Friday, February 27, 2015

HEADED FOR THE SKY AGAIN: AMSTERDAM TRAVELOGUE

HEADED FOR THE SKY AGAIN

Headed for the sky again, that bright, puffy field of azure,
Glad to be soaring above this earth, rest of the world a blur.
Sure of where I'm headed and almost worth the pat down search,
A spiritual experience not found in any church.

And if dying is like flying, there is nothing left to fear,
Just take a vaunted leap of faith into the stratosphere,
And find your sea legs in the sky, let the plane's wings do the walking,
Look out from the window seat, the view can do the talking.

Headed for the sky again, the best part of the traveling,
No need for a cane or walker, as gravity comes unraveling,
And we work our magic in the heavens, unmitigated bliss.
Just close your eyes and realize, the afterlife will be like this.
Nothing left but distant blue and transitory green,
The tiniest little plots of land the human eye has seen.

Free complimentary juice and miniature airline treats,
Tiny bags of Sun Chips or Frosted Mini-Wheats.
The pilot sure and in command, in this awesome space of air.
Just surrender to your daydreams, let go your earthly cares.
Whatever happens happens in this microcosm of the world.
Just spread your arms, accept what comes, and let your wings unfurl.

Headed for the sky again, the Royal Dutch to Amsterdam,
Four days of the canals, the memory of Anne Frank.
Two strangers bound for a new strange land,
Adding memories to the memory bank.
My love to travel with his camera, and me enjoying the views,
Content to stay in the hotel room, or to join on an outing or two.
It will all depend on the DBS and on the Sinemet.
But here in the sky I am walking fine, no need to frown or fret.

Headed for the sky again, at last we head back home,
Lost in our sweet memories, those cool and precious stones,
Plowing our way peacefully across this field of azure,
The only sounds the in flight movie and the engine's gentle purr.
Blessed be our travels, both in earth and heaven,
Whether in a small light plane or a 747.
Trusting in God the co-pilot to take it all from here,
Just lay back in his gentle hands and let them proudly steer.

It's good advice for navigating each and every day,
Just sail and brave the turbulence life sends upon your way.
And after all is said and done, it is either fight or flight.
Who can say what the best way is to circumvent this night.
But the skies are meant for sailing brave, so wipe away your tears,
And if dying is like flying, there is nothing left to fear.

DANCE OF THE SWANS

Here above the bustling streets of a cloudy Amsterdam,
I grapple with the age old quest for who and what I am.
Alone in my room of the Mauro Mansion, looking down below,
A timid traveler, nonetheless a lucky so and so,
A bird's eye view of the grand canal and its rippling rushing streams,
Four days in the maze go by, life's wondrous blurry dream.

My hotel, it is a happy home, our hosts both gracious and kind,
The citizenry indifferent, at least to my bewildered mind.
Mostly I fear bicyclists, at every wheel Elvira Gulch,
Content to frown and mow me down in a cloud of burial mulch.

The architecture, like most in Europe, is singularly grand,
As the hallowed ghosts of antiquity gently take my hand.
The Amsterdam Grand Central building, its subway trains and tram wires,
The lofty perch of the cathedrals with their holy, prickly spires.
The historic house that Anne Frank haunts, her prose hangs heavy on the heart,
The museum of the great Van Gogh, which keeps alive his stunning art.

Much impressed am i with the Red Light district, its sex up close in the windowpanes,
Where the ladies ply erotic wares, mouthing my anonymous name.
Perhaps I am loath to mention it, and the point is probably moot,
But I never thought to ask about the gay male prostitutes.

And yet surely they must have them here, in this city strand,
Where every taste is catered to and every whim of man.
Where democracy it flaunts itself, even in the avian brood,
That venture into the open air purveyors of fast food.
The pigeons make themselves at home as if they own the restaurant,
Ever spry they gulp down fries, the Mickey D's their favorite haunt.

Yet perhaps of the myriad glories in these four days I have seen,
The best is the dance of the snow white swans, peaceful and serene.
The way the male elongates his neck and proudly flaps his wings,
Definitely a highlight of my voyage and perhaps my favorite thing.
Touching his beak to that of his mate, like on some formal courtly date.
The shameless serenade of the snow white swans, it is said they mate for life.
I may just yesterday have seen one flirting with his lovely wife.

