The Mistress Position - Wendy Maitland

Today's poem is a "Golden Oldie" and was originally published here in May 2012

Living on stolen time
With misbegotten dreams,
Tumbling together,
Indecently magnificent.
Knowingly illicit,
Believing lies,
Never wise.
Drowning in joy,
Strangers to guilt,
Delirious madness of love.

Ignoring all the signs,
Like death, not now.
Nor warning lights
To note the sudden shift
As bars clang shut.
On the other side
A shadow flits:
Slinking back
To the sun-filled life
And carefully chosen wife.

Wendy Maitland

The Mistress Position - Wendy Maitland

Living on stolen time
With misbegotten dreams,
Tumbling together,
Indecently magnificent.
Knowingly illicit,
Believing lies,
Never wise.
Drowning in joy,
Strangers to guilt,
Delirious madness of love.

Ignoring all the signs,
Like death, not now.
Nor warning lights
To note the sudden shift
As bars clang shut.
On the other side
A shadow flits:
Slinking back
To the sun-filled life
And carefully chosen wife.

Wendy Maitland

Singularity - Wendy Maitland

This place is our place,
I can feel you in the air:
Every breath breathes you to me,
Teasingly in the way we were;
As at my feet these same stones,
Old and worn on this dry path,
Sigh and sing, calling your name.

Nothing changes.
Heat rises up as before,
Intoxicating with the smell
Of grass and dust, and us;
Our place, but not our time.
The world moves on without you,
But I am standing still.

Wendy Maitland

Summer Night Garden - Wendy Maitland

Pale as pearl the garden stands,
Dazed to silence in the phantom light,
Breathless in the spell of summer night.
Dark beyond the arch those shadows wait:
No leaf or petal stirs, no bird awakes.

The heavy-headed blossoms drowse,
Their scent extravagant upon the faded air;
A sudden flurry of the Pipistrelles
Swoops and darts, into the waiting shadow,
Beyond the darkening arch.

Wendy Maitland