For My Next Valentine

I wanna send you flowers
Or maybe some Mardi Gras cake;
To become your next someone
I’d do whatever it’d take,

Get you look up from your phone,
And get you on over here;
But to take such heartfelt risks
Causes such a shrinking fear.

Daisies, ‘glories, roses, or tulips?
Purple and green and some gold?
Or sip some liquor, ‘tis quicker,
At least so’s I’ve been told.

But I want us pure, clear, and real
Not lost in a sick dawn’s early mist—
As a week later you’d do a whimsey start
Remembering how we had finally kissed.

Call me a florist of winged feet
For a bouquet to melt yonder rock!
Look up, look up from that anchor phone—
Eyes to eyes, can’t we find room to talk?

I wanna send you some flowers
(And someday plan wedding cake);
Can I become your next someone?
Look up, look up, for Heaven’s sake!

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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.

Shoulda

Shoulda said my prayers
Shoulda married her quick
Shoulda stayed home that night
Shoulda seen it’s all a dirty trick
Shoulda taken all my meds
Shoulda wrote a thank you note
Shoulda finished that book
Shoulda missed that boat
Shoulda asked her out
Shoulda sent the roses
Shoulda done a better ‘best’
Shoulda listened to Moses
Shoulda spent the night
Shoulda declined those invitations
Shoulda went merlot, not rose
Shoulda admitted I’d had my reservations
Shoulda admitted I was wrong
Shoulda sought the one thing that’s true
Shoulda realized it’s always a rainy day
Should I ever forget to tell you ‘I love you’