The dance of these lovely snow white swans in the canals of Amsterdam,
Fills me with a long lost sense of wonder that I had not dreamed or planned.
Open, proud and carefree, like the rest of this idiosyncratic city.
Asking no permission for its right to be and offering me no pity.

The age old question of who I am remains unanswered still,
But perhaps just like the potted plants that line each passing sill,
I am here to arise and bloom in spring with the melting of the ice floes.
To dance 'til I'm done like the precious ones,
Those graceful swans beneath my window.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

WHAT IS WORTH SAYING?

WHAT IS WORTH SAYING?

What is worth saying, between the cradle and hearse?
What is worth mouthing to a deaf universe?

Can we be appreciative, can we love philosophy?
Swing, monkey, get out of my sight,
Cleave with your might to your primitive tree.

What is worth saying, to an audience of walls?
What is worth imparting, before the Reaper calls?
Can we be attentive or even truly free?
Dance, monkey, dance on the grave of my dream.
Fly, vivacious ape, fly in the face of me.
You are an apparition and never what you seem.

The din grows louder,
The clouds approach.
Raining on the subject
I once tried to broach with you.
On a rainy walk through the jungle,
On a night when my life turned sour,
Limping in the groping dark,
Like a worthless, wilted flower.

You will bend my ear with whispers,
I will keep my own company.
What is worth saying?
What is worth perpetuating
To a deaf companion on a windless journey?

What is worth saying to a tedious crowd?
What is worth saying, thunderous and loud?
Like a wise old owl, perched atop the courtyard tree,
Hooting through the moonlight,
The words of love you sang to me.

All the years I feigned to live,
All the gifts I failed to give,
Echo sad and endlessly.
Raven in a summer storm,
Croaking at me ponderously.

To an audience of one, alas, I am playing.
Haplessly down on my knees I am praying,
For one last holy sacrament of bread and of wine,
For my words not to wither like pearls before swine.
To the abyss I fall remiss, out of luck and out of time.

What is worth saying, as the rain it heaves and pours?
As the seas rush oh so violently, crashing on the shores?
What is worth saying or should I save my precious breath,
The last days they are coming, I am focused in on death.
Can we be appreciative,
Can we love philosophy?
Swing, my little lovelorn monkey,
Cleave with your might to your primitive tree.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Monday, February 23, 2015

I MEANT TO WRITE OF SPRINGTIME

I MEANT TO WRITE OF SPRINGTIME
                      (FOR KYLE)

I meant to write of springtime, but winter seized my pen,
And froze it to its bosom like some long gone kith and kin.
The crocuses were buried by an avalanche of ice.
I meant to write of springtime, I tried not once but thrice.
And each time I was thwarted by the vigor of the sleet,
That all my best intentions lay splintered at my feet.

I meant to write of summer, but got swallowed by the whales,
That hunted me like a wanted man in the shoals and in the shales.
They tasted me, then spit me out, my flesh not to their liking,
And I lay half dead on my pale sick bed, flushed and fever hiking.
I tried with what was left of me to recline upon the sand,
And play the game that Fortune staid had laid upon my hand.
But sure as wind sweeps the prairie and sure as man is dust.
I blew away in a flash as ash and never again would Nature trust.

I meant to write of autumn and its blaze orange as it burned,
The autumn a window of color but not for long I learned.
Too little rain, a scorching sun, dimmed all the colors fair,
Then autumn like a banished child vanished into air.
I meant to write of foliage and lovely country churches,
But it all turned into rubble, just another of my fruitless searches.
No matter where I rambled the colors were the same,
Destroyed, downcast, and destitute, I gave up autumn's game.

I meant to write of winter, but found nothing kind to say.
December is the month of death and holidays that do not stay.
January's always jinxed and February's no fun at all.
I meant to write of winter, but the grave to me it called.
And though I felt like heeding, I braved the winter through,
I could not write of springtime until it brought me you.
For you are every reason for the seasons as they turn,
You are every welcome hearth in winter and every fire that burns.
You are every crimson leaf in autumn, every summer beach.
And it is you I cling to when the spring seems out of reach.

