A Safe Place

I’ve lost that place to let a tear;
My heart’s gone to its safe place.
How could things go so wrong?
What new horrors must we face?

Barricades fall from Seattle town,
But nothing’s better, not at all.
I’ve no stamp for my letter
Begging to be allowed to call.

Things today sing with a minor key,
But youngin there’s just one thing:
Passion stills, for just a moment, the longing—
Yet loneliness in old age still prides its sting.

Did she survive the novel virus?
Will she return to us fully alive?
Glasses for all to share the sauterne!
Breathe the air! Dance! Sing! Thrive!

I’ve lost the time to shed a tear,
My words go without a decent rhyme,
The End: how will we deeply know?
What new pain unfolds with wrinkled time?

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Passion’s Wreck

Another wink inappropriately sent across the room
As I savor the dream of the salt at the base of your neck
Though there is no way this goes ever anywhere
Adrift in the Acadien gutter of this passion wreck

Swirling skirts reel to a hot cajun beat
The Artsmophere swells with Sebastien pours
Wanna go home with me, my belle jolie?
The answer is always: mais non, tous le jours

She glories in the morning, then rules the night
But my quiver emptied long many years ago
But Love never wearies as longing grips ever tight
Though my sad offer would hardly sate a wound so

So unreconstructed in Alexandria, my tall glass half full
Dreams and wishes mingling in a nice vigne rouge
Grateful for my morning porridge and café gratuit
Let’s get to it, cross that bridge at Baton Rouge

Scream down the 10 all the way to New Orleans—
A quarantino not quite following these isolation rules
65 and dying even before comes this Chinese bugger
Not sure anyone knows, besides, they’re all tools!

Again, still half marveling at the sweat beading about your neck
Dreaming in an Acadien gutter fouled by Old Love’s passion wreck

Maple Leaf Dance

Faraway from the witnessing sun,
Escaped away from reproving glances of dead roses never sent,
Once dared think our love might grow,
But crushed beneath small expectation to answer for a knee unbent.
Loose laced shoes carry old feet forward on,
Stumbling with a book of ill written rhyme to find you there—
Polite as always but with nothing to add.
Assaulting the ramparts of indifference, I wonder if or should I care.
A frisson of longing ever lingers—
Some memories of dancing in our Maple Leaf Bar;
Happily ever after slips from old fingers
While an indifferent Moon grandly outshines any old star.

Old Flame

Hello, old flame—
Is it time to relight dead embers?
And are your eyes green or blue,
Asks the one who never remembers?
And do you remember when
We sunburned on Sandbridge Beach,
Searching for a lifelong love
That was always so far out of reach?
One of us sailed away;
The other went back to school.
Luckily you had escaped
A life with this poor old fool.
And why do we always reframe
The errors of our youthful past?
Now so older and wiser,
We know nothing can so long last
As the longing for sure arms;
Or someone to chase the dark cloud.
But, it seems to be my lot
That that someone I’m not allowed.
So, I guess I have to ask:
Do you even remember my name?
Because here I come a-calling—
Hello, old flame.

Proceeding

It was two glasses in
And the curling memory of brunette hair,
But she has erewhile gone
And Sonoma Merlot just doesn’t care.
The rhymes won’t come—
Here I am inside this couplet mess.
I guess it takes more than mere Love
To complete this synapsing poetic process.
Meld two roughs into one,
Balance the scan and mind the rhyme,
Maybe I’ll get some ‘Likes’;
I manage to do so from time to time.
Fear floods in;
I managed to lose my job.
Now with gray hairs and beard
Who now would care to hobnob.
Today next-door neighbor
Pleasantly responded to my hi and hello.
There’s no ‘there’ there
And it’s so past time for me to go.
Brother turned sixty—
Who knows about sixty-one.
Wish we were better friends;
A brother would be nice on this long end run.
We need a finishing couplet to release our tortured reader;
It’s all good, love from your poet, another forgotten bottom feeder.

Invisible

I’m invisible,
No one sees me there;
Yes I’m invisible;
They can’t know how I hurt or that I care.
No I’m invisible,
Everyone can see right thru;
Just a wisp in the periphery
Lingering in shades of blue.
Are you invisible?
Where can you be?
Are you lonely too?
Would you like to get lost with me?
I am so invisible,
No one knows how if I care;
All can’t help but look on thru
As I fade away into the thinning Summer air.

