Poetic Asides will be offering prompts for each day during the month, and my responses to prompts from Robert Lee Brewer will appear on that site. Big Tent Poetry also will be providing daily prompts, but just so you know, poems written to their prompts - along with any other poems I write during April - will be posted here.
One of Big Tent Poetry's prompt ideas for this first week was to write about being on a balcony with someone whom we read about in the newspapers. I kept mine deliberately vague (as to identity) but this Nasher is a true story. [Wink.]
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| Image courtesy of Fine Art America/Starry Night by Meghna Patil |
A Nodding Acquaintance
I stepped out onto the balcony to get a breath of fresh air.
The soiree inside was lively, but at that moment, I didn’t care.
I slid the glass door shut and walked towards the far terrace wall.
I usually don’t like high balconies – a fear of the fall.
I held my wineglass in one hand as I gazed at the stars.
I refused to look down at the tiny people and their tiny cars.
Vertigo. Dizziness. A genetic abnormality.
But I needed some space from the party’s triviality.
Then I felt, rather than heard, the slide of the glass door pane.
Someone was joining me but I couldn’t ascertain
who it might be. I knew few people at this chic little get-together.
He quietly came up beside me and I heard him mumble, “Nice weather.”
I sighed. I really didn’t want company of… well, any kind.
I guess it was luck: he could not read my mind.
Without looking at him, I merely nodded my acquiescence.
Two people…one space. A parallel, in essence.
Then, somehow I sensed he was staring straight ahead, not at me.
I was relieved. But, as usual, curiosity
for whatever reason, grew stronger. I turned ever so slightly.
He nodded politely.
A star of screen, who recently made headline news,
was there on the balcony – next to me – with his glass of Chartreuse.
I guess ‘the famous’ also need a break now and then.
A moment of peace. A moment of zen.
I turned back around to my stars and my moon.
That was the extent of our attempt to commune.
After a while, he left. So did I.
My brush with celebrity was (for lack of a better term) ‘drive-by.’
But when you think about it, what were the odds?
Not fodder for the tabloids…just an acquaintance of nods.
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