Now I write of springtime in all its glorious flowers,
Lying on the beach in summer, whiling away hours.
Now I write of crisp fall nights and winter with its icy snows,
I am at peace with fallow months and the need we have for those.
And if you vow to keep me warm, perhaps one day I'll write of storms,
The reason for man's suffering, in all its rich and varied forms.

I meant to write of springtime, but winter seized my pen,
And froze it to its heathen breast, like a bitter icy wind.
The crocuses were buried beneath a foot of snow.
I meant to write of springtime but each time was thwarted though.
I knew not for sure what springtime was before I felt your grace,
Your beard upon my trembling neck, your lips upon my face.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Sunday, February 22, 2015

FLAG

FLAG

The red, white, and blue
of your liberty

Bleeds on my loving cup

Like a silver, tarnished sacrifice.

The old glory

Of a once treasured anthem

Waves in the breeze

 To the beat of a different drummer.


If you do not want me,

You can always leave me,

Like the colonists left the British.

Better that than linger grudgingly,

Regretting your lost moments,

Ripping my flag apart.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

NOTE: A new poem to you perhaps, but actually an OLD one for me. This goes way back to my junior or senior year in high school, written at the time for someone I had a relationship with in the far reaches of my imagination. I thought it held up rather well so I thought I would toss it on the blog. Besides "Time Lapse", it may be the shortest poem I ever wrote.

Friday, February 20, 2015

THOSE LEFT STRANDED

THOSE LEFT STRANDED

Here's a rhyme for those left stranded,
For those adrift and landed,
Floating in lifeboats on a stormy ocean,
Here's a prayer for a spell and a potion,
To ease the passage from life to death,
The voyage begins and ends with a breath.
Here's a prayer to set them free,
To carry them to the other side.
Let their packing be light and their burden be soft,
That they may fly freely, carried aloft.
That their suffering and their struggles cease,
That their souls be granted peace.

Here's a few words for the lost,
Who live and breathe at quite a cost.
Whose existence depends on the kindness of machines.
Here's to those who linger unseen,
And know not yet how to depart.
May God's mercy land on their delicate hearts,
And guide them safely across the bar,
That divides us near and far.
The bridge we all must dare to cross,
In the midst of our sorrow, in the midst of our loss.
Let our tears be washed away,
In the dawning of a brand new day.

Here is a rhyme for those going under,
Prisoner to each little blithesome blunder.
The mistakes and failures that rise to the rafters,
That tarnish our ever afters.
That fill up the spirit with consummate gloom,
Lead us all to that great Upper Room,
Carry us safely through the clouds,
Our bodies wrapped in the burial shroud.
But let untarnished spirit soar,
Both now and evermore.

Bang the drum and sound the warning,
That if I should be gone by morning,
No one should weep but just carry on,
Whatever work I leave behind,
The words that outlive me in the dawn.
Then lay me to rest in field or stream,
This life was merely a bitter dream,
A strange and twisted avocation.
Leave it where my body lies,
Point me to the substation,
That leads me to the skies.

Here's a song and a benediction,
For those adrift and landed.
A long and solemn farewell taps,
For all of those left stranded.
Here's a prayer for a peaceful death,
The voyage begins and ends with a breath.
May all these old sad sufferings cease,
And may your souls be granted peace.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

TOY SOLDIERS ON THE WINDOWSILL

TOY SOLDIERS ON THE WINDOWSILL

Like trained assassins poised to kill,
The brain cells left have had their fill.
They are toppling off their perch,
Watch them as they leer and lurch.
Fodder for the front page, grist for the rumor mill,
The few, the proud, the teetering,
Toy soldiers on the windowsill.

The vertigo is setting in, the enemy is winning,
I lay down flat upon the bed and the whole room starts its spinning.
Like suicide bombers on a tear, seemingly out of nowhere,
They aim at an already compromised brain, balance shot to smithereens,
A tilt-a-whirl, the Rebel Yell, they pulsate through my dreams.
All the king's horses and all the king's men,
Are fleeing the scene, fearing the guillotine,
Fearing the next ineffectual pill.
Leaving their sentry posts like cowards,
The toy soldiers on the windowsill.

