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My Ever Lovely
I fear it is too late for true love
Waiting on now broken yet bent knee.
Is it even possible to capture happily ever after?
How do I find she, my ever lovely, from Gurnee?
Callow gazes have passed over to gray hair
As the dimples sink beneath the aged wrinkles.
A once-charming visage is but only hinted at now,
Though sometimes the eye can conjure crinkles.
And children have come and soon spouses fled—
Those great matches of youth are like history, all dead.
Is it now our time to trip lightly and fancy free?
Can we meet for just breathing on the streets of Gurnee?
But the sun sets on our seekers of real love;
Knights errant stumble now when bending to knee.
Is it even possible to capture happily ever after?
How do I find she, my ever lovely, from Gurnee?
B&W Autograph
His smile
Blunted and shunted off to the corner of a face
The eyes
Hooded, angry, pleading—
A cold Covington, LA winter day,
But Bright Sunny,
But not his smile;
Peacoat buttoned up,
Chin up,
Wondering—
Why was he caged in his playpen inside the chickenWireFence?
Years later they’d say it was to
Keep out the snakes,
But the trauma was past and present,
He had boldly wandered into realms beyond a childhood safe and simple,
In the Brownie black and white photo he kept,
To remember,
To hope,
To repair,
Kept for his own sake
And proof:
QED
I Know I’ll Never
Scattering of chittering
And the birds have flown
So here again all alone
Thinking of you
To what end
I know I’ll never
See you ever again
So pour me a second
Yes a red will do
Maybe this is the night
I finally get over you
Hah! No chance—
The sadness augments
When it came to you
I never had any sense
Hands thru your locks
Your snort at my observation
Could you call me thence?
Should I make that reservation?
The dregs sneer and embrace me soft
Bacchus makes for second class
But my problem always was
Reaching for the next and the after glass
Goosebumps tease
And memories seize
My cell remains unrung
I miss our tongue
Hope and Future and Chance
The pain of his past rested on the front of his eyes,
Memory tempted then mocked and let loose in droplets.
Where now can pale usefulness express its wont?
How will tomorrow find reason inside old couplets?
Full-time folly found rest upon the other slack shoulder,
And swirling, the promise and the lie presented opportunely;
Yet a path coursed beyond the copse, bidding one to follow;
New memory scorned to breach history, to grow jejunely.
An old minstrel parsed a chord, and improved;
The song of song that choirs failed yet chimed aloud;
While pan wrens sauntered and soared ever above,
Dodging the eagles, falling, sprinting to eclipse yon cloud.
Tears will dry with hope and future and chance rekindled;
Goats may prance upon thatched roofs, high and mighty,
But the parson-chaplain rises early to great the new day,
And pale usefulness finds expression, keen and rightly.
Heading To Sunset Ridge
Heading to Sunset Ridge
Can’t remember your name
Can’t remember much about me
Everyone goes what a shame
Taking the turn around Memory Lane
Or is it Lost Pine or somewhere else
But can you still see my nice smile?
That far ringing? Are those my bells?
But I will sit on this here bench
Don’t know this path anyways
You’re my son or daughter?
They said it was one of his better days
Playing my part in the Long Long Goodbye
Just succeeded through these 7 years
No thank you for your sweetly offered hankie
But these are needed welcome relieving tears
Heading over Sunset Ridge
Everyone go “What a shame.”
My name is Mr. Still Loving Parent
At least, I think that was his name
–In humble salute to the loved ones of my wonderful patients, PEOPLE with alzheimer’s
Happy New Tears
Randee runching;
Maybe no more;
Overtime is such a bore…
Ringing roses,
Puddin’ pie,
Don’t bother asking,
I never’ll know why.
Where we going,
The sun is past set?
This is the best New Years
We’ve cried over yet.
Chords drip across my tearshut ears
And I’ve gone and lost the beat:
Did Father really say,
“DON’T CROSS THE STREET!”?
Did the spanking really hurt?
Or was the betrayal worse?
I’d used my young thinking mind,
But that turned into a squirmy curse—
Don’t be too smart!
How could you be so dumb?!
Turning all the right-wrong ways;
I’m getting kinda wrong-right numb.
Randee runching;
Maybe no more;
You remember the way to the door?
A Simple Mind
In this place of tattered expectations,
The old novice at last did rise,
Hours before the dawn
When stars still ruled the skies.
Disdainful of mocking glances,
And all who’d dare criticize,
Piffle stooped to sit at table
To chance last night’s left over sprout pies.
When Master arrived after dawn,
The novices chanted their obeisance;
Twas aged beyond any reason
For such death defied any and all sense.
“You’ve nothing to fear at all!”
A grievous, now proved, lie oft told:
The young novice had been annihilated,
And Master’s now twice time too old.
But Piffle knew the dread secret
Of why PanWren had passed from life—
As he had chanted the dire incantation
His mind slipped to a memory of a wife.
Piffle swallowed hard at the held image
Of the foolish novice smoldering away,
Shattering the apprentice’s soft held thought
That today had been an ordinary day.
Escaping from his thoughts to the catacombs
The old novice took up his rusted quill pen:
“Treat not lightly with the Dark and the Dire
Or loved ones you won’t live to see again!”
The stars again claimed their kingdom,
Though sleep failed Piffle entirely—
The grounds grizzled raccoon high aloft,
Skittering a chant from the old Squire Tree:
“When thou doth play risk in life’s hocus pocus,
T’would much profit thee to never lose focus!”
Ankle Breeze
The angry drubbing from the cold January Sun
Has beaten all the trees’ leaves to the ground;
The peal by a distant neighborhood campanile
Offers but pastel respite from this new winter day.
After hours and an ankle breeze brushes cold
Times bear hard and thoughts scare appalling—
Late on a school night and we risk a third glass bold;
Excuse me, dear, but why is it hospice keeps calling?
Home—a far place unreachable, unknowable, except as
Errant memories allow.
Three score save one with 22 gray days to go,
Yet cannot believe one keeps falling.
Walked this way thousands of times but now…don’t…know,
But why does hospice keep calling?
Tomorrow comes to call as if knowing
Something…
St. Nicholas Tracking
The spry old gentleman returned from the house
All was quiet, as still as that storied old grey mouse
He retrieved a gift that he’d almost forgotten
A GPS to distinguish between New Haarlem and New Groton
Seems his wry memory had been always quite dandy
But an electronic aid sure would’ve been handy
Like when he overshot the turn to land in New South Wales
[And his antlered friends had hid their red faces in their tales]
But the handheld device now could lead him onto Timbuctoo
[Even if the big-headed red-nosed one was so positive what to do]
But this year was different and that’s only because
The old one at last heeded the words of Mrs. Claus:
“You can’t always be sure whether to go left or the right.
Please, Dear, use that GPS gizmo on this snowy winter night.”
So, the old gent climbed aboard his magnificent old Nordic sled
And bellowing aloud, this is something like what he said:
“On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
We got hot cocoa made by Mama awaitin’ in the kitchen!”
Kitt
pueriles 