19 February 1974

The knock at the door
I remember it well
though forty-six years have now passed
The vicar right there
with something to share
for a slap in the face that would last

It was anger I felt
with a fist in the air
that my father had left in that way
And I heard not a sound
from that hole in the ground
as I stood on that February day

Self love

Happy Valentine’s Day to all the lovelies. Love can happen anywhere, anytime with anyone but it always starts with you. Self-love is the best way to live.

A warm and a tight hug 

can do wonders I have heard

It can lick and suck all your pain

for those who have eternally suffered

It’s that magic potion

that elixir

that have worked wonders 

42 Valentines

Forty-two and counting
Valentines I’ve sent
every one of them sincere
and full of sentiment
Forty-two to the same love
my soulmate true and through
a love that’s shared and deepened
the more years we accrue
Forty-two with every word
each February fourteen passing
meant and sealed with promise
for a love that’s everlasting

Questions That Come With Age

The clock… relentless.
What’s my allotment going to be?
How to make the best of it?
How to keep dignity,
avoid a failure of imagination,
avoid self-pity….

“Savor each moment…”
Yes, well that’s a cliché.
I know what’s coming,
What I’ve lost for good.
The trick is to
Savor these, too,
With a little grace.

No lies in the mirror.
No false smiles.
No regrets.
No cruelties.
Kindnesses given
with no expectations.

There are enough
bitter herbs around.
But

One surprise smile is enough
to recharge a whole day.
Thank you, darlin’

Cowgirl

I encountered a young Colorado woman, once,
from a distance. Our trails crossed in our personal badlands.

A beauty, she had the raw fire of a mustang.
I caught her at a terrible time in her life.
Or should I say, she caught me.

Her marriage was coming apart,
her husband having lost interest and sunk into cruelty and betrayals.

We never met, except
as passing
electronic ghosts. She writhed and wrote of her pain,
her bruised pride and injured beauty.
She touched us with her anger and anguish,
her soul’s search for beauty nonetheless,
In that state she painted lurid images of
what she would do with me,
to me, what she wanted from me,
pinned against a wall, legs apart,
full of anger, fury, revenge.

Passion, Courage, Choice

I have chosen to seek
each day the path of courage
and passion.
I fail, often.

I don’t
say this with bravado,
because I do not feel brave.
If I could choose something
easier, I would.
It never gets easier.

But to make the choice each day,
Each minute, to turn and
face the sadness and suffering,
of the world; the pain and joy,
each on it’s own terms
and not be defeated by it—
that is something that
must be chosen again,
and again, and again.
It is the job of poetry.
No compromises.

It is not a choice of pleasant fictions,
a diversion of entertaining nothingness;
nor like the fog of opium that
leaves us still breathing,
but dead.

Each night, darkness does not fall.
That is the wrong image.
Rather, when the earth spins away
from the sun, it rises up from the deep places
of the earth and the oceans, from
the caverns and the bottom of rivers and lakes and seas.
A deep exhalation.
A time for alternatives.

School of the Electric Fence

Photo by Richard Calmes

I suppose I knew this,
once upon a time,
but love is a little like
the electric fence I used to
crawl through to get to the woods.

You have to be cautious, not timid.

(I wouldn’t go so far as to agree with
Crosby when he said being with Joni was
like falling into a cement mixer.)

How do we still fall in love?

Fool’s love is all that they say
they abhor the pain and still want to stay
Can’t change the way we are so willing
the way it morphs and shines
like broken glass in a roll of hay

A JOYFUL CELEBRATION

By Charles Robert Lindholm

A
Christmas Party,
A Joyful Celebration
Shared With Friends And
Family

Copyright © 2019  Charles Robert Lindholm – The Reluctant Poet
All Rights Reserved – Please Come View My Archives!!
12.19.2019  11:40 p.m.

CHRISTMAS HAIKU: CHRISTMAS EVERY DAY – 2019 REPRISE

By Charles Robert Lindholm

Christmas Every Day

HAIKU: A CHRISTMAS SLEEP IN – REPRISE – 2019

By Charles Robert Lindholm

A Christmas Sleep In

CHRISTMAS WISHES AND MEMORIES

By Charles Robert Lindholm

Childhood Memories
Of Christmas Celebrations
From Years Gone By
Parade Across My Mind

When I Sit In The Dark Watching
The Christmas Lights Twinkling

I’M THANKFUL FOR YOU!

By Charles Robert Lindholm

I’m Thankful For You:

My Wife
My Children
My Family
My Friends
My Followers And Readers

After the small hours

After the small hours we awaken
and with Wolfgang to Alcampo
Parking in our usual space, he leads the way
for he knows this place well
with coffee and conversation and
dog biscuits in a bowl by the bar

Sentenced

My first thought
When my daughter was born
Was that I just killed someone.

Her gurgling cries of life
Contrasted with the ominous, death tone
Of her mother’s solemn flatline.

And as the doctors hung their heads,
Declaring my lovely wife dead,
I realized I had just killed again.

Prenuptial

Marriage for the sake of love
Is doubling down
On a sunk-cost investment.

---

My sons tower over me

My sons tower over me
making me feel like I have shrunk

FOR YOU, OUR BELOVED POET

Helene Vaillant

By Charles Robert Lindholm

We Were Blessed
With The Time
You Spent With Us

Blessed With Your
Smile And Love
And With The Gift
Of Your Words

40

Forty years ago today
I put my white suit on
The one I bought for twenty quid
in Jayson’s Menswear from
And the only tie I think I had
was a black one from my Dad
and a pair of his old shoes
I’d kept since I was just a lad

-26.06.19_00:31-

The days,
Wearying, plodding exercise,

July

11 of 12 in the Jemverse series ’12 months II’

In seventy-nine
Forty Julys back
two kindred spirits wed
A fledgling love
grown stronger since
and deeper it’s been said

HE DUPED YOU

By Charles Robert Lindholm

He
Duped You

Starving

I see you in the viridity of those
rainwashed leave
I envision you
in dewdrop drenched petals

CALLING ALL ROMANTICS

By Charles Robert Lindholm

A
Monthly Event,
Full Moon Rising,

First meet

You sneaked up in my room, my heart missed a beat,

You smiled and I gasped, you threw open your arms and I was in,

While in the que of temple, you called my name and I was all lost,

We walked the length and breadth of the market hand in hand,

You looked in my eyes, promised me a lifetime of togetherness,

I hold your hand tight, widen my eyes to stop pain from pouring,

We smiled like we had eternity in our hands to be together,

You had to go, nothing I could do to stop you though I wanted to,

The moment you started on your journey I turned away to leave,

Not turning behind to wave, I had flood of emotions in my eyes,

This moment still holds my heart and the memory stops my beat.

-09.04.19_02:03-

I whisper to her
Alone in the dark spaces

Together in the Distance

a
gentle
hum
somewhere
interrupts
the still-
ness
of a
lonely night,
and threatens to
distract me
from my
thoughts
of you.

Bedroom Constellations

Loose a bright and strong ray of sunlight,
Wrap it twice, nice and tight around my neck,
And string me up to hang from the plastic stars
That glow in the dark above your bed each night.

I promise not to make a sound as I wiggle around