Jilted Lover

What on earth just happened?

Disrespect!

It was not you. You did nothing wrong.

© Jilted Lover
Mimi Wolske
All Rights Reserved



It hit her

The way a bullet finds its target
Quickly
Leaving a wound constantly digging

Unlike a messenger
Don’t shoot him
He delivered hurt-to-the-bone
Passive-aggressive
Gone-without-a-word
Heartache

She’d forever remember this pain
From a typical player’s
You’re-such-a-sap message
You’re-a-piece-of-art-people-will-
Pass-finding-it-unstimulating
Missive

Shrugging days later
She hung a blank canvas
In a popular gallery
Propped it with a strategically placed broom

Presented her own provocative admonition



(Untitled, 2009, Canvas, wood, and plastic, Maurizio Cattelan)

Poem: MY GRANDMOTHER TOLD ME TO ALWAYS GIVE A BEGGAR MONEY BECAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW WHO IS AN ANGEL

Prejudice. 

When taught by a loving grandparent, learning not to judge people by their looks was a positive lesson. 

Today we say, "Never judge a book by its cover" so often it almost has no meaning any longer... they are just words. 

But, when something grabs our attention and our lesson comes from that experience, it is a lesson not easily forgotten nor dismissed.

© MY GRANDMOTHER TOLD ME TO ALWAYS GIVE A BEGGAR MONEY BECAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW WHO IS AN ANGEL

She said that the first time I saw a man

Who had no legs selling pencils for ten cents;

He sat on a two-foot-by-two-foot piece of wood

on four rollers and held out a tin cup.

Impossible not to stare at the misery

Pleading with my five-year-old soul for a dime,

I thought of how she patiently combed my curly hair.

Rain fell like quarters smacking the muddy yard;

The comb flipped from her hand onto the front porch

Just as thunder shook the small house.

She told me to get the comb, but afraid of lightning,

I shook my head; she gently pushed me out the open door.

Just as I stooped down and took the comb

Into my small hand, lightning flashed and

Thunder crashed simultaneously. I made

In back inside in one leap. She laughed.

Our maid slept downstairs, in the basement.

We got baby chicks from someone for Easter.

One, maybe both parents hated them. Grandmother

Told them they should keep the peeps in the basement.

Those peeps brought back memories of the squeaky

Square of rolling wood used by the beggar man.

The maid, being superstitious, strangled the chicks—

She wrung their baby chicken necks. We cried.

I had a dream that night about the legless man
and of thunder and lightning storms;

I thought our maid strangled his legs. She did not

Know that he had wings… That he was an angel.

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

Tumbleweed Contessa Poetry: © When I Was A Child

© When I Was A Child

I called her yellow and she

danced with the breeze,

her head bowing and nearly

touching a carpet of green.

she stood straight once again,

her face to the heavens. Face up,

she smiled at me as I stooped

to pluck her from the ground,

as if she were a small gold finch

or a tiny, singing canary, with

a quick swoop of my hand.

There you are, my dandelion.

But, those bright eyes the color of

buttercups or daffodils pleaded

not to hurt her and force her

colorless blood to flow, and

she promised if I waited,

white and silky, wispy wings

would sprout, yellow would fade;

then I could pluck her up,

close my eyes to wish as

I faced away from the breeze,

and then blow on her, I could

watch her dance on the wind.

but when that day arrived,

she appeared as clouds around

the moon or a lace collar and

I decided I would keep her.

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

 (picture #2, painting Of Dandelions and Dreams by Jimmy Lawlor)
(picture #3, Marie de GARAY - 1861-1953, Catching Canaries, oil on mahogany panel)
(picture #4, dandelion - Angela Bartlett, Colored Pencil)

(all paintings, drawings, photos not attributed to any artist do not belong to me and are the sole property of their individual owners)

A Tumbleweed Contessa Poem: sometimes the ceiling drops on her

just another day, another dollar-two-fifty

for wind-blown, euphonious  poetry

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved 

© sometimes the ceiling drops on her

she never knows what chapter she’s in,

she never understands the plot, and

she never knows what to do next.

whipping out her pair of used scissors

like an old gunslinger, she

cuts down snow-licking sunflowers

before they become massively dehydrated;

it’s her own private blend of

brain-hatching unhappiness.

there she squats sobbing tears of dirt,

legs bent like a grasshopper’s

with her knees at her shoulders,

her arms tight around those coltish legs

as if to prevent them from

wandering off and leaving her.

stretching for an explanation, trying

desperately to fall into

the rhythm of the story, but

she never knows what chapter she’s in,

she never understands the plot, and

she never knows what to do next.