Like sparrows they are falling out of the sky,
Wherever brain cells go when they die,
Leaving the spectators to murmur and cry.
What is the reason and what is the point,
Of protecting a withering and a perishing man?
It's every brain cell for himself, just get out while you can,
Before you're tried for treason or stealing from the till,
The few, the lost and lonely, toy soldiers on the windowsill.

Unschooled in modern warfare, lost to the golden age,
Dodgers and dissenters all, they unleash the tide of rage.
Once the cells of this sickly brain, they did an honest day of work,
Their duty they once honored and their calling dared not shirk.
But a kingdom divided against itself must soon crumble and crash,
Its buildings they have turned to dust, its villages to ash.
Who knows where we go from here, i only know we've had our fill,
Of the sinister grins on the strange double chins,
Of the Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dumb twins,
The murderous grins that frighten and chill
Of those errant toy soldiers on the windowsill.

They must have gone and unionized, those petty rapscallions,
I paid them once a living wage, they perched upon the finest stallions.
Perhaps it's a case of faulty genes or I gave them too many pesticides.
I only know they have turned on me, and turned my world upon its side.
To serve and protect no longer their creed,
They duck and desert in my time of need.
I am too poor, alas, to pay their cruel outrageous bill.
Like lawyers who tower with inflated hours,
The sneaky toy soldiers on the windowsill.

The vertigo comes faster, faster, the stomach does its dips and dives,
The soldiers they just blink and smile and give each other high fives.
In my brain it is cold and sleeting, life is frail and oh so fleeting.
Like trained assassins cruel and stark, they fire their rifles, hit their mark.
Fodder for the front page, grist for the rumor mill,
The few, the proud, the teetering,
Toy soldiers on the windowsill.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Monday, February 16, 2015

MOTLEY APRIL FOOL

MOTLEY APRIL FOOL

I'll be your motley April fool,
It's all I've got the strength to do.
Here in my dotage, here in my old age,
Here in the glory of my life's final page.

I'll be your motley April fool,
I'll be ever the good sport,
Spouting bromides of good cheer,
Holding court with my faults and my warts.
I'll wear the motley jester's cap,
With the furry ball that drapes and teases.
The wine you'll sip, enjoying my quips, 
While munching on assorted cheeses.

I'll be your motley April fool, your errant errand boy,
Not a man but a whirling top, an awesome twirling toy.
I'll spout my words of nonsense, my childish nursery rhymes
And fall about on my hapless snout, shouting out the time.
Every hour upon the hour, my mouth will din and chime,
A most delicious daunting din, synchronized with 'ole Big Ben.

I understand with gravity, the art of bashful brevity,
The need for raucous laughter, the need for luscious levity.
My payment for my services a slice of bread perhaps with jam.
I am the very soul of wit, a most hellacious ham.

I understand the human need for respite from one's toil,
Happy to be still alive upon your maiden soil.
I've nothing much to qualify, much less set me apart.
Give me but an hour sublime and I'll have won your heart.

I'll be your motley April fool, even in my mechanical wheelchair.
Just adjust my silver hair and rouge, and always entertain downstairs.
I can be bitchy, I can be mean, a terrible tart and a delightful old queen.
I work real cheap on 12 hour's sleep and I am not above,
A whoopee cushion or a playful shove,
As long as I have your courtly love.

The old are sometimes tossed away, none of that for me.
I'll jump and shout, I'll step on cracks, I'll be wild and wacky.
I promise I'll be at my best, 'til the end of the raucous age,
And die of cardiac arrest, still witty and still sage.

Just bury me in a clown's car, alas, with plastic flowers,
The guests can roast me, the king can toast me,
I'll tickle the fancy of the dowagers dour,
Do a medley of my greatest hit, 'til all your sides are split with laughter.
Remember me your motley fool, for now and ever after.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Friday, February 13, 2015

ROADSIDE GRAVE

ROADSIDE GRAVE

Give me a simple funeral,
And dig me a roadside grave.
I am happiest in the company
Of the fool, the rogue, and the knave.

I was never one to sit and debate
What Shakespeare really meant.
I really couldn't care one whit less,
What was the Bard's intent.

I loved the beauty of his words,
They had a magic all their own,
Appealing to the common ear,
Yet strangely numb to the scholar's drone.

