin fingers enough to see clearly throughout the small opening it created. “She’ll be here any moment.”

The park they were in was lush and there was the sound of water falling nearby from a magnificent height. They spray from which made the air dense, humid and pleasantly cool. It hung heavy with the sweet, clean scent of the phosphorescent flowers that loomed at uneven, natural intervals along walking trails of packed, crimson dirt.

The object of the man’s attention was at least as tall as he was, if not a head taller and had thick, straight hair that cascaded about her shoulders and moved like the ebb and flow of air currents in a field of glossy, dark brown, almost black grain when she walked. Her eyes glistened and twinkled like emeralds because, thanks to a dazzling bit of cosmetic surgery popular on this particular world at this particular time, they were.

“She sound gorgeous” the other man spoke when his friend had described the woman to him. He made his own portal in the plant in which to see down the trail.

“She seems a bit old for you, don’t you think?” he said, assessing his strange friend. He had known this man for at least ten years and he never seemed to look any older than when they had first met which was a man of about thirty to thirty-five. They had met at a party for astrophysicists that was to celebrate the discovery of signals from outside of this planet’s solar system. He was later to discover the source of these signals was that his companion had been sitting in his vessel, just outside the orbit of this system’s furthest planet with the ship’s sound system on full blast across all frequencies. When he asked how the signal was received so rapidly from such a distance, the traveler simply replied, “It’s a very good stereo.”

“Believe me, the age difference between me and her is negligible.” he replied testily without taking his shining gaze from the expected path of the woman, meaning quite the opposite from his friend in that it was he that was the older one, by about three hundred years.

The man looked at what his strange friend was wearing. He had on a dark purple suit made of a material that resembled crushed velour but was seamless and never wrinkled. Not even where it would bend at the elbows or arms or anywhere. No matter how one moved in it, it would always appear smooth. He asked the traveler how this was possible and was told that it was made of unstable molecules held together by a tiny force field embedded in the lapel and with a little luck.

It was as they were dressing when the man learned the reason they were donning their finest and striking out for the afternoon…

They were in a dressing room that was more or less a hall of mirrors aboard the traveler’s ship.

“About seventy-eight years ago…” the traveler began, fastening space-spats over his patent leather low quarters. ”…I saw this woman at one of your city parks. I think she is perhaps the most alluring woman I have ever seen in all my travels. But another matter arose and prevented me from talking to her. So enthralled was I by this woman, I swore I would go back and chat her up.”

The man was snapping the buttons of his shirt closed and listened to his friend relate his tale. Reaching the last button and flipping his collar up, he put his hand straight through the mirror like dipping it into a pool of quicksilver. His fingers clasped around a strip of fabric and he withdrew not just a tie, but the exact tie that he had wanted from the wardrobe. The mirror rippled like water in a pond and smoothed back out again. The man looked at the tie, perplexed like always when they dressed.

“How the hell does it do that?” he interrupted his friend, staring at his reflection in the mirror.

“I don’t know, it’s just a closet. Pay attention.” he frowned back and continued. “So I went back to try. Knowing I had to be careful, because I knew that an earlier version of myself would also be there, within sight of this incredible woman.”

“Were you worried about meeting yourself? Or doing something that would prevent you from going back to that place in the future or something like that?” the man asked his friend, tying the tie.

“Nah.” the traveler said, working on his own tie. One end turned out way longer than the other and he started over. “I was more worried about doing something that made her see the earlier me, first. I’m my own worst competition.” he admitted with no degree of modesty.

“Why didn’t you just introduce her to both of you? If she liked one she would have to like the other by default.” his friend said, shrugging.

“That’s a little too weird, even for me.” the traveler said. His companion grinned and began pulling on his bottle green suit jacket.

“So I assume it didn’t work out so good the second time either?” he asked.

“Well, no. In addition to having the added complication of an earlier me there. I still had to take into consideration the natural elements of meeting someone, y’know? I mean, it’s gotta be right, right? I can’t just pop up out of the bushes and be like: ‘Hi! How’s it goin’? Listen, I haven’t got much time to say this but you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in all of time and space and would you possibly like to have dinner together or something?’, now can I? That’s not very smooth.” said the traveler. His friend considered this.

“No…no, I suppose not.” he said “So, over the past seventy-eight years, how many times have you tried to talk to her?”

The traveler made a thoughtful face and a moment later said, “Thirty-four.”

The traveler’s friend froze in the mirror and coughed.