(painting by Michael Cheval)

Tumbleweed Contessa's Poetry: MEOW

When You Face Journey And The Unspeakable... The Unthinkable Happens 

© Meow

backseat face journeys witnessing
pigeon dung pigeon dung
white splats on terracotta tiles
red splats on the windshield
dying pigeon on the driveway

feral cat slinking low

P O U N C E

Mimi Wolske
All Rights Reserved

Face Journey is when you are talking with someone or watching something and your expressions tell the story of what you're hearing/seeing.

(photos are not mine and are the sole property of the owner)

Poetry: ©The Wind Scratching My Window Reminds Me, from Letters I Never Sent to You

©The Wind Scratching My Window Reminds Me

from Letters I Never Sent to You

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

She took the horse sailing again. Well, the three-year-old has horse panic attacks every time he gets near a plane.

I pressed one of the flowers, from the bouquet you sent, between the pages of a large book the way you used to press my body into anything that resembled an ocean of sheets.

The flowers are so beautifully pastel, so fresh, so recently cut, they remind me of how moonlight lit your face and stuck like pollen, or like an ocean being beached.

I wonder, do you plunge your face through that sun-deprived skin to search for lost intentions or have you abandoned them, one and all?

The rain began falling just now. It’s welcome and if I were younger, I would go outside and dance in the desert heat-blistered white drops. Instead, I’m where I prefer to be as I write another letter I will never send, lounging on my chaise as deliriously happy as Cleopatra on her barge and sending you all the love she freely and openly gave to Mark Anthony.

As always, I end with All My Love.

Fifteen Stitches

What screws us up most in life is this picture we have in our heads of how it is suppose to be. What really happens is the one left behind is painted out of the picture even though that person is clearly equal and a collaborator.

© Fifteen Stitches

chaos spilled across the paper moon

opening the window and abandoning

the weights of life he found inopportune

fall into the arms of sweet dreams

the vigilante air held hostage

loving words she dared not utter

he misunderstood fragments of shared moments

and incomplete life puzzles

kneeling in the cathedral of him

collecting and saving broken-heart stitches

the way a child keeps fireflies in a closed jar

she longed for another lullaby

by Mimi Wolske, American author, artist, Renaissance Woman

All Rights Reserved

(painting: Don't waste your tears by Catrin Welz-Stein)

Words Become Lessons I Will Learn

You love and loathe her/him simultaneously. So if s/he is such a snake or a wolf, or the ultimate deceiver, why are you still there? Walk away. They won’t change because they are selfish. They want their cake and eat it too. It’s easy to always think of only herself/his self, which makes it easier to think less and less about you while you think more and more about him/her.

© Words Become Lessons I Will Learn

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

I read your text again today.

Your words kiss the boundaries of being,

Scream your soul’s conversation,

Say to me, “I am here”,

Even when you are not.

But, they are only words;

I have heard a surfeit of them,

As well as your breathy vows

And that staccato sotto voce

Declaring in my ear you are mine!

No words carry the same meaning.

You stumbled through my sentences

While someone else lay enjoying

The presence of your heart

And spoke to you in an

Unknown lover’s language.

But I find your words are

A wondrous and rare thing,

So I keep them in a small machine

To remind me they are as mechanical

As the small box that plays them back to me.

No words carry the same meaning.

You Are mu And That Is Equal to Zero

A few dimensions of “characterological coldness”:

aloof, apart, stand-offish, impersonal, disengaged, uninvolved, closed, shut-down, detached, distant, remote, haughty, self-absorbed; emotionally unavailable, unresponsive, indifferent, uninvested, unfeeling, unemotional, affectionless; unsmiling, cold-hearted--as in “cold fish” or (even worse) an “iceberg” or “ice queen”, lacking in empathy and compassion, angry, hostile, critical

© You Are mu And That Is Equal to Zero

Did your inflated ego get bruised?

Your puffed up pride in yourself

Is as shallow as a loaf of yeasted bread.

Such a myopic, self-centered focus

Prevents you from seeing the bigger,

The accurate picture. Will you ever

Be able to stop focusing on your

Own needs to see there is something

Deeper, more meaningful? My dear,

You are not the purpose to existence.

Your ivory tower is brittle from

A lifetime of puerile resistance.

Take off your paradoxical socks;

Let your bare feet feel real grass.

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

© I’m Just A Philanthropist with An Old Soul or Every Day Is A New Day with You

It’s Still National Poetry Month

The first National Poetry Month was held in 1996.

“Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.” — Percy Bysshe Shelley, from A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays.

© I’m Just A Philanthropist with An Old Soul

or

Every Day Is A New Day with You

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

You can’t go back again

And expect everything to be the same—

You stole more than trinkets.

