Side Of The Road Sunflower

There’s a side-of-the-road sunflower
Standing over there all alone
So proud so young so very tall
Started out a weed and now quite full grown
Just an old roadside sunflower
Reaching hard for the sky
How it keeps on going
I couldn’t begin to tell you why
Seems proud that highway sunflower
Against all the elements it must fend
While the cars, trucks, and buses
Fly by, but that sunflower will not bend
Despite thunder rains and snap freezies
Even a CAT 4 hurricane or two
Our side-of-the-road sunflower still stands
Proud chile of Mother Nature being so true
Oh don’t you wish you might just could
Give our children such lasting power
To withstand bad nature, reverses, and all
Like our old roadside sunflower

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Puzzling

Crimson currants scatter across the plate;
The ruin of his proposition dies on his lips—
The longing and the loss go begging, too late,
As two tired hands sag draped across her hips.

While puzzled puzzling puppies whimper without reason—
Is this the sure path to the higher parish ground?
Milady, crossed, throws vexed hurt blames and accusations;
Limped, the poet crawls away to contemplate a grayer sound.

Storm warnings fall, the sun finally peeks out;
The happy and free saxman takes the stage for his solo
Another rainbow dies unlit without a Southern doubt;
Can we sixters renew old loves, is it yet the secret go slow?

Leg raisers, push-ups, and the latest anti-cholesterol drug:
Guys muster what little left they have to play her knight errant.
Girls, wriggle and giggle, and deflate their swains with another shrug;
Boys, bluster and muster, try to achieve the ultimate, yet can’t.

Why is Love so hard to find and put softly in a peaceful space?
Why must Time dry up all dreams along with such a lovely face?

A Gulf Storm Warning

We know nothing much good happens after the midnight hour,
So I hold little hope for these late writ lines.
Knocking about my Alexandria, at last, cleaned bower,
Remembering a lost love this old heart forever pines.
Storm warnings now up all along the Gulf coast—
Flash floods looming to wash away the humid mire.
I believe still it’s you that I miss hardest and most.
Reunite? Tis ever beyond that which I could hope to aspire.
Dribs and drabs of longing sated in your Facebook posts,
Whether mountain stream or shells along a sandy beach.
How is it we manage to pass young memories to graying ghosts,
And that one true love flies off to be forever beyond reach?
Dishes all washed up and time to take scant wishes to bed;
Today’s crossword awaits there to challenge clue by clue.
Though instead of the Los Angeles Times, I rather be with you instead,
And on the nightstand next to us were your newest daisies blue.
This storm will pass, and Summer blue skies will again find the coast,
Though it is ever you that I will miss the hardest and the most.

Interrogatory

Apparent suicide,
Military intelligence.
Will I be so well regarded
When I achieve some past tense?
Foster a puppy?
Get it together,
Hang on you guys
We’re in for some nasty weather.
Spin some ‘Stones,
Maybe Moonlight Mile?
She’s gone to the theatre—
Can I hang with you awhile?
Or Doobies ‘White Sun;’
Does that make me a racist?
We’re just swaying to the groove;
Please put your PC into cease and desist.
Teachers in tights,
Boots above the knee.
It’s not the clothes, moron.
It’s the quality of the preceptor, see?
The A/C is back on,
The kid’s at St. Ed’s;
All that folded laundry
And, lately, unmade beds.
Waiting for your call,
Ringer turned up high.
Jack the cat stretches
And turns over with a sigh.
The only interrogative:
So, how did it go?
If I only knew,
I would let you know.