Poem Word

Words wrung out from the years
Words ripped out from between old ears
Words once made sense so long ago
Mind those words that come with tears

Smiles caressing across the years
Smiles addressing lingering fears
Smiles that no longer make sense
Mind those smiles bracketed in tears

Wine glasses clinking in rhyme
Wine glasses filled in rhythm
Reds and whites up to the brim
The old sot, you can hardly see ‘em

What’s the word? That from you?
That smile? Is it really love full true?
Fill my glass…you choose the vintage
Drain my glass, but don’t leave me blue

Yes, you’re full in my head
And you may certainly lead me to your bed
Smiles with wine promise the very level best—
But you’ll just leave me with tears instead

Keep your eyes open and your heart engarde
Why, oh why must love be so blessed hard

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Me With You

You never knew me
Way back when
Chasing the foxes
And the girly hen
You never knew me
When I looked okay
But these days
It’s all kinda just old and grey

Now all I can do
Is just grow old with you

I never knew you
When you were shiny and bold
Playing in the cotton
Scratching for the gold
I never knew you
Before three times wed
And all those mornings
In an unmade bed

Now all I can do
Is maybe grow old with you

Back in the day
And those summer nights
We were hoping for love
And loving the sights
Of a new love approaching—
Will this be evermore?
Only to find ourselves alone
Behind another unknocked on door

Now comes this time
To share a new scheme, a new rhyme—

Now all we can do
Is grow old together, me with you

In the Dark We Know

At times, at night,
Oft after midnight,
My mind won’t let loose the words,
For fear lest I might let fly,
Spiced brocaded prose one cannot call back—
All those burning bridges
Built to serve and to smolder.
What must you think of me?
We’re all getting quite older.
Truths unsaid,
Curses not cast,
Happily ever after—
Will this wrinkled love ever last?
Give you space,
I take the time,
Lost in the meaning
Inside this sorry rhyme.
I desire to once occupy your keen eye
While I hide behind a sordid old lie.
Turning 50,
Turning 60,
70 and 80 come now too soon—
Can we teenagers ever see past the besotting Moon?

Pas de Deux

Thought I’d write some blasted words
Of young love turned old and grey
And so I put on tangled up in blue
Hoping the muse would come past this away

But not much passes this way anymore
And all my exes eschew my zip code
Sometimes I’ll google a lady of the night
Hoping for just a little love a la mode

But after the passion storm abates
I’m still in Alexandria alone as ever
Maybe I can render this partitioned farce
Into another couplet fierce and clever

Or at least xomething polysyllabic
Or polyphonic to hold onto an AM radio past
So loaded up the merlot into the waiting glass—
Robert Zimmerman is such a blast

And DeGeneres can teach us to love one another
Without guile or an agenda smurfed and pc’d
But then she’s from New Wawlins, fer true—
Let’s squeeze a metaphor and make her bleed

So gel your foreign tense and parle
Come to Lafayette and pas de deux
Just passion danse on a dirt pad acadien—
You know you wanna two-step; yeah you do!

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?

Candle Light Blazes In Your Eyes

The stout little candle flickered its last
And scuttered out and left the oldster in the dark
He thought he’d attempt the 15th century
And imagine a time of dragons, for a lark

The safety matches safely lit a new wick
And the poet lifted his quill again
Skritter scratch and his lines pricked to life
Another damsel rejects a lonely swain

Refilling the merlot-stained glass
The oldess sat next to her oldster
The muse again amused, the poet grinned
Wishing he hadn’t sold that roadster

Gray hairs and faded eyes
But a mind keen as ever
Maybe he can’t drive
But his lines still tickle clever

Half-passed a candle later
The oldess kissed her oldster
The poet abandoned his quill
Surely, later those lines he’d bolster

Later, the stout little candle flickered its last….