Hostage Photo
She looked like she was in a hostage photo.
Her eyes seemed too alert, too wide open.
Her suitor had a half-smirk / half smile.
There was a nonchalant air of confidence
On his face, as if he’d come back from
Some bold safari having bagged a trophy.
I pictured them traveling the world again
For no reason, making labored attempts
At making love to prove they still had it
In them. But to be more sympathetic:
What was she to do? Her artistic career
All in a shambles, her hobbies all coming
To nearly nothing and imbued with only
Half-meaning. One has to have a narrative,
Some way to tie a bow around a shipwreck.
If it’s any consolation, their combined income
Would smooth out the sterile edges of such
Negotiations as must inevitably come when
Proof-of-concept prototypes don’t replicate
Well on the open road. The wooden cross
In the background seemed nearly comedic.
Imagine her really believing in any god?
The old, “Well, I try to live as Christ lived,”
Doesn’t really wash with a former Baptist
Like me. I admonish others to go primitive
Polytheistic, like I now do, when begging
The gods for undeserved mercy and help.
These secularized, politicized, mainline
Protestant and Reformed worship houses
Strike me as progressive action groups
With cherry picked Bible & Torah verses
Sprinkled over them. But who am I
To judge the lives and beliefs of others?
Well, I’m told I’m a judgmental prick —
That’s who. As for me, I’ll probably
Do the same thing she’s doing, maybe
Five years from now. Then you’ll get
To laugh at my hostage photo too.
©2024 Mel C. Thompson All rights reserved.
Mel C. Thompson is a retired security guard and office temp who is a semi-retired poet-publisher (writing about one poem a month and publishing about one author per year). He was born in Downey, California and has a B.A. in Philosophy from Cal-State Fullerton. In the active phase of his poetry career, he was a desktop publisher and published many authors, most recently Deborah C. Segal and Jonathan Hayes. He is of the Café Babar lineage of the plain-language / spoken word / 1990s San Francisco poetry scene. He also writes short novels, short plays and books on religion and politics. His life has been dedicated to heresy, blasphemy, political incorrectness, red wine, red meat, black tea, slot machines, cheap cigarettes and mood-disordered women. He is currently penniless and lives alone in a Section 8 apartment and accepts blame for virtually anything he is accused of.