Still, I replay you and me;

It’s a loop of happy reveries.

Spring again and I’m shedding

All the unneeded parts of my

protective coat without a second thought.

Now, with the dust jacket removed,

all I see is our story,

Not the actors in it.

Just as a room full of students

Sharpening their pencils,

Or Mom frying bacon early in the morning,

You are one of my favorite smells...

Burned on my memory until the end.

(painting: Quentin Massys, Netherlandish, Ill-Matched Lovers, c. 1520-1525)

© Pristine to Red Stockings and Heels

For a woman, any emotion, even sadness or anger, can be the catalyst for passion when she connects with its underlying power in an erotic way. We don't need flowers, candlelight, or bubble baths to get in the mood for love and sex. We take whatever mood we're in and turn it to our sexual advantage. The result: not just better sex, but a more passionate relationship.

Pristine to Red Stockings and Heels

When did the rain wash away the vision

That once was so clear she believed

She could see the end of the world;

A thin line of a distant horizon

Blending heaven and earth, perceived

As one, floating through time--it purled

Mayhap when he circumnavigated

The sea to find her happy, fixed universe

And informed her that cyberworld is round,

Not flat, or when he showed her a world uncharted;

Their stars aligned across the transverse

Hall of time and he captured her spellbound

Happenstance entwined with unusual desire

For a life as yet unknown and a curiosity

To learn and perchance to see and to know,

Surely edification would transpire;

Could there be reciprocity

And would he appreciate her sough

How long could she maintain his interest

Once she made the unspoken yet expected change;

In true Scarlet O’Hara fashion, she’d think of it tomorrow;

Thus, she gave her lessons her fullest

Attention, afraid that he she might estrange,

Yes she gave herself in his cyber-Bordeaux

Copyright © 2011

Mona Arizona

All rights reserved

© On And On

On And On, a poem by moi with art by Reameth

Tumbleweed Contessa's Poetry -- Surely You Jest

I'm working on a character for a new book, a woman who has become a woman being used. I'm discovering that it's better for the person who doesn't know how to be in an honest relationship to be an asshole for telling the other person they aren't interested or that they've lost interest than it is to keep the other person in an emotional purgatory where they think they have a chance.

What kind of person leads another into believing they are loved and then walks away without a word? They're ALWAYS so so so busy. Hey, aren't we all? They fall into being the responder and never the Initiator. You hear more about what they did with an ex-lover than how happy they are with you. Huge Red Flags are huge red flags for a reason. 

When the one being deceived begins realizing something is amiss, well, maybe they will have something like this poem to say.

© Surely You Jest

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

You can’t just come into my life
and tell me you love me
as much as I love you,
and begin to matter,
and become an important part,
and then set me in a dark hole
away from every part of your life
and just walk away
without saying a word,
leaving nothing but a hole in my chest.

© Their Prickly Pear Jam and Sour Grapes

Great minds discuss ideas.

Average minds discuss events.

Small minds discuss people.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Isn’t it kind of silly and yet also amazing to think that tearing someone down also builds up the person doing the tearing... Or, the person RIPPING another apart? If this was the 16th or 17th century, the narrator of this poem might have been burned at the stake or maybe been forced to wear a scarlet A on the bosom of her clothes because of the vindictiveness of the gossips we first learn about in the third stanza.

What we never know is her name or the man's name; she never says. But, that's unimportant because it could be anyone; right? What we do know about her is that she is single, that she writes, that she is Jewish, that she lives in a state that borders Mexico, and that she was aware she was being slandered. What we know about the man is that he is not Jewish, he lives in Canada in a place known for its plains, and that he probably listened to the gossip/slander.

Ooh, Ooh, ooh! Can we suggest the first order of business?? Open up a church and teach those bitches about the Proverbs and Psalms on gossip!!! Or, send them to court as slanderers and bullies and let them try to defend what they said. No, the reader doesn't know what was said, but whatever it was, it was unimportant. What is important is that the readers learn the gossips were envious, unhappy, angry, and/or jealous of the narrator and they attacked.

Gossip is stealing.

If false, it’s stealing a person's good character.

If true, it’s taking away a person's right to privacy and ownership of their own story.

© Their Prickly Pear Jam and Sour Grapes

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

We were an unlikely pair, my Goy(im) Toy and I,

Strolling across the desert border into Mexico on a

Warm January day from nothing more than sheer

Boredom and a desire for authentic native food.

There were fantasies to live before he returned to

His snowy western plains across my northern border,

And he wasn’t about to listen to any Ivory-Castle

Suggestions from others... Or, maybe he had already.