“Thirty-four!?” he said in mild disbelief. “That means…”

“Yes. When we arrive, there will be thirty-four different earlier versions of myself present in the vicinity as well. This gets harder every time I try it.” the traveler said with a sigh, pulling on his own jacket.

“And you’ve never gotten to talk to her? Not once?” said his friend, chuckling slightly.

“Er..no.” said the traveler, flatly. “One thing or another has prevented me from doing so every single time. You see, even though the moment is the same, the circumstances that lead up to that moment are always different. It’s nature doing what it does to prevent a paradox from occurring. I think, anyway. I was even attacked by a small squirrel once.”

“Why don’t you just pick another time and place to meet her?” his friend asked, thinking.

“Because…” the traveler said. ”…I don’t know anything more about where she’s going or who she even is aside from the few moments I have at the park.”

“Wow.” the other man said. “Thirty-four of you. You bring a whole new dimension to stalking someone.”

“Literally.” the traveler said and straightened his gold foil tie.

All the way to the park the traveler’s companion was offering suggestions on how his friend could meet the woman. They ranged from elaborate temporal solutions to simple dating advice.

“I’ve done this thirty-four times, my friend. I’ve looked at it from all angles and I certainly know how to talk to girls. I’m beginning to suspect she is a fixed point in time. That, if our meeting doesn’t happen, it never will.” said the traveler as they neared the amazing city park. As the crowds thinned out he began hustling them from tree to tree as not to be seen by any of his former selves.

“Well that makes sense.” his friend said sardonically.

“The biggest problem is that I’m running out of places to hide from my previous attempts. I fear I won’t be able to do this anymore if this doesn’t go over.” the other man said and he held them up suddenly.

“Quick! We are nearing the place. There are at least six different versions of me focused on the bend in the trail down there. She’ll appear from that direction. We can hide here.”

So now, crouching behind a bush, the two men waited, dressed in spectacular suits, picking little bugs off of themselves. A minute passed, then five with still no sign of the woman. The traveler poked his head up from behind the bush, looked around and quickly crouched back down again.

“Dammit!” he hissed to his friend. “It’s changed again. She’s coming from the other direction! She’s never done that before.”

The woman was indeed approaching them but from an angle that left the two friends directly in her sight. She paused, wondering why two immaculately dressed men were crouching behind a bush and started towards them, her curiosity getting the better of her.

“She sees us.” the traveler’s companion said, straightening up and evening out his suit. “She’s coming over.”

The traveler panicked and dove into the bush. The woman approached them with long, graceful yet cautious strides like they way some sort of majestic plains animal approaches an unfamiliar pool of water.

“Hello…?” she said in beautiful, bright voice. “Are you guys okay?” she queried.

The traveler’s friend chuckled, slightly embarrassed and definitely taken aback by her beauty and forwardness.

“Hello. Good afternoon, ma’am.” he said simply, nudging his friend with the toe of a wingtip loafer.

The traveler emerged slowly from the shrubbery, rising straight up out of it. The jacket of his wrinkleless purple suit gleaming in the light of the planet’s twin suns. A tiny stick-like insect leaped from his hair to land on the very tip of the woman’s nose. She stared at the preposterous man, unflinching.

“Er…Hi!” the traveler managed to stammer out. “Ummm… How’s it goin’?” He searched frantically for words.

“Hey, listen, I haven’t got much time to say this but you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in all of time and space and would you possibly like to have dinner together or something?” was all he came up with. He blinked at her, not knowing what else to do.

The woman very casually, plucked the bug from the tip of her nose and deposited it gently on the lapel of the traveler’s suit. This immediately disrupted the force field that held the garment together causing it to completely lose it’s shape and slide from the traveler’s body like thick, purple oil.

The traveler stood there in nothing but a gold tie, totally aghast. The woman cracked a smile before bolting off in the opposite direction, back up the path from which she had come.

“Definitely not smooth.” the traveler’s friend said as he watched the woman disappear from view then looked at his absurd friend standing in the bush. The traveler chewed on his bottom lip considering what had just happened.

“At least you got to talk to her this time. That’s better than you’ve done so far, right?” he said trying to instill his crushed friend with a little optimism. The traveler said nothing.

“Is this what you do when you’re bored?” he asked

Finally the traveler spoke.

“I’m never bored.” the naked man replied, his attention snapping to his friend. “Anyway…this is why I brought you along this time.”

