My Misplaced Life

January 1, 2025February 6, 2025 / Wayne Michael DeHart / 2 Comments

Wayne Michael DeHart (July, 2024)

Writer’s Note:
This poem was written in response to the single word “Memories” – the prompt for a 2024 international poetry competition that limited entries to no more than 30 lines.
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Like thunder clapping across dark summer skies,
my muddled recollections of a seventy-year span
roll by angrily and ominously, behind closed doors.
On this blackest of nights, in this desolate cottage,
my emotions flare, my pulse races, and the sharp
blade of regret cuts deeply, ripping me to my core.

Once a cheap-suited underling, weary and fragile,
unwittingly and passively robotic, I’d wait for the
office clock to shriek, “Go home – now.” Yes, home,
to bare walls and sterile bed, where I sat and stared
and tried to revisit, to remember, my misplaced life.

My remembrances are devoid of shape and sound
and scent. Faces blur, and voices echo unevenly,
collapsing tone and tenor. Muted, murky visions
distort once-clear images, as chaos conquers all.

Flashbacks of fire still mock my scarred spirit,
so I revisit stale, maudlin songs of love and loss
to blunt their brutality and muffle their cruelty.
Does that coy, green-eyed Jersey girl reminisce
tonight, recalling Spring flowers in old Vermont,
or stolen kisses in the shadows of Boston bars?

Alas, I capture the frames, but not so their pictures.
These letters have yellowed, their words have faded.
Curse the folly of such idle musings. Will any remnants
remain when this night ends? I think not. Those who
rode life’s rails with me are gone, and won’t be back.

Enough, old man! Cease this bitter blather, this anguish.
Welcome morning’s light with deep breaths and quiet heart,
your dreams alive, your flame hot, your mind’s eye focused.
Despair is bearable. Defeat is not. So clap, thunder. Clap on!

A Sleeping Dog Lies: “Caterwauling Aloud is Not Allowed!”

December 11, 2023December 17, 2023 / Wayne Michael DeHart / 1 Comment

Wayne Michael DeHart (July, 2023)

Writer’s Note: This poem was written as an entry in an international publication’s 2023 annual poetry competition. All entries had to respond to a unique, one-word, all-caps, exclamatory prompt, which just happened to be “LOUD!” this year. Strict 30-line limit. “LOUD!” – hmm, where should I go with this?

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Fiona Fay, our flaky, finicky, family feline,
goes gaga in the presence of a cute canine,
preening herself till she’s groomed real fine.

Her snivels and whines, common, well-known,
are low in volume, and nonthreatening in tone.
They arrive with a grunt, and leave with a groan.

But now and then, she’ll just holler and hiss,
squalling and bawling, like something’s amiss.|
We nuzzle her neck, and her blues turn to bliss.

That tri-colored, calico, mouser of ours,
paws for hours, sleeps when it showers,
plays on the lawn, pees on the flowers.

The amber-eyed creature is near and dear
to the five human beings who are living here.
Queen Cat makes the rules, and we adhere.

She listens to birds from the window sills,
then merrily mimics their chirps and trills,
their vibrant chants, and their piercing shrills.

As she chimed high notes in a morning salute,
she was hounded in our yard by a surly ol’ brute,
who nipped at her tail while in dogged pursuit.

Believe me when I say, in the here and now,
that the yowl we heard, someway, somehow,
sounded more like a roar than a cat’s meow.

Enraged by the mongrel’s gruff growl and grumble,
our caterwauling catty girl was cranked up to rumble,
to muzzle that mutt, make him stumble and tumble.

Fiona Fay advanced like a lioness proud,
snarling, sneering, like an angry thundercloud,
at the cur that bit her butt ‘cuz she . . . sang too LOUD!