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The countryside is sweet tonight –
Sunset comes discreet tonight –
The Chapel rings with choirs tonight –
My heart is flecked with fires tonight!

I know inside there is a maiden
Who holds fast the veil of virgin,
For whom I sit, in patience waiting
For matrimonial mating.

She will be fair, she will be true,
We’ll both give up our selfish slough –
Every day she’ll bring me joy
Because her needs are good employ.

We’ll put our love before ourselves
With smiles to comfort that which delves
From what we might agree upon
Since, while they fade, we carry on.

Those churchfolk cheerful pour outside
Amidst the Christmas fairy lights,
Watched from hill by I on bench,
And I by love’s excitement clenched.

Take heart, my heart! Remain steadfast
Until the final laychild pass –
For love ne’er lacked strained hope in tow,
But offers cargo worth the snow.

The ice pelts down in biting sheets –
Oh! How my snot runs down the streets,
My hands chap blue, my face raws red,
My mind frozen from chill and dread.

But love, nay, its lofty prospect,
Shall give me warmth, till I expect
A woman that faith and honor steer
To come my way, to draw me near.

Alas! They all have come and gone,
To leave me, once again, alone,
To face the vapors, midnight ghosts
Who swing about the dimmed lampposts.

The snow, it falls in heavy drifts
That weigh upon my heart – so stiff
It beats – like footsteps stumbling dull
Through hollow chest and swelling skull.

Every year, fate remains the same:
Unapproached, unfulfilled, laid lame
By those who can’t, or feel no need –
Is there one who even holds my creed?

The blizzard lightens up its scorn
To hail the violet sun of morn
With owls a-hooting, deer prance on
Across the sparkling drifts of dawn.

Black branches scatter water drips
That trickle o’er my jagged lips
In wait for mortal angel meet
‘Til I freeze dead against my seat.

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It wasn’t all that long ago
I felt a chilling midnight glow –
A soul, silent as the drifting snow,
This lone and wand’ring ghost.
But if I tried to hold her fast,
That silence only freezed my grasp
And forced from me a single gasp –
My heart was hers at once.

She’d glare at me with crystal eyes
Whilst I’d sing hopeful lullabies
Of silence, hoping these complied
With fairness more than most.
Yet if I blinked but only twice
She’d dissipate in streams of ice,
Ample hips deciding splice
Between the storm and sconce.

Oh come to me, my icy muse!
With irises of aqua blue
You signal what I’d give to you
Might soften your reproach.
Norwegian landscape, flushing red,
Betrays the feelings of your head
Although you’d have it smoked than said
Our souls had stuck and hold.

But hailing Spring for us to part,
Briskness, wholly yours in art,
Motivates an early start
Despite a slow approach.
And as I watch your fading shape,
With Platinum hair cut at the nape,
I wake to Winter’s drawing drapes
And quite forget the cold.

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Have you ever been kissed by the blooming sun?
Brushed by the petals of that flowering sun?
Tickled and pinched by waxing rays,
melted along with mist-ridden days,
scorched by a cosmic microwave
first brain, then chest, then skin are enslaved –
Utraviolent pollen
fluttering, blinding
rain upon a thirsty Earth
that increases thirst tenfold.

Then –
only then –
does my skin redden
and crispen to brown,
Withering under the kiss of the sun –
whose cumulus sheets cannot hide her touch –
The sweet smoldering kiss of the bed-seeking sun –
when her arms wrap the world in a crimson mirage –
The cruel burning kiss of the pure patient sun
whose lipstick stain will mark me for weeks.

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Oh I’m just some lint
floating into the breeze
just as I please
through iron-wrought trees
though pigeons demand
intensified care,
I waltz, unaware,
a soft cloud of hair
whose bickers not spent
on icy cold gales,
their breath in my sails,
my stratosphere scales,
such power at hand
cannot keep this fluff down
o’er streets and Uptown
to that bold Times Square sound:
Across skyscrapers’ crowns I soar
though I’m a lint, and nothing more.

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Flailing.
Just…Flailing.
How the coming generation
Believes that it can dance
Perplexes me, considering
It only involves hands.
An elbowed twist,
A seizured jerk,
All standing in one place.
Some wooden tilts
At ten degrees –
The only change of pace.
What happened to that jazzy swing
Where the dance took up the floor?
Now the crowd must circle round
To make dancers seem more.
What ever happened to the ballroom,
Graceful conversation, body and soul?
Reduced to intimacy in a bounce
With hopes of making bed less cold.
Was it the music?
Was it the steps?
What made dance not what it used to be?
I’ve come to think
It’s tiring
To move the frame with tiny gears
Spun by a well-oiled crank.
Imagination is that crank,
And effort is its springs –
Which makes sense, considering
The newer age prefers a fling
Over a crafted, lasting thing
Because they are flailing.
Just…flailing.