“Why’s that?” the traveler’s companion asked.

“Follow her.” he said. “I’m going back to the ship.” he said and darted off in a complicated dash from tree to tree to avoid being seen by his other selves, or anyone else for that matter.

Originally posted here for the “Something Funny” challenge from QuietSilence: https://theprose.com/post/380735/vain-poet

This story is based on the Reedsy.com Prompt “Write a humorous story about the descendant of someone remembered for an insignificant act.”

My name is Blaze. OK, my real name is Blake Hilson, but my pen name is Blaze, because it sounds awesome. I have written for the local newspaper as an entertainment journalist for the past ten years, but my passion is for poetry. This passion comes from my late father Adam. My father wrote a poem that was published in the poetry anthology An Ocean So Blue, which came from the organization Talented Poets. Before my father passed away, he gave me his copy of An Ocean So Blue, and it is one of my most prized possessions. He told me that he had intially mailed his poem to Talented Poets for their contest, and although his poem didn’t win the grand prize, it got as far as the semi-finals. They told him that his poem was brilliant, and they wanted to publish it in their anthology of only the best poetry they receive. For $80 they offered to send a copy of the anthology to him as a keepsake, and he happily obliged. I have had the anthology in my possession for the past twenty years. Here is his poem that was published:

A Really Bad Poem

By Adam Hilson

This poem is very dumb.

Reading it won’t be any fun.

It sounds like it was written by a bum.

It will probably be thrown on the floor.

After all, the metaphors are a total bore!

This poem is very bad.

It is not at all rad.

It will never become a fad.

Because it is just PLAIN BAD!!!

This poem is very lame.

It will never help my rise to fame.

I am a horrible poet.

And yes, I do know it!

My poem is as sour as a lime.

None of these lines even rhyme!

As I revisited my father’s work, I smiled at the chills I felt from his pure poetry. Talented Poets were still around, and it was my turn to add to our family legacy. I love being an entertainment journalist, but I have wanted to be a published poet since my dad’s success. Fortunately, it was easier than ever to enter the contest from Talented Poets. My dad had to type out his poem on a word processor and mail it in, but all I had to do was submit my poem on their website. It was time to see if I had what it took to win the contest and get published in a future Talented Poets anthology. I submitted a poem that I worked hard on, and felt a lot of pride for. Here it is if you would like to read it:

Funky Beat

By Blaze

I was walking down the street.

Walking on my feet.

When I fell into a purple hole.

I landed on a floor that was real cold.

I saw some little green guys.

They looked at me with red eyes.

Then they started dancing to a song.

A techno dance song, that they danced along.

I started to dance along with it too.

I became a real dancing fool.

These green guys know how to party.

Boring in the sewers, hardly!

Unfortunately, now I must go.

But there’s something I want you to know.

Next time you’re bored, with nothing to do.

Join these green guys in the sewers, they’re really cool!!!

I was quite nervous, but the time had come. My father inspired me to write, and I have definitely found great success with a well loved entertainment column. But I really wanted to follow in his footsteps and become a poet. I clicked submit, and I reviewed the confirmation screen that my poem was received and would be reviewed for the contest. And now the waiting game began. I decided to call it a night for now....

*****

I didn’t have to wait very long. About a week later I had an email in my Inbox from Talented Poets. This is what it said:

Dear Blaze:

We have reviewed your poem “Funky Beat,” and we were blown away by your amazing artistry. We would like to extend our congratulations on being accepted into our poetry contest as a semi-finalist! Your beautiful poem has the potential to win the Grand Prize of $500,000. We also are in the process of publishing Fields of Ferns, which is our latest anthology of only the best poetry, and this beautiful keepsake just won’t be complete without your incredible poem gracing its pages. For a small fee of $150 we can include your inspiring work, and send you a copy for your enjoyment. We also have additional products that your poem would be well suited for. Please click the link below to visit our online store. Thank you for sharing your work with us. We are deeply touched by your talent, and we look forward to collaborating with your genius.

Sincerely,

Talented Poets

Elated, I clicked the link and placed an order for the upcoming anthology, Fields of Ferns. I did it. I was going to be a published poet. Just like my father. I looked in the online store to see what else Talented Poets offered. They had many more things that could be done with my poem, options that I don’t believe were available when my father’s poem was published so long ago. My poem could be printed on a keychain. I could get a hoodie or a T-Shirt with my poem on it. I could have my poem read and recorded by a professional voice actor on an MP3 file. I could order a beach ball with my poem on it (might be nice for the summer). I could have my poem engraved on a dog food bowl (why not? Animals love poetry too). A dishware set with my poem engraved on it was also an option (could be nice for dinner parties). Many more options were available, and I couldn’t wait to consider all of them.

