The child becomes

The man you'll see

With traits of those

He imitates

He mirrors those

That cause his fate

Who teach him love

Who teach him hate

The neighborhood is gone
Familiar faces
No where to be seen
Portland cements hides
The dusty street below
Progress left its scars
Razed our shotgun house
And poured an interstate..,
The corner gang no more
So precious few
Can be accounted for
They are the ones
Who lie so still and cold
Beneath incongruous slabs of stone
With names of barefoot friends
I used to know

Copyright Louis Brown

Should I still stretch

For new proverbs

And hope they never age

Thought old truths fade

Each epoch's dawn

And worms digest each page

I have seen your greed and selfishness
I have viewed your  jealousy run so deep
And strangely I don't know where it came from
I have seen evil and destruction
I have noted the absence of good will
I have seen a familiar face grow very cold
And I have looked in my heart and found no answer
But I recognize an enemy  sick and tormented
And it's unbelievable you disapprove an innocent man so deeply
I can accept hate from people if I can understand it
But I believe people suffer from hating so much
And I know you have hurt with how life has gone
And this crazy bitterness causes such spite
And takes this incredible obsession too far
And does the better half even notice it.
How not?  How not??

It was a long long ride
To Carrollton, Georgia
From Bad Hersfeld, Germany
Where I started from
Does she smile the same smile
I fell in love with
There's  been longer spaces
Between our communiques
Before leaving Bremerhaven
And making that ten day ocean trip
I still missed the warm closeness
Until the last phone call
She told me  she wanted one more fling
One more so she could squeeze
The last sweet drop from college life
Before we went on the marriage tour
Where she longed to make
All we could of another day
Ringing out our church bells    
But I felt a little cheated
For her to have a relationship
And me to feel the anguish
To always  wonder why
She couldn't hold on
Just one more whisk of time
Still it's so poetic in its justice
That she'll see no one here
To say goodbye to

Focus giving to each man

Follow God the best you can

Lift the old, each time they fall

Be ones helping brothers all

Feed the hungry, offer roof

Sincerely try to light the truth

Remind us love is our duty

Then there's far more acts of beauty

Help each stranger have good days

Sometimes go out of your way

Surprising all the way we should

With gentle acts of doing good

So every day of life that's left

You'll learn to be your better self

In the warmth of my emotions
written words are weighed
for someone new.  
They listen for something more
than this poet ever found
in that intricate box of you.

Nothing keeps me from smiling
at a single breath
of that which I love more.
When I feel those morning winds
brush across my words
of unknown shores.

I’m a moment
carrying a brilliant idea
with a voice soft as petals falling.
Listen to my poetry come alive inside
the empty space
of your heart’s calling.

Your eyes sing the words
I wrote for you
each time a tear rolls down your face.  
Your poet sifted the sands of time,
written words
have been erased.