We may have appeared ridiculous through the cocktail

Glasses of the classless and the prejudiced minority;

We never let any catch me writing since they were so

Careful I’d never learn what they told him about me.

Of course they were all so perfect and enthusiastic in

Their scandalous gossip that their pathetic, worthless

Lives seemed right; and none thought much of the my

Writing, yet they couldn’t wait my words to criticize.

There was nothing subtle about their whining and their

Undermining of anything we did or anything I said;

How could it have surprised them to discover I knew

They all slandered me to my love, my peers, my friends?

(art: 

Top, Gossips, acrylic and watercolor crayon, 16 x20 inches, illustration board, by S. Giles
Bottom, GOSSIP, Acrylic on Canvas, 20 x 30 inches, by C. D'Aguanno)

© Love Lies Autopsied

Ever wonder what would the autopsy report of a love that literally just died look like?

AUTOPSY REPORT: L@^e-MRGJW2D-SYJ3047

NAME OF THE LITERALLY DECEASED:  Love

AUTOPSY PERFORMED AND AUTHORIZED BY:  Love’s Survivors

LITERALLY DEAD IDENTIFIED BY:  Numerous Songs, Centuries of Poems, Tweets from those who confirm LOVE was in fact “literally dying”

AGE:  Ageless

RACE:  Parts From Every Race

SEX:  Most Definitely

LENGTH:  Indeterminate

WEIGHT:  Heavy

TEMPERATURE:  Icy

EXTERNAL EXAMINATION:  Underdeveloped, undernourished, no visible physical evidence of literally dying. There are some healed wounds from Cupid’s arrows – one on the right forearm, one just left of center and between the rib cage, another on the left ankle.

EVIDENCE OF X-RAYS:  Um, appears to have been an ex named Stephen, and an ex named Robert, and an ex named Roy, but no evidence of any Rays.

TOXICOLOGY:  Is that the song by Aphrodite?

MANNER OF DEATH:  Probability the manner was without class.

CAUSE OF DEATH:  It literally just died.

© Love Lies Autopsied

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

So here I lie weighing my heart,

Putting life and death into your hands,

Bleeding words down the naked skin

Of pressed pulp surrendered under

The first moon of Spring's evening;

Your smile beckoned from the portrait.

Lost in the breeze of love’s

Spangled rhythm, our frost-bitten

Dreams burgeoned in the warmth

Under the same blade that splayed me open,

Spilling out all of my sins;

Your song, like raindrops, fell from me.

A dozen washed-up stories in

The devil’s graveyard of lost lovers

Speaks volumes on the trials of

Cruel seasons and the glittering skies

That held no answers in the swaying

Pull from your unpalatable woes.

(art: Herakut)

© Sonnet 21: Some Days Life’s As Stagnant As Pond Scum

So, what makes a poem a sonnet?

Generally, it is a poem containing fourteen lines of iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter is a line of verse with five metrical feet, each consisting of one short (or unstressed) syllable followed by one long (or stressed) syllable; for example: “Two households, both alike in dignity”.

Traditionally, sonnets have been classified into groups based on the rhyme scheme. William Shakespeare wrote his sonnets to rhyme: abab cdcd efef gg.

Sonnets that follow this rhyming scheme are called Shakespearean sonnets.

I share with you my Shakespearean sonnet.

© Sonnet 21: Some Days Life’s As Stagnant As Pond Scum
Mimi Wolske
All Rights Reserved

There’s something that’s making me insecure;
Your thoughtless love’s undone by your hand.

I question if ever you think I'll endure.

Life’s stagnant and I’m sinking in sand;
You’re shallow and quiet, a most still pond.
I, therefore, must travel to you; you see?
If never we shall meet, how shall we bond?
Who’s able to prevent pond scum on me?
The problem is never that I doubt you;
I’ve almost all needed tools, except faith
You’ll ever own needed vows that ring true.
Be assured; I’m seduced not by your wraith.
And although there isn’t credence in words,
I believe we’ll abide life as two nerds.

In The Splendor of Doomsday And Pelican Lace

There is something that separates MOST of us from the animals and that's our ability to mourn for the loss of people we don't even know, to despise the chaos and devastation caused by haters.

© In The Splendor of Doomsday And Pelican Lace

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

hammer my heart on an anvil by daylight

provide succor in your arms by night

discard all the sadness I sink into the cold

fibers of your jacket and stop the world

I’ve gone silent waiting for the moment

the world realizes love can conquer hate

duck under your desk for that rising mushroom

cloud as the photographer adjusts his lens

ghost children surround the satin-lined pines

desperate tongues plead in all languages

toilet-paper rolls survive their disregard

and masking-tape edges silence warnings