Holding on to Beauty

It had been a drag-ass day at the law firm,

But it was Friday; the hang up your coat,
Kick back for the weekend goal day.
The baby-sitter had left supper in the oven.
It was time to look in on her five year old son
And invite him to sit down and dine with her.

 When she opened up the door to his room

She gazed upon a world in bloom.

 “Maria helped me gather them,” he boasted proudly,

“But it was all my idea.  I’m gonna have
The most beautiful room in the whole world.”

 Black-eyed Susans peered up from a teddy bear’s lap,

Daisies were arrayed in neat rows on the floor,
Buttercups filled the bed of a red Tonka truck,
With more in his toy box, some taped to the door.
Blue coneflowers waved from an open drawer;
He’d placed wood sorrel on the windowsill.
Atop the desk he liked to sit and read in
Were wild lupine, plucked from a nearby hill.
St. Anne’s lace huddled with wild geranium;
He’d gathered dandelions and didn’t think it odd
To mate them with harebell in another pile, just as
Sweet William from the meadow lay with goldenrod.

 “I would have picked some of your roses, too, Mom,

But Maria wouldn’t let me touch them.”

 “Your room is very beautiful,” his mother agreed,

Thinking to herself of the terrible mess
Of wilted leaves, brittle stems and dropped petals
That Maria would soon have to clean up.

 Indeed, by Sunday evening the leaves had wilted,

The flowers, their colors already less vibrant,
Were petulantly weeping their petals.
The young boy was disconsolate with grief.

 “My flowers are dying,” he tearfully sobbed.

“I’d wanted them to stay with me all winter.”

 His mother put her arms around him

Protectively, wishing that she could shield him
From all the hurt that he’d ever encounter in life.
She wished that she knew how to frame her words
To reach out to console him, to touch him now,
Before his awestruck wonder pales to blasé;
Before the poety of flowers  no longer moves him.

 “When Spring parades its colors,” she finally began,

“Everything’s lovely.  But beauty that’s living
Will always fade.  You can’t grab hold of it
To save it in a cupboard for a rainy day.”

 The young boy smiled weakly through his tears

As he hugged his mother and assured her,
“You’re a living thing, mom, and no matter what,
You’ll always be beautiful to me.”

 The young mother began to tear up herself,

Thinking of the man who had praised her beauty,
The man who had vowed to never leave her.

 He did.

 She knew that her boy would someday leave her

As well, as all sons will do.
They leave the nest in search of a life,
Then a mother’s primacy is replaced by a wife.
It is just the natural progression of things,
As certain as wilting flowers, and death.

 “I love you so much, Ethan,” she whispered,

As she locked him in a possessive embrace;
Wanting at this moment to never let him go,
Wanting so to hold him close to her

 As long as she possibly can.

 

                       Rich Hanson

Liz Taylor Died Today

The ad reads "Filmworks, Reel Jobs for L.A."
Below it, in MovieLand's doorway, two young men sleep,
Their coats wrapped like cocoons about them.
They've yet to be touched by Tinker Bell's wand.
The Magic Kingdom has become a Never Land
For these chrysalises of cheap labor.
They're an unsightly blight in this land of flowers,
Film, fantasy and perpetual summer
Where palm trees reach up as if stretching
Their fronds with a yawn to greet the morning sun.

In this land of youth and self-indulgence
It's hell to grow old.  Beauty's a precious asset,
Perhaps the key that can open a Tomorrowland
Of fame, fortune and a pampered life of ease,
A life laden with herbal foot treatments,
Cranberry pomegranate sugar scrubs,
Chocolate Truffle body wraps, waxed eyebrows,
Coffee scrubs, enzyme peels, outdoor cafes,
Ten dollar slices of creme brule cheesecake,
Pricey Italian footwear and fruit and cream baths.

Liz Taylor died today.  From her early teens
Looks defined her fame.  Her eyes were deep pools
Of desire.  How sad that a woman so beautiful
Couldn't find a lasting love.  Eight marriages,
But no relationship secure enough to cling to,
To allow herself to age gracefully,
Secure that she'd be loved for her person rather
Than for beauty that will always fade with time.
The legends such as Harlow and Monroe died young.
They didn't have to make that difficult transition.

The beauty of Butterfield Eight, Raintree County,
Suddenly Last Summer and of Egypt's Queen
Too soon degenerated into a bejeweled
Boozy, pain-killer addicted frump, more believable
As "Martha" in Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff,
Cruelly parodied by a young John Belushi
Dressed in drag, choking on a chicken bone.
Toward the end befriending Michael Jackson,
Whose obsession with youth and looks turned him
Into a freak.  Perhaps you understand him, Liz.

