Private Practice

If I should write the splendor of your eyes,
if I describe your elegance and grace,
the readers may conclude the writer lies.
Who would believe the beauty of your face?

What fool will heed my voice in years to come,
so filled with of loving images of you.
They’ll sooner think I worship demon rum,
 then yield my case and pay your charm its due.

I dare not write a play about your smile,
what future actress then could play your part?
My shrine the angry critics would defile
and this brings a great distress into my heart.

I cannot, then, make love to you in verse;
but—if we cannot act, can we rehearse?

The Promise

Evicted from her garden by
a knowledge never sought,
was she villain, then, or victim in
a play that time forgot?

When tempted by an evil
bearing legendary fruit
did hunger conquer innocence?
Can history refute

this yarn of human weakness that
has passed from ancient times?
Is this a tale of simple truth
or fodder for our rhymes;

is it myth or could it be
a tapestry we weave
to chronicle the promise-- or
apocalypse of Eve?

Out of Print

Within the book of wasted time
a section must exist
with articles in perfect rhyme
of poets never kissed

by lady luck or fortune’s son;
(the gender matters not),
of loves and favors never won,
of passions never wrought.

My chronicle would grace this page
my love if not for you
as written by some useless sage
for all the world to view.

My dearest love I here exalt
that I am out of print.
The presses, dear, were made to halt
by orders, heaven sent.