A Duet:Lap Full Of Memories/On A Strange Porch, Rocking

I feel the need to preface this post with an explanation. The following two pieces are different approaches to a one-word prompt, the second of which actually won the challenge for that week. The prompt was to write a poem inspired by the word "Quilt." I hope you like the result. :)

Lap Full Of Memories

Glazed and gazing at the sun
Daydreaming of wife and son
I sit, while tears down my face run,
Upon a strange porch, rocking.

I do not know now where I am
Like a baby in a pram,
And no one seems to give a damn;
No visitors come knocking.

Enfeebled hands defy and shake
Despite the pills they make me take
And then the memories; a quake
Of patchwork glimpses passing.

On my lap in boxes square
Memories; how I despair,
Oh, would that I could still be there
Inside their love surpassing.

Like when John made MVP
Or got his college degree
My wife and I and son were three
Memories come flocking

Sweet or sad or bittersweet
In memory I would retreat,
But soon enough we three shall meet,
Not on a strange porch, rocking.



Free Verse Version: On A Strange Porch, Rocking:

Rocking on a strange porch
Yes I took my pills

Visitations few and far between
Can’t blame them
What good is an old man now

Feeble mind and quaking hands grasping
Patchwork memories
Like
John, my son, winning the MVP trophy, or
Maggie gazing her last into my eyes,
Cradled in my arms after she was hit by
That car on the way to the mailbox

Sweet or sad
Or bittersweet
I assign the moments of my life
To neatly boxed-in portions
So I won’t forget

It works better than the pills
Or so they tell me

And I sit here
Rocking on a strange porch
Covered in memories.