As I watch a white Hummer hop the curb
Before settling back onto the street to park,
I reflect upon this land of excess,
This realm of make-believe, where to excel
At entertainment as a gaudy human parrot
Mouthing words and mimicing scripted characters
Is the goal of so many.  What of those who come
Here though who aren't beautiful or lucky enough
To earn an opportunity to open an account
In the Universal Studios Credit Union?

To fail to attain a dream can lead to despair.
I've learned this too well, yet I still dare to dream,
As hopefully do the two young men who sleep
Fitfully in the doorway of MovieLand.
Perhaps an even crueller fate is to find
That after you've caught hold of your dream
That it's got its hold on you, that it defines you,
And that the conditions that are imposed upon you
To sustain it, such as eternal youth and beauty,
Are chains that finally become too heavy to bear.

The Lady Slipper

The pungent odor of moist peat;
It stuck to my boots like an ointment,
A thick black unguent of swamp.
I stepped around algae-covered pools
Of brackish, stagnant water.
Moss mottled the misshapen trunks
Of hunchbacked tamarack that wept
Aggrieved tears of needles
When I'd bump up against them.
Dismal scenery casting a depressing
Pall upon a landscape so saturated
That it quivered as I set foot upon it.

Through a bog of brittle reeds
I caught a sudden glimpse of color.
A bird?  Instantly curious, moving
Carefully so as not to scare it,
I moved closer to the feathered life.
No bird.  It was a Moccasin Flower;
This solitary pink orchid dangled
Wet with the weight of morning dew.
Fragile as a spiderweb,
Its delicate petals glistened as sunlight
Caressed them with a loving reverence.
Something beautiful, this "Lady Slipper,"
Transformed the swamp to a place
Of wonder simply by its presence there.

Loveliness encountered unexpectedly
Lingers longest in one's mind.
I think of gorgeous faces glimpsed just once
That I've pressed in the tome of my memory;
The woman who was seated nex to me
During a Peter, Paul and Mary concert,
A check-out girl at Goldfine's Grocery,
The blonde in a car stopped at a red light,
Or a captivating smile passed on the street.
Elusive as wild orchids, these Cinderellas
Have left no footwear behind for this prince
To retrieve to gallantly return to them;
Just visions of loveliness that remain
As vivid, fresh and indelible in my mind
As my only encounter with the "Lady Slipper."

Desire and the Ghosts of Drowned Sailors

Park Point, Duluth, Minnesota

She pauses to gaze out at the undulating blue water,
Breathing in the beauty of the scene, letting it lap
Over her, like waves gently massaging the shore.

The vista that has captured her attention
Has seen its sad sagas of storm and shipwreck,
But she's as oblivious to the lake's history
As she's aware of her looks, her bikini lines,
Her legs and her long cascading blonde hair.

    On June 7th, 1902, the whaleback Thomas Wilson
departed the Duluth harbor with a cargo of iron ore.
The George Hadley, bound for Superior, collided
with her shortly after she entered the open Lake.
Mortally stricken just forward of the aft hatch, the
Wilson sank within three minutes, going down with
9 members of her 23 man crew still trapped within
her hull.

The minds of the apparitions that still linger here
Are still stirred bv the sight of a gorgeous woman.
They can still remember the gentle caress of a hand,
The warmth of an embrace, and the desperate need
That can only be sated by two bodies uniting as one.
Death hasn't diminished their desire...or longing.

     On the afternoon of November 28th, 1905, the
Mataafa approached the Duluth Ship Canal.  Raging
waves and an 80 mile an hour wind gust slammed
the ship against the North Pier and spun the bow
around 270 degrees.  The Mataafa grounded in the
shallow water alongside the pier.  The ship was
pounded by enormous waves for several hours while
the temperature plummeted to below zero.  Thousands
of Duluthians watched as three sailors ran the length
of the ship from the bow to the stern and survival.
They watched one man turnback halfway, intimidated
by the enormous waves crashing upon him.  9 crewmen
froze to death that night while the city looked on
helplessly.

Ghosts gather to pay homage to her beauty.
Hands of dead sailors caress her breast.
Her nipples harden; she blames the breeze
That blows in cold off the lake, and wishes
She would have brought a towel to wrap around her.