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Blessed with easy birth
Yet cursed to fall on deaf brains
Similar to poems

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Twenty-four months have done passed
Since I saw my dancer’s sweet ass;
And now I’ve returned
With a heart not-so burned
And more geared towards fun in excess.

Still I thought I’d write a similar plot
About love that more often than not
Was but a dream
For my fruitless scheme
But have decided it not worth its snot.

You see, I fell in love with a dancer
Twice, and can’t help but fancy her
Cute London voice,
Quirky by choice,
Short, sweet, with bubbly demeanor.

I wanted to get her attention
So I attended every attraction –
I danced and I sang
With such unique bang
That I quickly became a sensation.

I won trophies for my showmanship
And folks all over the ship
Took pictures with me
And said, honestly,
That I was the highlight of their trip.

My name became known ‘cross the deck
So I had to keep my ego in check
As I was called out
In games and to flout
On the radio for a quick morning sec.

I met Catherine more than one time,
Impressed her with my dance line –
Met all her cast,
Got friendly real fast,
Which convinced me of being in prime.

I fell in love with a dancer, it’s true,
Obsessed with her throughout the cruise,
But now, looking back,
It doesn’t mean smack
When compared with my stand-up debut.

Because, when taken into hindsight,
It mattered so little, my plight,
Since one lousy week
Is less than I seek
To form fantasy and form it right.

These dancers were simply a crush,
For love cannot handle the rush
Of playing a game
Where there is no aim
But the moment soon gone with a brush.

So ends my high at high seas
Like a pleasant but short-winded breeze –
When those waves come again
The point’s not to win
But to ride them just as you please.

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Plate on the waves,
Plate in the sea,
bobbing and swirling effortlessly
though which side is up Shrimp cannot plainly see
Because of the glare
On fine platterware
And the calcified ripple of tablecloth foam.

Spoon in the sea,
Spoon of the deep,
lodged in the coral of Moray Eel’s keep
where rust and disuse climactically heap
within hidden fold
until time is old
And the ravels run out of tablecloth foam.

Knife of the deep,
Kife on the sand,
hurtling swift ‘cross the vast sunken land
to conquer what Orca and Squid both command
and take them as well
for pleasures to sell
Cast up from the bosom of tablecloth foam.

Man from the sand,
Man on his ship,
fortuitous you should take such a trip
and adhere plate to spoon to knife in your slip
to use what is there,
though some mourn the pare
While fizzling to nothing but tablecloth foam.

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through the clouds
floats Londontown
With smoggy brow
‘neath mottled crown
of stacked suburbs
‘long liquid gown
flowing down
cracked Londontown.

nicotine
reigns Lord supreme
in whiskey scene
with slurrèd sheen
as Britons green
rough feathers preen
to flockmates glean
learned Londontown

the nicest pubs
and social hubs
put to shame
the business scrubs
with domiciles
of cement shrubs;
typical snubs
of Londontown

Londontown,
dank Londontown,
what’s your attraction on the ground?
I wonder
as I hover –
Will my observations still remain
once the plane is safely down?

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Twas a week in the middle of June
Cruising under a full blue moon
On a stage of eight
One dancer had Fate
Designed bait me into a swoon.

This blonde, nimble angel of white
With butt, tummy, leotard tight,
Smooth slender thighs,
Strong legs and deep eyes
Sapped my hot heart of its might.

As she twirled and shook it on stage,
My blood boiled blue beyond gauge
To plow my prow fast
Twixt the sails of her mast –
Navigation that would not be sage.

Four nights I was lured by her grace,
Each show a downwards-sloped race
Not but for stars,
Especially Miss Mars
Waging war on my heart with cold face.

Seven whole days I scoured the ship –
Searching, beseeching, pursuing a tip
That might reveal
Some minute appeal
Unveiling a trail towards her far tender lip.

The night of finale, their very last show,
The worst yet, yet the finest she’d glow;
With spunky cha-chas
She jiggled her ta-tas
Towards my dopey grin down center row.

Thus marks the end of my spurious love,
Bound to be cursed by heaven above;
The following cruise,
My sparkling fuse
Was doused to hear of that migrated dove.

Still, what foolish thoughts did I conceive?
To seek her for my lonesome reprieve?
No contentment attained
From a stranger obtained
On ships, the fantastical heart falsely reaves.

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