No one can hate you like a former spouse.
It sounds like a country-western song, I know,
but no one can mutter you’re such a louse
as an ex-lover who swears, “What a souse,
and if I tried to say a word, he’d go,
‘How’d you like to be a dead former spouse?’”
A boiling war zone to share the same house
when things begin to get really stink-o,
each of you muttering, “A dirty louse!”
Even if you’ve been upright as a mouse,
and never considered landing a blow,
no one can hate you like a former spouse.
Even if they find a new love, they’ll grouse,
he/she “just ran away with all my dough,
and even worse, was such a rotten louse.”
He might say, “She belongs in a whorehouse.”
And she, “Let him burn in hell-fire, below.”
No one can hate you like a former spouse,
nor mutter and curse you’re a giant louse.
Robert Cooperman is a poet living in Denver, Colorado.
From the Matrimonial Minefield
He was such a sterling lad,
Always in virtue clad,
But his marriage, it went bad.
She took everything he had;
His children lost their dad.
In due time he went mad.
Do you find this story sad?
He was such a happy lad.
I married an angel
Sent from heaven down.
I could not be kind enough.
To keep my angel from a frown.
I went mad from my despair.
Oh cursed this human form.
So rough, crude, and stupid too.
My nature, I did reform.
Then my angel smiled again.
And I too, peaceful inside.
When my angel flies away.
I too will, in peace reside.