(Song for the Genteel Salesman Blocking My Path Each Time)

If only you knew.

Beneath blonde, rebonded locks
Curled extroverted lashes
Cemented titanium dioxide
Plastered patient breathless pores

Lips-wine-red
Nose elongated,
Dark strokes  imprudent
Cleopatric windows to
Sadness of soul.

Maverick femininity in
Saccharine swan-like greeting

If only you knew.

Eden was perfect paradise
She who was crafted
Immaculately from your rib

She was your Soulmate
You were Beloved
Protector, keeper,
Nourisher of her being

If only you knew.

You are treasured by Him
Who fashioned you
Out of mud
Breathed life into your nostrils

From nothingness
You were imago dei.

You were anointed shepherd
Of all that lived
Moved; slid.

You were perfect
Majestic  in Truth

You were imago dei

As you should have been
And can still be.

If I had words and rhyme enough to show
That when on thirsty soil my roses grow,
In stinging, ice-wrapped cage my songbirds sing
A lilting tune that ushers in the Spring.
Then such a poem will, of course, prove true
That God has worked His miracles anew
Through friends so dear as life from life renewed,
Such sweetness, oh, such blessedness reviewed!
In mind and heart they’re two: Nenette, Andrew.

Though years of service each have taken toll
On weary shoulders, cares and burdens fall
But Love-lit eyes and smiles keep such as veiled
As fragrance from the heel-crushed violet.

Praise Him who made you both as beautiful
As summer rain.

There is no peace at all for the wicked.

Stinging, ruthless words that pierce through mind and heart
Swiftly, precisely, from lips of clay depart
Arrowheads dipped in green poison find their way
To an unwary target, without delay.

There is no peace at all for the wicked.

The tongue is a sinister, crushing weapon
Who dares resurrect one fatally bludgeoned?
“He deserves my verdict!” Rage seethes in defense.
“He smashed my fortress with the least reverence.”

He is without excuse.

Yet the comely victim-prince says, “Follow me…”
He with the sad, compelling eyes
And nail-scarred hands offered gently, steadily
To a soul vanquished by frantic, chaotic “I”

He whose dazzling raiments from the throne hang
unused
Willfully submits to slight, beating, abuse
As leather sandals cushion dusty, wounded feet
He weeps; Fallen creatures smite head and side–they bleed.

Still the comely victim-prince says, “Follow me…”
Now, therefore, beyond excuse,

Man is guilty.

Fjords
Cairns
Blue mountains
Stone hills
Rushing water
Quicksand
Glaciers
Zebras
Coyotes
Grass
Palaces
Empty rooms
Rusty typewriters
Old pages

Are a poet’s palette.

i hear you

piercing the silent

clinking of champagne

glasses

with the laughter of a

thousand waterfalls

for my benefit.

Irena, won’t you sing for me
The day is almost done
I see the sun’s long, glist’ning rays
Upon kissed altar stones

They bid goodbye to Daylight’s glee
As Dusk crawls in to keep
My world in constant pace despite
The tasks in mounting heaps

Irena, should you lose your song
Don’t weep, sky-speckled friend
For I have one to comfort me
And croon with Love no end

Like yours, her ballad fills my life
With harmony, pure light
My aging pen is a nightingale
In the deadness of the night.