Well, Valentine’s Day is all over but the dancing, so now I can safely post this poem with its “anti-romance” theme without fearing the ruination of any lovers’ dreams for the holiday. It’s written for the Poetry Challenge – Week 2 over at ClownRhymes’ wonderful poetry blog. The challenge was to use the words “…last words…” as the title, the theme, or in the poem itself. I hope you enjoy it.
Shrike
Last words are forever so easy to say,
And yet they’re so hard to receive.
How could a person with so little faith
Be so instantly and easily deceived?
I try to acknowledge it every day
But there never comes any reprieve,
from knowing that I was her patsy, her rube,
for not seeing what hid up her sleeve.
Now I sit mourning, and here I will stay.
What good reason do I have to leave?
It’s my best friend that now foolishly walks in her way
and I know one day he too will grieve.
The stiletto remains in my heart ever grey,
till the day it can finally be sheathed,
when she does it to him like an instant replay
and my suffering, to him I’ll bequeath.
“You’d take her back if you could get her to stay?”
He recently said. I said “Do I look that naive?
Trust me. You dallied, and the devil you’ll pay.
Your comeuppance you’ll surely receive
and then we’ll drink wine with a perfect bouquet
and our mutual disturbance bereave.
Meanwhile I will just wait for the day
Her unfaithfulness makes you believe. ”
Related articles
- Long-tailed Shrike or Rufous-backed Shrike (sillyreflections.wordpress.com)
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- Happy Valentine’s Day from the Stonecoast Community (stonecoastcommunity.com)
- Valentine’s WordShine (poetwhispers.wordpress.com)
Misadventures In La Mosquitia 
Gilly Gee
February 15, 2012 at 12:49 am
Thanks for the rube word! also never heard the word ‘patsy’! Great poem, sounds like that (fictional) lady needs to learn a lesson.
rogerdengle
February 15, 2012 at 12:53 am
Haha…I think I actually heard ‘patsy’ and ‘rube’ both from watching Looney Tunes when I was a kid. Bugs Bunny used to call Elmer Fudd a rube, a patsy and a maroon. I heard rube again in the book and movie, Water For Elephants. I guess a lot of the “carnies” and “roadies” for the circuses were simply fortunate hobos who managed to hop on the right box-car at the right time. That’s probably how the word rube got passed from the hobos to the circus.
Gilly Gee
February 15, 2012 at 1:01 am
Great! you can never learn too many new words.
rogerdengle
February 15, 2012 at 1:32 am
That’s my take too. Some of my friends tell me I already know too many words, but who listens to them? 😛
Angeline M
February 14, 2012 at 11:38 pm
I like the word “rube”…don’t know why…
rogerdengle
February 15, 2012 at 12:42 am
Hehe, it’s an old circus word. Rube is the term the circus hands used to refer to the people they were conning. Hobos used it before that or around the same time as that, back in the ’30’s, to refer to someone who was kind to them and wanted nothing in return. Thanks Angeline.