So bury me with the ordinary,
The orphan and the widow,
With a bed of tulips solitary,
That can be seen by the bedroom window.
Where I sat and wrote these final words
In my puffy profound middle age.
Do not shed any crocodile tears
As I turn and exit the stage.

I leave behind a body of work
That I pray speaks for itself,
And I would rather be read and enjoyed,
Than to gather dust on some ancient shelf.

English majors all be damned,
In the end a simple man is really all I am.
So bury me by a roadside motel
Or a house of ill repute,
In the end it's all the same to me,
A railroad grave would also suit.

But nothing ostentatious, nothing just for show,
Perhaps some hopeless mound of earth
Behind the train depot.
Just leave me a little breathing room,
Place some violets on my tomb.
Better yet, scatter my ashes in some bright and sunny meadow,
For I am claustrophobic and fear the final shadows.

Just give me a simple burial
And dig me a roadside grave.
I am happiest in the company
Of the fool, the rogue, and the knave.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

COLD HAND ON A CRUEL NIGHT

COLD HAND ON A CRUEL NIGHT

I was killed by a cold hand on a cruel night,
By some wide-eyed drugged up jokester's slashing knife.
It pierced my heart clean in two, in pieces on the ground.
My body melted in the air, my remains were never found.

I was killed by a cold heart in a warm bed,
One too many sleeping pills clouded up my head.
I rose so high and slept so soundly that I never woke,
And death it came and wrapped me in its tender cloak.

I was killed by a magic mystic on some far mountain,
My body he gave as a burnt offering, it was pleasing to his god,
Who ate my body hungrily like a flesh and blood fountain,
And who praised the mystic kindly with a knowing wink and nod.

I was killed slowly by a crippling disease that compromised my brain,
My muscles rigid as a rope held taut against my frame.
I was murdered by it gradually, it had no qualm or shame.
But it knew what it was doing and was guilty all the same.

I was killed by a cold hand on a cruel night,
A man who could not be reasoned with, who robbed me of my sight.
A man who knew me intimately, a man who stood quite near,
As he left, I slowly turned, my own reflection in the mirror.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Monday, February 9, 2015

CRASHING THROUGH THE WALLS OF JERICHO

CRASHING THROUGH THE WALLS OF JERICHO

Each day closer, tumbling I go,
Crashing through the walls of Jericho.

Each day closer to the Savior,
To my everlasting joy,
My one last chance to curry favor,
This lost and lonely boy.

Each day closer my footsteps they falter,
And I lay myself at the foot of the altar.
To the great kingdom of the Great I Am,
Each day closer to a sacrificial lamb.
Led from my tears to the last looming slaughter,
Into the vacuum of earthly sons and daughters.

All of God's children, so flawed and yet so free,
That have fallen asleep and bravely gone before me.
Down that great tunnel and into the Light.
Past the realm of earthly sight.
Down that ancient road, the stairs and the landing,
The valley of peace that passes understanding.

Each day closer, I can hear the distant rumbling.
This earthly frame collapsing and all its pillars crumbling.
Crumbling back to the elements, water and its remnant dust,
Each day inching closer to that final walk of trust.

Each day closer to the meantime,
To life the absurd and life the sublime.
The bittersweet muted pleasures of the flesh,
With its warmth and its cuddling and its pulsating sex.
Each day closer to the Puritan,
Each day closer to Walt Whitman,
Each day closer to the Everyman,
Whose freedom he once championed.

Each day closer to each fellow traveler,
In a space past politics, past the hatred of religion,
Each day closer to ending the race,
With the faltering of this wayward engine.

Each day closer to the Carpenter, to the Buddha and the Saints,
Each day closer to the innocence of a childhood finger paint.
Each day closer to the quest and the answers,
The fight of the spirit, the flight of the dancers.
Each day closer I arise and go,
Crashing through the walls of Jericho.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Friday, February 6, 2015

IN THE GRIM DUSK

IN THE GRIM DUSK

In the grim dusk, in the shadow of a corn husk,
In middle America, a nightmare foretold,
Steadily and stealthily,
A lost sheep leaves the fold.

In the grim dusk, our world amiss,
We cling to hopeful promises.
The half blind of humankind,
Bridging darkness and the vast recess of time.

