We all have asked the question, “what happens after death?”
When you learn the answer, it takes away your breath.
Margy
While the twilight was turning into starry night,
On the roads of Rose Hill we would walk,
Past the rows of beach houses bestowed on our right,
To beguile the sweet time with soft talk.
In a cardigan sweater that went past her waist,
Incasing both shoulders and arms,
With a mouth whose moist mirth I was longing to taste,
While embracing emblazoning storms.
On a bench as we sat, our duet “Heart and Soul”
Was controlling what fingers were doing.
Her left shoulder of my heart had quite a firm hold,
While below the bench our legs were wooing.
Her laughter was musical, rounded, and shy,
With her smile a conspicuous gift.
Dolce redolent Renaissance brown hair and eyes
In whose gaze in a daze you would lift.
Only eighteen short summers you gave our lakeshore
A rare form of such delicate grace.
But what I, in my mind’s eye will see evermore,
Is your soul through your radiant face.
(c) Ken Sullivan, 2020
Sharon
When vulpine, voluptuous Miss Sharon Redd
first entered the room, I went heels-over-head.
In a soft, suede, short-sleeve, short-short one piece
lovely light limber-lithe legs exposed,
hyper hip shoes and painted red toes,
Miss Sharon Redd entranced my apartment,
a hurrysome whirl of womanly woes.
Vividly I remember the first time
when she breezed in, those high check bones!
Full red rich lips, O those twins that singed l’amour
Sur toute les choses.
In a Virginia-accented sweet speaking voice,
easily laughing at life absurd.
Dishing the dirt but fairly, discreetly
with the inflection of sensuous birds.
One morning after staying up all night,
to the Pierre for breakfast we went.
Cafe-au-lait with my cafe au lait lady
Lay, lady, lay, on my big brass bed
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.
Singing, SINGING!
The girl has some mighty righteous pipes
Stunning honey running past the haunting pain,
Sung through panes of stained glass windows
Summer winds summoning the mourning rain.
Love at first sight does exist.
Long before the lips have kissed,
Comes desire that will persist
Until some becoming bliss
Leaves you with someone to miss
When the Miss turns into missed.
(c) Ken Sullivan 2020
Orange Afternoon
Orange afternoon
The sweetness of the Maples
embraces the haze
Late Spring memories
cling to the soul like the ash
from the raging flames
Dark Matter and Black Holes
they say the universe consists of
dark matter and black holes
my city is full of
my city is full of
dark matter and black holes
we got some
white holes, too
Family Portrait
My mother, my father, my sister and me,
On horseback regarding the camera, smiling.
My brother is absent as he’ll always be,
An incomplete course, the college requiring.
Just one month after the picture was taken,
He was found walking alone with a Bible,
Naked as the day when he came from the womb.
Shy, gentle Mike broke a State Trooper’s finger.
Soon he was subjected to electric shock.
Then descends a curtain of uncertainty,
A tension ever present with intention
And attention hesitant and reticent.
Presentiments of future futility,
Fatality shattering reality.
A kind quiet soul, simply seeking serenity
Chased
A chaste kiss on the cheek for a farewell,
The haste of the departure guaranteed
No time for an embrace, but just as well,
It seems the more we get, the more we need.
My arm around her waist reminded me
Of evenings from our past, quite long ago,
As flies in amber, chambered memory
Inspected, resurrected joy and woe.
Fleeing and flown, the evening at an end,
Is time well spent expended on the past?
Past Perfect passed perfectly the Present tense,
The question is, I fear, intense at last.
Add an “e” to past, to create a paste,
Too pasted to the past, a life’s a waste.
The Yard
WELDing THAYER MIDDLE, her HOLWORTHY WIGGLESworth.
mmmmmmm ass a chu pusey strauss etts
WELDing THAYER NORTH
Pack’er Penny, Pack’er Penny, Pack’er Penny, Pack’er Penny
Greenough, ough, Ough, OUGH!
WELDing THAYER SOUTH
Widener, W i d e n e r, W I D E N E R
Stacks!
We LAMONT Time’s passing packs.
pax vobiscum pax aeternam
The Yard they come
The Yard the f a l l
Strophe: Catastrophe
The problem with climate change deniers:
They aren’t biologic logic buyers.
Paradiddle
She was only a poet’s daughter, but her couplets were heroic.
An ancient philosopher’s offspring, his stowaways were Stoic.
The ancient son of an anthropomorph, his fallacy was pathetic.
The simple son of an aesthete, his poems were anesthetic.
The single son of a son of a goose, yet he really knew how to get down.
The dolcissima dear drummer’s daughter, with the best paradiddles in town.