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    Parker Owens
  • Parker Owens
  • Author
  • 09/21/2017
  • 204 Words
  • 1,875 Views
  • 14 Comments
Poetry posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 

Disasters, Delights and Other Detours - 5. Alternate Reality and Companion

As always, the errors you find are all my own. Thank you for reading!

Alternate Reality

I called aloud for cloudless, open skies,
for dainties rare and morsels of the best;
for youthful wines with flavor effervesced,
and flowered fields awash with butterflies.
I wished to run in happy exercise,
we'd be together, tangled in our rest,
beneath the vault of endless heaven blest,
for this and more I'd often fantasize.
I yearned for fevered kisses in the sun,
but heard derisive laughter with the rain;
the vintage wine to vinegar did run,
exuberance so changed to ache and pain,
and all my vivid hopes we might be one
reechoed in a meaningless refrain.

 


Companion

A private sort of life I've always led,
a barricaded road of pavement shy,
all weedy, uninviting to the eye
and deeply shadowed, daring one to tread
the way despite the warning signs to dread;
the sort benighted fools will oft defy,
but make the far more sensible to fly
and seek a safer sunlit path instead.
Successfully, I've turned away the few
who strayed upon my private, shaded lane,
until by chance I then encountered you
meand'ring lonely in the mist and rain;
and so it was that I discovered two
could share the road and one another's pain.

If either of these moved or interested you, please leave a comment behind. Your notes help me learn and grow.
Copyright © 2017 Parker Owens; All Rights Reserved.
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Poetry posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 
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Chapter Comments

  • Site Administrator
Valkyrie
  • Site Administrator

Waking up to Parker poetry always makes my day. :hug: Dugh picked the perfect word to describe these two offerings.  Juxtaposition... I see them intertwined and twisting like DNA -- one curves and turns one way while the other does the exact opposite.  I like these a lot and can relate to them very much as well.  Nicely done, as always. :hug:  

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Parker Owens
3 hours ago, dughlas said:

Alternat Reality seems filled with youthful exuberence only to be tempered by time and age.

Companion while it stars less then enthusiastic in its welcome ends on a far happier note.

Nice juxtaposition.

 

Thank you for reading these and for your interesting and acute comments. Time and age seem to be both an advantage and a burden, it seems - oh, to be as wise when I was so much younger. Not that I can really claim much in the way of wisdom. Again, my thanks.

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Parker Owens
1 hour ago, Valkyrie said:

Waking up to Parker poetry always makes my day. :hug: Dugh picked the perfect word to describe these two offerings.  Juxtaposition... I see them intertwined and twisting like DNA -- one curves and turns one way while the other does the exact opposite.  I like these a lot and can relate to them very much as well.  Nicely done, as always. :hug:  

 

You say such nice things. Thank you. @dughlas did indeed have it perfectly right. And your image of helically twisted DNA strands is really quite marvelous. These two really do seem to rotate about one another like that. I am both glad and sorry that you relate to these; I have felt both acutely. Thank you for your interesting thoughts and lively images. And for your hugs.

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Parker Owens
11 minutes ago, Headstall said:

Alternate Reality... wishes and desires, unrequited...

Companion... walls must fall for happiness, and yes, pain, to be shared... Sometimes not so easy, but worth it in the end...

A terrific and thought provoking pairing, Parker... cheers... Gary....

 

I very much like your take on Companion. You are quite right, I think. Endure the difficulty of opening the way, and it is much easier to walk the path with another.  And Alternate Reality is full of autumnal kinds of sadness. These seemed to fit the season. 

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Mikiesboy

Happy Autumn Equinox ... reading these again today .. hopefully having something decent to say about them.. Alternate Reality  mmm  full of change.. like the earth is going through again slowly.. the slip from short sleeves to long and then to jackets and coats ... why do we fight it .. 

 

Companion ... hidng from yourself?  no not so much, hiding from others, from chances in safety. But finally grasping the hand of another whose path is near to your own?  there's hope in this piece.. i liked it very much, Parker 

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Parker Owens

@Mikiesboy...You read me so well in these, tim. Alternate Reality is indeed all about change, and recognizing its presence. So many changes we go through, and we so often fight them instead of flow with them. And when that happens, we only concentrate on the loss, and not the blessings of the present moment. Companion is part of a quiet hope for facing the pain, the consequences of choices made and tolerated. I am glad you liked this, and your comments are so kind and generous. Thank you.

Edited by Parker Owens
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northie

I find these mirror images of each other. The pink, rosy dreams of youth gradually subsiding into the reality of wiser, soured older age. The loneliness of earlier life giving way to later companionship, loving support. Reading them gave me pause for thought and some self-examination. To some degree, my experience of the first is again a mirror image. The second, well, I have been there. Without your resolution, though.  But I have come closer now than I ever thought possible.   

Edited by northie
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Parker Owens

I am glad these two gave some chance for reflection. That happened to me, too. They were written some time apart from one another, and it was in editing and readying them that the notion of pairing them occurred. Thank you for your insights and thoughts. 

4 hours ago, northie said:

I find these mirror images of each other. The pink, rosy dreams of youth gradually subsiding into the reality of wiser, soured older age. The loneliness of earlier life giving way to later companionship, loving support. Reading them gave me pause for thought and some self-examination. To some degree, my experience of the first is again a mirror image. The second, well, I have been there. Without your resolution, though.  But I have come closer now than I ever thought possible.   

 

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AC Benus

Dear Parker, I often find it difficult to leave comments on your remarkable poetry. The reason is partly fear; for example here, I believe I know the first poem is for/about a 'him' you've mentioned to me numerous times. What I would say to that him right now is, you messed up - big time. You may not have been in the business of breaking hearts when you were a young man, but I'm sure when you hurt Parker the way you did, you hurt yourself far worse. 

 

For the second one, again I fancy I know who has strayed on your lane. To him I say, go for it. Wander down that path and I doubt either of you will regret it. 

 

Beautiful sonnets, my friend. 

 

 

Edited by AC Benus
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Parker Owens
10 hours ago, AC Benus said:

Dear Parker, I often find it difficult to leave comments on your remarkable poetry. The reason is partly fear; for example here, I believe I know the first poem is for/about a 'him' you've mentioned to me numerous times. What I would say to that him right now is, you messed up - big time. You may not have been in the business of breaking hearts when you were a young man, but I'm sure when you hurt Parker the way you did, you hurt yourself far worse. 

 

For the second one, again I fancy I know who has strayed on your lane. To him I say, go for it. Wander down that path and I doubt either of you will regret it. 

 

Beautiful poem, my friend. 

 

Thank you, AC, for your words of support and encouragement. You read my mind and hurt so well, I was left breathless for a moment. You speak to them who I addressed  plainly; I did so more obliquely. The first of these was meant to taste of disappointment, and the second to contain the scent of hope. That they moved you makes me think that perhaps another set of eyes might agree with you. Again, thank you for reading these so well.

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