What if Gloria Gaynor wrote poetry

 

Press play. Salute.

This thirst has been sated now that I’ve seen you've tarnished all my old memories

So you may now fade to reappear wherever you go

Since I'm now ephemeral

 

This place we once shared has lost its feel

Turn away your blue eyes

 

For I no longer in submission kneel

Seek not to know what in here may lie

For that once precious thing has now withered and died

 

Look instead to your own life

Step bravely forward not in woe

And let your first steps not be slow

Show me no mercy to going forward as you have already shown

As they carry you to newer plateaus

When those old winds of gossip did blow

 

Worry for me not for I am sweetly wise

I instead look for words of hope and sing blissfully to newer tender skies

Our once loved emotions now no longer lay in state

As the funeral lies cold and un-mourners silently gather to celebrate

 

This I know as I was told as I finally closed our gate

But what they cannot comprehend

About this cat with nine lives

All the gossips and the un-friends

Whenever one rose petal drifts from Aphrodite’s tree

 

To fall and slowly hit the cold ground
And wither into ruins to never bloom as before
 

Another one called to me before it hit the floor

Courtship can once more lift her lovely head

 

For true love and beauty can still be found

Just not by the judgemental 
The gossips or the living dead

But only those souls who wilfully sing

Did you think I'd crumble?

I will survive

 

Copyright John Duffy