A stoker from the Wilson imagines her
In his strong embrace, his whisker stubble
Rubbing raw against her face, then addresses
The futility of his desire with a sigh, and settles
For giving her a pat on her fine firm ass.
She doesn't feel it.  She feels nothing but
A momentary twinge of loneliness, a longing
For something that she just can't put a finger on.

     The night of April 28th, 1914, the grossly
overloaded freighter Benjamin Noble approached
the Duluth harbor during a nasty storm only
to discover that one of the pier lights had been
shattered by a huge wave.  Unable to gauge which
light it was, and remembering what had happened
to the Mataafa when she had met disaster
near the pier.
    Master John Eisenhardt turned his ship
north toward Two Harbors.
    The Noble was never heard from again.

The shade of one of the Noble's young crewmen
Approaches her reverently, then reaches out to
Touch a wisp of hair that the breeze tugs at.
When she reaches up to brush it back into place
He drifts away in a phantasmagoric fluster.
Too shy to approach a woman in life,
Death has left him still as socially inept.

The gorgeous woman turns and resumes her slow
Languorous stroll along the beach.  The ghosts
Of Gitchee Gumee dead step back to let her pass,
Still eying her with desire tempered with reverence.

She's approaching me.  I set down my book
On Lake Superior shipwrecks, and bestow
Upon her my own longing gaze of admiration.
I fail to elicit a response.   I'm as invisible to
And just as intimidated by the sight of
This wondrous Nordic goddess of beauty
As the apparitions of the doomed deckhands.

Where Do They Hide the Ugly Mormons?

Where do they hide the ugly Mormons?

I watch the Mormon Tabernacle Choir,
Teeth-capped and dazzling white
As snow on an Aspen ski slope,
The robed singers ooze wholesome
Family values through every pore
Of their unblemished complexions.

Even old Mormons age gracefully.
No lined, haggard smoker faces
Or jowls hanging down to one's collar.

The young missionaries that come to our door
With their offer to pray with us
To share their faith with us
To ask God to bless our house
Sport starched white shirts and ties;
They're dressed like the earnest young
Republicans that they are.
Still smiling sunnily
Despite repeated rebuffs.

Where do they hide the ugly Mormons?

It's said that the Spartans,
That warrior state of ancient Greece,
Would abandon their crippled or sickly infants
On the bleak wild of a mountainside
For the wolves to devour.

Could there be some secret slope
In Utah's Wasatch Mountain range
Where the bones of Mormon infants

Deemed "ugly"

Lay bleaching in the sun?

For Love Of Aphrodite

Keen-eyed Mikos saw through his mortal guise.
The God was tending a forge in Acardy.
He'd worked a sword into a spade
And a shield into an infant's bathtub
Before his eyes clouded too full of tears
For him to work further.  Sighing like a bellows,
He surrendered to his misery, sat down,
And daubed at his eyes with thick sweaty fingers.

Disconcerting are a God's tears to men.
We view them as beings beyond our pain.
Mikos turned to flee, lest like Actaeon
He'd be punished for viewing the forbidden.
If it was death to watch a Goddess bathe
A God's anguish could augur an awful fate.
Hephaestus looked up and banished his fear
By beckoning him to come sit beside him.

"Ares is with her again," he explained,
His voice quivering with the indignation
And despair of a husband betrayed.
"My thoughts wander in a labyrinth of loneliness
Wherein all the corridors of desire and need
Lead only to her.  But she laughs at my love.
She seeks pleasure instead in the brutal passion
And battle-scarred visage of the God of War."

"Why do you remain with her?" Mikos wondered,
Emboldened by the God's confession.  "If my woman
Left my bed for another's embrace, I'd never take her back."
"My pride tells me I should leave her," the God admitted,
"But to rage at her infidelities
Would cut me off from that radiant beauty
Whom being close to is like basking in Spring warmth
After a lengthy, fog-laden winter of chill.

Her skin is as soft as a good-night caress,
Her lustrous hair as sweet-scented as hyacinth.
Her moist red lips glisten like rose petals
That just beg to be plucked with one's tongue.
Her nearness thickens my brain as fine wine does,
My legs become unsteady, my voice falters,
And my feelings entwine in exaltation and fear
As a warrior's thoughts do before battle.

Now I've got to get back to my work," he sighed.
"I'm going to shape her a delicate brooch
Of sapphire set in silver filagree,
Wrought to portray spindrift and sea-spray
Leaping up from the blue as it collides with the rocks
To snatch at the gold of the sun.  Imagine
The delight in her eyes when I present it to her.
How her smile will light up the room!"