*****

“Good morning Blake!” My coworker Tom greeted. Tom wrote an advice column for the newspaper. “That’s an ummmmm, interesting hat!”

“Thanks buddy!” I responded enthusiastically. Fields of Ferns wasn’t set to publish for a while, but some of the other items from Talented Poets had arrived. One of the things I had ordered was a baseball cap with my poem printed on it.

“Those socks are something too.” Tom said.

I was wearing shorts with my socks pulled up to my knees. I don’t normally go for that look, but I had also ordered socks with my poem printed on them.

“Aren’t they awesome?” I asked excitedly. I was about to fill my personalized coffee cup that had my poem printed on it, when Tom asked me a question that would open up a conversation about my proud achievement.

“So, what’s with all the personalized things you have today? And is that poem printed on your sneakers too?”

“Yes!” I exclaimed. “Remember when I told you about how my father was a published poet?”

“Yeah, I finally remembered after the first 50 times you told me.”

“Well, I entered the contest my dad had entered before, and my poem is a semi-finalist! They are also publishing it in an anthology, and I was able to get it printed on all these personalized things! I have even more personalized things at home!”

“Well, congrats man.” Tom said as enthusiastically as he could muster (I think he needs some coffee. I should have ordered him one of the mugs too). “Your enthusiasm is great, but you might want to be cautious. I am pretty sure this contest and their book are from a vanity publisher.”

“Vanity publisher? What do you mean?”

“Well, they are probably only interested in publishing poems based on the money they receive, not the poems themselves.” Tom replied. “I mean, you are wearing socks with your poem on them. How many publishers do that? I bet any poem entered would be a semi-finalist.”

At this point I felt offended. “Are you saying you don’t think my poem is semi-final worthy? Talented Poets think I have talent!” I then pulled up the email from Talented Poets on my phone to show Tom, while trying not to cover up my poem printed on my custom phone case.

“Your poem is.... fine.” Tom said cautiously. “You are a great writer Blake, and you have done amazing work here at the paper over the past ten years. I’m just saying, you could probably send this organization anything, and they will butter you up to get your money. And it worked, as you are sporting socks with your poem on them.”

“Whatever!” I responded heatedly. “I will send a completely ludicrous poem to them, and I guarantee it will go nowhere in their contest!” I stormed away from Tom, with a plan in mind to prove him wrong....

*****

I was ashamed of what I was about to do, but I had to prove that Talented Poets praised my poem for its merit, not my money. This was also about my father’s legacy as well, since this all began with his published poem through them. I created a new email and used an alias in order to separate my decoy poem from my true work. I read the submission I was about to send once more before sending it to the contest. At the very least, my real poem should win against this one:

Vain Poet

By Blizzard

I could send anything to Talented Poets

And they would say I’m an artist.

They don’t appreciate true poetry.

They only appreciate true money.

But I’m a vain poet, and I might know it.

So here’s my poem.

Is it semi-finalist worthy?

Maybe if I drop money on it it will be.

Would they put this poem on a baseball cap? Sure, if I send enough money.

So let’s do this.

VAIN! VAIN! VAIN!

MONEY! MONEY! MONEY!

TALENTED POETS SUCK!

WORST COMPANY EVER!

EVER! EVER! EVER!

It made me sick writing these words about Talented Poets, but there is no way they would endorse a poem like this. Now as long as I don’t hear back from Talented Poets, then Tom could eat his words....

*****

“You were right Tom. Talented Poets really is a vanity publisher.”

“Sorry Blake,” Tom said sympathetically. “But if you don’t mind me asking, now that you know this, why did you buy that hat?”

I blushed as I remembered that I was now the “proud” owner of a baseball cap with my decoy poem “Vain Poet” printed on it. I began to explain why I had this awful hat.

“I had to test it out and see if they would really go as far as publishing this poem and putting it on merch. And they did. I will be receiving a copy of Fields of Ferns with the poem “Vain Poet” in it. And this poem is also a semi-finalist. And Talented Poets told me they loved this poem and that I have incredible talent. Did you want to hear the spoken word recording of the poem that I also purchased?”