We are fortune's orphan souls,
Spoils of an awful tragedy, the din of a sudden roar.
Gunshots in our ears are fading,
We see the lights of the city cascading,
Over the outdated folklore.

Earths fade away, skies zoom to gray,
Guns do not kill says the bold NRA,
Always forever extolling the charms
Of the ever so sacred right to bear arms.

How many children lay dead on the altar,
How many footsteps to fade and to falter.
Earths melt in moments, skies fade to black,
We are left with a code we're unable to crack.
Unfathomable mysteries fold their arms in our faces
And turn away from embraces.

How many souls need be torn from flesh and bone,
Untimely parted and rudely called home.
How to make sense of the violence
That stains this gilded throne?
How many sick souls whose wounds lay gaping,
Who turn the barrel to their own heads,
A world of pain escaping.
Not content to go alone, lost inside their bitter rage,
Wandering without a home, they prance and fret upon the stage,
The slaughter of innocents their avocation,
Their final sin their final wage.

In the grim details that begin to emerge,
Our nation its grief still yet unpurged,
Sighs in collective confusion,
Binding up its wounds, putting salve on its contusions,
Goes trudging right on through the thread of a compromise,
I see disillusionment come burning in your eyes.

America, its flapping fish of an ideal, lies dead on the rotted deck,
The future swings like a pendulum, with the promise of a blank check.
The children do not learn and the fabric rips away,
Beyond the fencepost sun goes down upon this wicked day.
The deeds of the misbegotten, rain upon the downtrodden,
Leaving us weakened yet not at all wizened.
In the grim orchard springs a bitter harvest,
Scarecrow on the grim horizon.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

NOT DEAD YET

NOT DEAD YET

Just like Buchwald in the hospice bed, no captive to my fate,
My demise is a well kept surprise, it has no fixed or scheduled date.
It actually will suit me fine, for you to mourn me ahead of time,
And toast my life with a gusto that I shan't soon forget.
I'm here, I'm there, I'm everywhere, I'm not dead yet.

Like an overachiever who perseveres and will not quit,
I go for broke, I just won't croak, not even just a little bit.
Unlike the hallowed heavenly host, I refuse to just give up the ghost,
And will not go gently into that good eve,
For I am on this journey sweet that I just refuse to leave.
Hell, no, I won't go, is my answer to the bogeyman.
I'm like Barack Obama, my motto's yes, I can.
And like some old and worn guitar, down to its last fret,
I still can croon a merry tune, I'm not dead yet.

Here is the most chilling thing, for me death has no horrid sting,
It's just I have a certain style, a certain grace, a certain bling.
A certain kind of passion for a certain sense of fashion.
I like bright colors, eschew the black, and somehow I keep coming back.
Back for more like a wave on the shore that cannot be refused,
Like a book that demands a second look, that yearns to be perused.
Death carries no stigma, for me it's merely an enigma,
I'll fly through the heavens like a seasoned vet.
Yet I'm here, there and everywhere, and not dead yet.

Just like Buchwald in the hospice bed, not filled with horror or with dread,
I just don't have the time right now to be the least bit dead.
So to any and all enemies, though I hope I don't have many,
To put an end to my regime, you're going to have to really scheme,
Come up with something really rash, perhaps a little brash.
Some mad and brilliant caper, a boulder from a skyscraper.
A brick to hit me in the noggin' or a vicious sort of floggin'.
Some strange and twisted torture that I will not soon forget,
For now I'll smile and enjoy the meanwhile, not dead yet.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Monday, February 2, 2015

HEADLONG INTO JOY

HEADLONG INTO JOY

Sun breaks through a cloudy morning,
Wild geese swoon at water's edge.

The happy brooks careen and sparkle,
Splashing headlong into joy.

Nature's awake and all a quiver
And barefoot lovers traipse the shore,

Whispering their solemn vows,
To have and hold on God's green earth.

It is a thing of sacred mystery,
How one's soul can feel unfettered,

How the heart can stay afloat,
Jamming to the day's mad chorus.

The golden tunes you've laid before me,
Challenge me to breathe anew,
The fumes of love's intoxication
And walk with you beneath the moon.

Moon breaks through a gloomy evening,
The bedclothes sweet with your cologne.

Your fingers come and overtake me,
You splash me headlong into joy.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
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...