Thursday, December 24, 2009

OUR LOVE RENEWS AGAIN

OUR LOVE RENEWS AGAIN
(FOR KYLE)

Walking alone in the frosty hours of a pre-dawn Christmas Eve,
I saw but one lone star above and swore it shone for you and me.

Our Christmas union fills my dreams,
And like a child on that beauteous day,
My heart it melts in sweet desire
For all the kindness you’ve conveyed.

And Christmas bells they sound so sweet
And through the New Year linger.
For this sacred day our union’s sealed
As I place this ring upon your finger.

No empty gesture lost inside the merriment of the season.
My soul has found its calm repose, my life its shining reason.
And solemn as a wedding vow is the promise that I make you now.
To love and honor, to stand by you, forever come what may.
To give to you my life, my heart, on this our blissful day.

To forsake all others and cleave to you, my one and only lover.
My confidante, my treasured friend, a comrade like no other.

The lights that twinkle on our tree, the lights that twinkle everywhere,
Will live inside this heart of mine, both this night and forever.
A love that shines atop the pines, bright as that lone pre-dawn star,
My soulmate and my compass dear, to guide me near and far.

Happy day, my darling man, midst the wrappings and the Christmas tins.
For now each year as the yuletide sings, our love renews again.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2008
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Friday, December 18, 2009

CHRISTMAS DRUM

CHRISTMAS DRUM

I hang an angel on the tree,
And think on you, my angel true.

My darling man of fine degree,
Who warms my heart all through and through.

The painted horses swirl and swell
Beside a miniature carousel.

Electric trains around the floor,
A hint of what has come before,

A hint of what is still to come,
And so we sound the Christmas drum.

A drum that beats the song of life
And persevering through the strife.

Of weathering the storms unseen,
Of what our love has come to mean.

I hang a reindeer on the branch,
And ponder life’s strange circumstance.

The thin line between life and death,
The sacredness of each new breath.

The soulful carolers pass the torch
And harmonize on our front porch.

Hot chocolate simmers on the stove,
And tells a tale of yuletide old.

So we’ll lie together after dark,
We’ll kiss and feel the age-old spark,

And I’ll wait until the stroke of twelve
To then seduce my favorite elf,

And tip my cap to a love still young,
And blithely sound the Christmas drum.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2008
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Friday, December 11, 2009

EPIC

EPIC
(FOR MY MOTHER)

When they laid your ashes deep in the cold ground,
I felt the loss of an epic love reverberating all around.

In life you were my Iliad, my keenly treasured Odyssey.
When I lost you, I lost Paradise and drowned in the briny deep.

Our love was on the grandest scale,
Like Herman Melville’s great white whale.
You were the mother who set the bar that others would aspire to,
And sinking slow in the Inferno was all that I could do.

In years to come I will sing for you a fitting elegy,
But right now all that I can do is sift through years of memories,
And celebrate your life through the glass darkly.

For you were my personal Gone With The Wind,
My Ben Hur and my Ten Commandments.
I am numb to the cost of all I have lost,
In the wake of your final passing.

Like my personal Holocaust or my private 9-11,
The sun has toppled from the sky.
A tragedy unspeakable, that leaves this witness high and dry.

I loved you in the classic way, I hold your spirit dear,
Like the Hawthorne and the Faulkner tomes,
The Chaucer and the Shakespeare.

A gentle parent, dearest friend, confidante from birth,
The finest woman in my eyes who ever walked the earth.

In life you were my Hemingway, my Romeo and Juliet,
My Odyssey, my Iliad, my Hamlet and Macbeth.
And when they laid your ashes deep in the cold, cold ground,
I felt the loss of an epic love, reverberating all around.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2008
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Friday, December 4, 2009

EVERY COLOR IN THE RAINBOW

EVERY COLOR IN THE RAINBOW

You flash your lovely smile at me,
And in the beauty of that smile I see,
Every color in the rainbow,
The purple of the mountain range,
The deep blue of the rolling sea.

The green of the grass with its sparkling dew,
The red of the clay that I trudge through
On my way to your back door.
The yellow of the morning sun
That shines its rays upon the floor.

You hold my hand in a moment grand
And flashing through my mind,
Come vivid memories of our past
That steal across the sands of time.

And they speak to me of times gone by,
The awesome highs, the desperate lows.
The vivid spectrum of our romance,
Every color in the rainbow.

You sing your sweet, sweet songs to me,
Perfect songs in perfect tune.
Songs that hold the world in place,
That whisper sweet dreams to the moon.

I love you like a man possessed, I dream of you at every turn,
And through the slow parade of dreams,
Your love for me like a brush fire burns.
The smoke and flames they billow high,
They stake their claim upon my soul,
And in the black of nighttime’s arms,
I lose all self-control.

Your flash your lovely smile at me,
And in the beauty of that smile I see,
Every color in the rainbow.
The purple of the mountain range,
The deep blue of the rolling sea.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2008
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

SERENADE OF TWILIGHT

SERENADE OF TWILIGHT

SERENADE OF TWILIGHT The stars in your eyes, love, I tried them on for size. They shone as bright as diamonds, how they mesmerized. And when...