melissaahowells

      Poet's Home             All Poetry       Sign Up!  Login
© 2000-2022 Individual Authors of the Poetry. All rights reserved by authors.   517973 Poems Read.

Search for Poetry

   


Read Poetry
The Petty Player Who Rarely Sleeps

I'd Like A Taste (The Wolf Said)

The Crow Is A Black Bird

When I Start to Bloom

I'd Like To Be Your Shirt (when you wake up in the morning)



All Beings Considered

Words Between Edward And Jane

Nothing's Sadder Than A Rose

The Great Tsunami Of Our Growing Grief written 3/2.2021--retitled 3/14/2021

After Wide Sargasso Sea ( For Those of You Readers Who Have Empathy For the First Mrs. Rochester.)

WAITING ON THE WORLD (March/February 2021 poetry)

Wild and Unraveling

What Must Be

These Hands Exist July 4 2023 rei-edited 7/12/2023

I Am The Color Of Black

The Tide of Your Lies (2019-2023)

How I Wanted Your Pearls 6/24/2023 WRITTEN DIRECTLY TO THE PAGE

Love Wants What Love Wants re-edited 5/31/023

Winter's Been Too Long.... 4/18/2023 (LONGING)

The Dreaming Life ( A Series Of Dream Vignettes)

Like A Small Street Dog Lured In By The Promise Of Meat

This Is What Mermaids Dream Of

At Night, As I Dream of Vampires Who Have No Bad Intentions

And You Will Be Called Ashes As You Leave ( from a dream)

Certainly No Bread 3/16/2022

Someone Send Out A Search Party

THE FAN , AT NIGHT, GIVES GOOD ADVICE completely re-edited, an entirely different poem

What Is The Price For Your Touch? re-editied 5/31/2023

Where Is My Bed With The Pleasing Tree -Lined View(NOW REEDITED)

Oh What Fine Physics (Before Me ,Lies) re-edtited @4/17/2023

If Prejudice Were Dumb And Could Not Speak

THE COMPANY THAT WE KEEP WITH THE ONE WITHIN

More Poetry >>

 
Features

  Sign Guestbook

Read Guestbook

 
   

Woman Of A Certain Age


*******
**********
*************
*****************

I saw myself on the silver screen
the other day
what I saw made me
catch my breath
it wasn't attractive
I looked down and turned away

I felt reduced down,
simmered down into a
few banal clichés
like somehow I was over-cooked soup
left out overnight to congeal

unusual for me
usually so full of words
and not being able to put two of then together
to make sense of my dread

usually my words are flowing
instead
and more like poetry
marching one after another

how did I find myself
a small ant scaling a larger ant-hill
searching for meaning
and
why was I marching

surely,
time has set its course
 marching on
it is the very nature of this beast

I've been resenting time
for marching
all along

this maybe foolish
but
it is what I've
been doing
bargaining where no bargain will ever
be had

"planned obsolescence,"
I thought,
was a phrase paired and reserved for cars/machines
not women

I'm a flesh/blood animal

however;
I feel like a thing
a rag set aside
a ghost mostly invisible

if I don't have a use
then why am I here?

is it necessary
to be useful
to be kind/reassuring
to offer up womanly support
my friendship
in order to be considered
not obsolete?

some days I feel
like soap in the sink
small smaller and vanishing

sometimes,
when I look into the faces
of others
not all of them strangers
I see the light leaving their eyes
I know
that light is me

what is the indiscernible
damnable
hidden message?

is it that...........
women of a certain age
don't have sex drives
are somehow verboten
off the menu
unless its in some kink of a video

have I become the mildewed Frau-Frau
in the room
my eggs no longer fertile
Myrtle Yurtle The Turtle creeps on
towards her rusted years
near the unfinished line

so, how can I be of service to you?

how can I ingratiate myself into your
line of sight?

how can I make you see me in a world
where wisdom and experience are polite euphemisms
for expiration date looming?

have I
nothing of relevance for you?

am I a  can of peas that's
proverbially put back on the pantry shelf
what can you make out of mush
but boredom and bile....

what do I do if there's no one left to service
to prove I'm here...
Eleanor R. surely knows who I am talking about

women of a certain age
I never would've believed it
Greta stopped being the beauty she was at 40
because she thought she was
irrelevant
her public visa stamped cancelled out

whose mirror was she looking into?

I think I shall become immortal
a vampire
and shun all mirrors
I find them offensive
inaccurate

I know who I am

I am not
irrelevant

I am alive here and now.

I am who matters.

****************
***********
******
***
*






LEGAL COPYRIGHT FEBRUARY 9, 2017 7:02PM
FOR THIS WORK/POEM AND BY THIS
AUTHOR /WRITER MELISSA A HOWELLS
AND FOR THIS LEGALLY COPYRIGHTED
SITE TITLE:
MELOO STRAIGHT FROM HER TILT-A-WORLD


universe of stars, are you shining for me?





Vote for this poem