Brick In My Pocket

I hate my phone
when you don't ring it.
I carry it always
but wonder why I bring it.

Might as well be a brick
I carry in my pocket,
or a big box of breath mints,
for the way you used to stop it.

They told me it was a smart phone
which is one reason that I bought it,
but it couldn't tell me how to keep you,
so its "smartness" I cannot plaudit.

Someday they will invent a new invention,
a handheld device for breakup prevention,
you will simply wave the thing over your lover's head,
and it will reanimate all the feelings that were dead.

No longer, then, will I be carrying bricks upon my person,
no more waiting on phone calls as self esteem is worsened;
a simple matter, then, of making human love by cold machine,
a technological fix to ensure that this king is always queened.

© Francisco G. Rodriquez, 2012

Love Lingers

Alfred said it is better
to have loved
and lost
than to have
never
loved at all.

The good Lord
Tennyson was wrong.
One never loses love.

Love lingers.

Like a rusty barbed wire digging
deep into the flesh
of an unlucky tree,
love lingers in the heart.

Like the sharpest shard
of a broken glass
invisible on the
kitchen floor,
jabbing savage
into a bare foot,
love lingers in the soul.

Like the sweet perfume
of a passing lady
that reminds you of the one,
love lingers in the memory.

Better to have loved and lost?
As age and wisdom increase,
I now wonder if that is true.

Better to have loved or not?
Because love lingers, its sweet
taste I have come to rue.

© Francisco G. Rodriquez, 2012