“I think I’ll pass. But they aren’t wrong in one aspect.” Tom responded. “You definitely have incredible talent. Just look at how well your entertainment column has been received by our readers.”

“Yeah....” I replied, still feeling blue. “I just hate that my dad’s legacy was being published by a vanity publisher, which anyone could have done by throwing money at them.”

“I know for a fact that your dad left a far bigger legacy than that.” Tom gently rebuked. “Yes, his claim to fame was being published by a vanity publisher. But you enjoy his poem, don’t you? You enjoy the anthology it appeared in, right?”

“Yeah, I really do.” I said with a smile. “The poem summed up my dad’s goofy sense of humor, and that is something I will always treasure.”

“Exactly.” said Tom. “And your father’s legacy goes beyond his poem. He wrote something that inspired you, and thanks to that inspiration you are also a writer, a writer whom people look forward to reading in our paper every day. Your father’s poem had lasting effects that are continuing. You should be proud of him, just like he would be proud of you.”

I was deeply touched by Tom’s words. He was right. It doesn’t matter that my dad’s poem only got published by Talented Poets. He inspired me, and thanks to that I am able to make people happy every day with my writing. My father started a legacy that continues on.

“I really appreciate that Tom. You are so wise, maybe you should write an advice column!”

Tom laughed. “Maybe you’re right.”

*****

So I’m not entering any more Talented Poets contests or buying merchandise with my writing printed on them. But I am still writing my entertainment column. I am still working on writing poetry too. I bought a nice journal and wrote my father’s poem in it. I am filling the journal with my own poems too. Maybe some day I will try and get them published, but even if I don’t, I will still pass them on to the next generation for inspiration. So for what it’s worth, thanks for the start Talented Poets. And thank you for everything dad. You will always be my hero.

He looked at me beyond the obvious, and I shivered amidst

The deepness of his eyes, so piercing and midnight blue

Their intensity was nothing anyone would ever miss

And I knew beyond any doubt, a new reckoning anew.

I felt the haunting of my soul and my eyes stung with tears

I was both afraid and enticed beyond any measure I’d known

As he moved toward me, his purpose much too evidently clear

I stood where I was, unmoving, lest the root of his impetus be sown.

The line of his mouth hardened, his blue eyes deepened to black

Mesmerized, unable to move, I watched him draw ever nearer,

I felt the chill of his breath as he sighed, poised on the precipice of attack

And an enlightenment of his motive became abundantly clearer.

Here was no simple mortal known to mankind amidst the dark

But a creature, so wonderfully formed betwixt both it and the light

He leaned closer to me, his beautiful mouth reaching its mark

And I fell into him, not resisting that which was to be my plight.

I felt the thrill of his touch, the chill of his mouth as he imbibed

From me the blood that ran richly and so magnificently red

And I knew that from this point evermore our worlds would collide

Into an unknown, unchangeable moment I neither feared nor did dread.

He lifted his coal black gaze, looking deeply into dazed eyes of green

I fell and leaned into him, pleading and begging for still more despite

So strong was the unforgiveable need for the unknown and what I had seen

As I longed for his feast upon me to prolong with no need of respite.

Wonderful creature of darkness and light, mark me forever more

With your chilled touch and your stealthy lightness of foot

Make me yours through this night and the truth of your lore

My mind screamed, my heart beat, as the dark, unbidden thought took root.

A grimace of a smile deliberately formed upon his handsome visage

As he stepped back and gave me a look of pure longing so vivid

My heart skipped a beat and felt the immensity of the privilege

And then he quietly withdrew, and the need for him steadily lifted.

As he disappeared into the liquid ink of the midnight evening

I looked about and slowly returned to myself, though amazed and in wonder

With thoughts anew at what I’d just seen despite knowing it was deceiving

And my heart and mind split, and my complete being burst asunder.

And now in the stillness and dark of night, many years beyond that first time

I feel the blue of his piercing eyes, the chill of his breath, the touch of his mouth

And I long for he who invaded midnight while into my heart he did climb

Creating a vortex of need within, as forever, my love for any other was doused.

Life is lonely led by self will

Friends keep away when they’ve all had their fill

Thinking only of yourself & what it is that you lack

Will throw you so very far off of your track

You’re full of self pity & you can’t see that you’re wrong

You don’t like yourself, So how can you belong?

You shouldn’t push someone to make them react

When we listen, we learn, that’s just simply a fact

Get more out of life! Get a real thrill!

Let go of self & Live by God’s Will