eternally broken hearted wallflower

Eternal wallflower doofus. I pour my heart out, it’s uncool. Heart on a sleeve. I am a novice poet, I write, I learn. After going through the typical twin failures of marriage and a disappointing career, I began to experiment with verse. Poetry satisfied the artistic and emotional gaps I had struggled with. The challenge to represent this experience (and let’s face it; revenge fantasies) kept me motivated and engaged with the outside world.  Stripped bare and dumbfounded, I squelched out a bunch of silly, silly poems. Research, a bit of naïve bravery and the helpful critiques of my friend Cathi led me to find a new voice. The baseline: it makes me happy, I enjoy the process. Posted here are my first efforts at poetry up to the present day. I penned a few articles and poems for the “Gypsy Curse” a zine founded in New Haven, Connecticut by Melissa Daily McCormack sometime at the beginning of the 00’s. I chose the posts from my Nom de plume, Prudence Duchamp, these are actually pretty funny IMHO. Creating this blog forces me to closely look at what I’ve put on the page. Emo crap? Probably. Someday (I hope), someone will read, get what I’m saying, and connect. Someday, maybe I’ll get it. Please check out my work, scroll down the page, or look just to the left menu for haiku, Gypsy Curse and other stuff. Feedback is important to me! Improvement is impossible without it. Share your thoughts so I may endlessly analyze the crap out of them! (The only image not made by me is the portrait below. Adrian Waggoner painted this at Lyme Academy of Art, July 2007.)

Thanks,

Patty

Dread Head

not in the attic,
or under the bed.
nor the rank basement should we dread.
fear not dark spaces,
there’s no compare
to phantoms in the head!

a little ditty about chemistry

maybe, a stray electron
(you) left orbiting me
stole one of mine because it was free

released on exhale
caught in a kiss

burning a trail
where thumb grazed lips

still on the loose, synaptic melee
phantom love, i found you
oh, do it again!

december

solstice sea
lush calm black
can take it all
frigid current, soft and cruel
one less fool
forget forget forget

morning again

messed up sheets, empty bed
lonely heart, messed up head
messed up dreams, endless days
has it always been this way?

for lack of

these hands, showing age,
display no tokens of love,
pull weeds from the dirt.

Thank you!!

999 hits for “heart on a sleeve”

Thanks for looking.

Patty

one perfect night

drifting honeysuckle perfume bliss
wraps this perfect summer night
a pause before the abyss

skyward screaming flames arise
conjure peace
our sacrifice

radiance obedience silence

forgotten lines of ley
sacred circles decay
abandoned vigil, false prophesy

life is power, we are alive

there is no eternity

wives’ tales

many kindly say
in time, hearts mend.
partly true this may be.
chips gone missing,
glue in the cracks,
cautiously repaired,
pieces never match.
new old heart, not quite right.
the empty inside
whispers all night.

it’s all the same to me

hands clasped in prayer, eyes screwed shut
crawl a mile on your knees; all for what?
devil on your shoulder, angel in the wind
wail for redemption, surely it’s the end.
sinners, cynics – laugh at the sky
one thing is certain, we are all gonna die!

the ups and downs of crude

Hello plastic spoon, you saved my life today!
-then I threw you away

many eons packed tight, deep under earth’s crust
we drilled a huge hole, sucked you right up

hey! algae bloom, why would you choose
to reconstitute as a disposable spoon?

caught forever in this shape you are
could have been diamonds, a kilowatt hour

a second eternity, I threw you away
a dank airless place, there you will stay

passing

Generations fail – crushed in time,
leaving history’s mass.

Lonely cairns covered in grass

We kept their bones
We have their eyes

Passing by unknown lives,
dreaming our future names.

Unaware of becoming the same.

turn away

Do not face the sun.
Solar flare, corona glare
negative imprint retinal scar
turn away, turn away
Deepening night, indigo blue
shadow hands touch future
long before I do

Chill in the air

Keep walking by, my name stuck in your throat.
The brush of my lips, the warmth that you felt.
Now a vague memory, it slips from your grasp.
Who was I, now just out of reach?
My touch and my heart, I took it all back.
Keep walking by, that name stuck in your throat.

I have no use for the clear blue sky

No hope in the noonday sky. No truth in its cryptic eye.
No use for this present state; the empty arc reveals no fate.
Lowering clouds, the frozen wind
Foretell it will end, and begin.
I am.
I was.
I will be.

The clear blue sky is silent to me.

a minute, a moment

gulls cut a pure arc
grey mist clings in tangled hair
cold front coming in

before chance

footprints in wet snow
caught by the wind! sudden calm
scent of grass lingers

Something I lost

Sometimes, I think, I don’t have a heart.
But it’s not for a piece
or a part
it may lack.
I lent it all out
and have not got it back

it’s a common thing

Evolving, unseen and unknown.
A tiny sphere, like Carl’s pale blue dot, is changing.
It’s a common thing, happens every day.
Tectonic pressures and volcanic eruption,
Create liquids, gasses, atmospheres and oceans.
Then, finally, self replicating chemical reactions.
With time and some chance, molecule and aether fuse.

Into life.

Formed from mud, formed from stars
Senseless, and mute
Creatures emerge from a dark, seething pond.

The first ones.