Sure As Felicity Follows Terpsichore

The Ice Queen turned from the window
The curtain folds draped back into proper place
She was again content in her Keep
Having begun to forget his absent face

While the snow salted the pines
Squirrels burrowed deep in their nests
The Ice Queen folded into her chair
Dinner as ignored as her discontents

She recalled his rude voice:

“Please give me back my delta—
Any seat on any levee on the Mississippi,
I gotta get back to Nawlins,
Sure as Felicity St. follows Terpsichore.

So take that cork out of vin St Francis
To go where we’ve been before,
Sonoma will have to do
Waiting for my Crescent City encore.”

But the Ice Queen felt a shiver versal of her own—

The ghost of a loss lingered lumpen there
Left hard upon her heart of gold
A tale one could tell of mind, body, and soul
If ever one was to be so bold

She’d been that comely lass with golden locks long,
Lovely as the dawn in the Spring;
Now she kept to her Keep,
Love a scoffed-at trifle, a mere unknotted string

But a heart-twist pulled her up short—

Where am I going?
Who will lead me there?
The fog isn’t lifting
And I fear the very air!

Are you really in love?
I know I would like to be;
Could we soon catch up somewhere?
Could you tarry with someone odd like me?

A dread expanded where certainty fled—

One day without you
Is a rainy day at the zoo;
Another night without you:
A starless, moonless night too blue;

She allowed: Come on over….

My Lady combed her silken, yet gold locks
And made her ministrations for bed.
She remembered her lists for the morrow
And made her solo cooling path to bed.

His eyes and tossed locks followed her to her dreams—
He to his beloved Delta, She to her duty and schemes.
The curtain folds draped back with proper straight lace,
She again content in her Keep and all in its correct place.

Young Love Pauses

Marcus V Featherstone winged about the morning mist
Contemplating marvelousness if Sally G. he might have kissed
But she’s far too grand, he thinks, for one as insignificant as he
Perhaps if he completed the Annual Race to the toppermost of the Queen’s Tree
The he might could just barely maybe conclude he warrants the attention of said miss

Sally G. foraged amongst the garland vines of fairykind’s farthest field
She commanded by the memory of a certain someone’s cool violet eyes to yield
But he’s far too grand, she thinks, for one as insignificant as she
Perhaps if she completed the Annual Race to the toppermost of the Queen’s Tree
Then she could just might perhaps sort of conclude she warrants his attention to wield

The morning of the Annual Race dawned a foggy and clammy-close though yet Grand Affair
But such was the history and joy of the Queen’s Event that most of fairies did nae much care
But that few reached the canopy and much warning was about the hazards of such a quest
Some trained for years, and though many many failed to summit, they all tried their honest best
Oh, but at Start Time, the mist cleared, the skies blued, and the weather could be a day most fair

Marcus V. would go the southern approach and make his noble stab for glory
Sally thought after the eastern boughs to write the best of her winged story
Neither knew of the others flight plan or even that they would be there
Neither thought the other could possibly think this would be a thing wise to dare
Oh, then clouds shrouded the Sun and the gathering mists promised to turn the day most hoary

Lost in the dark and the fluff Sally alighted on the next promising soft tree bough
Crushed in the knowledge of this failure: what, oh what would she do now
Flying way off course, Marcus drifted ever and more further east
Summiting the Queen’s Tree seemed a dream to be cast off as a need least
But a far soft keening did Marcus and Sally perceive, but to reach the fairy, how

Working bough to bough, the two young winglets sought to help the crying one
Shaking off disappointment as this had been their plan for a heart to be won
Sally got there first to find a wee fairy far too high for his own good
Trying to impress a stern lofty Father as if such heroics ever ever could
Marcus arrived shortly after, tamping down his joy for the good that needed to be done

Down the tree Marcus and Sally silently escorted their frightened cold charge
Stealing glances at each other, young love paused, though their longing loomed large
His Mother flew up to embrace her naughty though ever brave young son
Father too weeping flew up to his boy, holding his loved and cherished one
Sally and Marcus feathered off, such a familial scene they knew not into barge

Marcus V Featherstone flutterbuzz-winged about the morning mist
Sally G foraged amongst the garland vines of fairykind’s farthest field
Remembering how the moment came when longing caused something to yield
And at the foot of the Queen’s Tree, as Marcus made his thanks, his cheek Sally had kissed!

But Sally Gossamer Wingstep already was planning to train for next year’s Queen Tree’s Race