UV seared retinas, scorched air burned lungs.
Awareness, shocked into self, bursting from fear.
Awed by existence, their very physical presence,
XX and XY become!
So very alike, they are two, not one!

XX absorbed sensation, reality and beyond!
The swirling gasses, particulates and planetoid masses!
It perceived possibility in the pulsing proximity of XY!
In its heart, a vision grew, the future expanded, it began to make plans.

XY observed and analyzed while XX dreamed.
And was aware of exactly three things.
It was hungry.
Scheming dreaming XX made its feet itchy.
Ten minutes away, was a different, NEWER pond.

Focused, decisive, XY took action.

Rolling over, it spoke to its shining new mate,
Hey, hope you don’t mind, but I gotta skate…

But wait! Don’t feel sad for little XX – it looked back to the stars, the moon and the sky!
The future is now! So much to be done!
XX could get busy, with the other now gone.
It still had hopes, and dreams and joy.
She would not hold back for some STUPID BOY!

THE BEGINNING

time travel

twisted boughs frame mysterious skies
offering infinite blue fractal views
ancient starshine comes to my eyes
telling stories

glittering moments

glittering moments and the rustlings of ghosts,
slide past and through and around
that which we share, caught in gravity’s sphere
flickering and sighing, beautifully bound.
this precious mote, each shining grain-
(the nodes of joy and rasping pain)
tumble spin collide

negative space

Contours form in the emptiness near,
Incomplete; all boundaries, not object, not air
negative space is not real; but what relates
No depth, no detail, no substance, no place
Blank reaction, edges drawn by events
It’s the part in between

Ultimate Wallflower

Sidelined in a hopeful trance
always looking for one big chance

Participants gather and disperse
a sensitive nature is such a curse

Smiles intent on games being played,
oblivious to my suffering shade

We are all of us one

A billion stars shimmer
mystical patterns in the sky.
A single star rises
over one, over all
bringing the day.

Everything old is new

What is left to say about love?
It’s all been done.
Those without cry for the day
when two are one.

Illusion Conclusion

horizon shimmers
illusions rise in the heat
sharp tears, starry eyes

Tomorrow’s City

Crystal walls enclose a world
Fractured towers pierce the air

a breath

a fingertip

Dissolving

to form again

Tomorrow’s City

on my window pane

Spring Dreams

black branches pierce twilight deep
dark roots disturb Persephone in her sleep.
barest limbs scrape turbulent skies;
silent without a crown of sighs.
slumbering giant trapped in coldest earth.
autumn leaves have turned to dust
Ancient Beauty, do you dream of days when you had a voice?

Bitter Rail

Bone to metal
betrayal and pride,
in the boxcar
for a white knuckle ride.

fists clenched, face pale
raging, racing
along the bitter rail

Destination: nowhere,
brutality and hate.
A useless course
a pointless chase.

Hang on and fail,
wasting life
along the bitter rail

Standing Stone

The wheel of the year will pass me by,
as I stand
my head in the Sky

wasting time

There’s something out there
better for me
than wasting time
on passing Misery

All in ruin

peering inside, an ancient city.
discovery at hand,
they were all gone

or dead.
Roaming a landscape in miniature,
we ruled in their stead

May 21, 1999 A True Story

Screaming and crying can’t bring you home
Face down on the couch, I’m all alone
I’ll fold your clothes and wash the floor

You don’t love me any more

memory of a love poem

Do I know you?
Whose hand smoothes tears from my face
Whose sure voice cuts to the chase?
Who squeezes my heart in just the right place?

It only hurts a little

Who are you?
Who lets in light, throws curtains wide
Who breaks through my brittle pride?
Who clears the shards that would pierce my hide?

But I put them there

I remember you!
Who swallows the bitter pill?
Who pushes my weakest will?
Who tells the world to go to hell!

Oh yeah, I do

Gracious Advice by Prudence du Champ

Gracious Advice -1

Gracious Advice – 2

 

Is your powder room up to snuff? By Prudence du Champ

Chain Reaction

Mutually held in the spiral dance,
Chain reaction, there was never a chance.
Fusion quick mind, glacier slow heart
Our end was known from the start

The super nova is all for show
Implosion is the only way to go
Red hot surface, reserved at the core
When the reaction is over, we will shine no more

It happened so fast, this primal shift,
at the speed of continental drift
Now the cinder moves quietly through the ink
It was over in a cosmic blink

For Me and the Sun

will you come out and play? (one day out of thousands)

I fell, skinned both palms and knees. Tiny pebbles
embedded the skin, thin lattice of blood
seeping through.  Laughing, (it was
funny when someone else got hurt) you went inside
leaving me mute angry and hurt feelings.
Later that night, hands throbbing on the pillow,
eyes smarting, I stared at the ceiling, life is so unfair.

hope

threads of brightness
shot through the dread,
life’s dreams woven
into the web.
Patterns of influence appear
renewed with change.
Shifting on the moving air

China Cupboard, for my Mom

Crystal, silk, gossamer wings-
My mother’s dearest things,
beckoned my curious grasp.

Cracked and torn,
rumpled and shorn.
She donned acceptance with careworn grace.

An indelible mark
is etched into my heart.
A shining memory of the beautiful and fragile
Whole.