A Night to Remember

The “Unsinkable” proved not to be so.

                                           When White Star hubris was punctured by an iceberg,

Life or death suddenly hinged upon lifeboat access.

                                            Ship officers such as Murdoch, Lowe and Lightoller

Became the arbiters who determined death or survival

Cowed into submission by a bully with a gun

     Or culled by the rigidity of “women and children first”

                                                      Protocol by callous authority without pity,

Heart-rending scenes of families sundered ensued.

                                             More like sorted by class.  The line’s Director was saved.

Only one child from the first class cabins

                                                                          Fell victim to the sea.

Poor folk were dealt with harshly however.

                                                        Steerage passengers were kept at bay

By locked gates, and by doomed seamen

                                                      Ordered to make certain the travelling poor

Remained behind with them.

 

Charles Lightoller, the ship’s Second Officer,

                                                Survived as well, and smugly attributed it to God’s plan.

He confessed later that what haunted him most

                                                After the grand vessel reared, then took its plunge,

Dumping its passengers into the frigid Atlantic,

                                                     Wasn’t the shrieks, the cries, the curses;

     The panic of those suddenly immersed in icy water

                                                       With death by hypothermia ahead of them.

 

No, it was the soul-searing, disconsolate cries of

                                                                                     “I love you!” 

                                                             A last desperate attempt at a verbal caress

            Shouted by some of the doomed into the chilly night

                                                                 In the hope that their loved ones,

             Safe in the lifeboats, would hear them.

 

You’re Captain of the Ship of State now, President Trump.

                                                         Will you as well, someday remember

The anguished cries of “I love you!”

                                                  Uttered by those you’ve wrested from their families

             To ship them back where they came from.

                                                 Their dreams of freedom and opportunity denied them

Too poor to pay to remain here,

                                                          Too powerless to pull strings to stay;

        Wrong creed, wrong country, wrong race, wrong time.

                                           Returned to the strife that they’d endeavored to flee from;

Banished to regimes that may imprison or kill them.

                       
                                                  Will you remember their anguished cries of “I love you!”

Mr. Trump?  Will they haunt you?

                                               Or will you just scowl, grunt and tweet “Serves them right.”

Child's Play

Had I known
When I was a child
That as an adult
I would have so little time to play

I would have reveled in my time
As a child at play

I would have spent fewer
Of those irretrievable moments
Pretending to be
Or wishing to become
An adult.

The Couple on the Park Bench

The elderly couple sitting on the park bench
Lean into each other as they quietly whisper,
So as not to disturb the air, scare the chipmunks
or drive away the pigeons that they love to feed,
They visit softly as they comment on the foliage.
His eyesight failing, he sees it as Monet would
Paint it, as blurred yet vibrant impressions of color.
She sees more clearly, brilliant orange, reds and yellows,
Leaves that seem to burst into flame as the light
Shatters its brightness upon them and seems to ignite
Blazes that loom over the fading frost-touched grass.

Their was a time when their passion burned that strong,
A time when her slightest touch, or even just her
Presence could arouse an excitement and desire in him
That frightened him at first by its intensity.
His need was so great; her power over him so complete.

Now he puts his arm around her, and she'll brush his cheek
Just slightly with her fingertips, or reach to hold his hand.
Their fingers intertwine as they watch the first fall
Flutter of leaves let go and float to the ground,
Soon to become the brittleness that precedes fall decay.
They feel the brittleness of age in their own bones as well,
But they derive comfort and reassurance from each other.
They wrap themselves in the downy comforter
Of companionship and shared memories, and nestle
Closer to each other as winter approaches.

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

Poem with an Attitude

I want to be the poem you wouldn't lend
To your younger sister to read,
The poem you wouldn't dare bring home
To introduce to your parents

A punk of a poem with a Mohawk haircut
That sports a dirty gray tank-top that says
"Don't mess with me.  I'm psychotic"
A poem with a pack of cigarettes
Rolled up in its right sleeve.

I want to be the poem that slaps you
Alongside the head and bellows

"SHUT UP AND LISTEN TO ME!"

I want to be the poem that declares Jihads
Against Kardashians, against the cast of Jersey Shore,
Against Fox News, corporate whore politicians,
And that most persistant of all evils, rhymed verse.

I want to be the poem that drives the fast car
With exhaust manifolds loud enough
To rattle nursing home windows.
I want to be the poem that runs Stop signs,
That won't slow down in school zones,
A poem that knows no speed limits,
The poem that flips off cops as it roars past them.

I'm the poem that doesn't want to work.
I just want to loiter on the street corner,
Smoke cigarettes and leer at women
As they cross the street to avoid me,
Being fearful that I might accost them.

I want to be the poem that sexually harasses you,
The poem that you lock your door against,
That you fear enough to install a chain-bolt lock
To make doubly-sure that I stay out of your life.

I'll find my way in anyway.
I'll rifle through your drawers, lift your diary,
Then sell your secrets to the world.
I'm the poem that will steal your money
Your books, your stereo and flat screen TV,
Forcing you to stay home with only me
Left to read for entertainment.

I'm the poem that longs to lead you astray,
The poem that will persistantly stalk you,
Relentless as an estranged lover,
Obsessively possessive,
A tad bit vengeful.
I want to infect your world like a virus
And swell into the cancerous tumor
That begins to devour you
Until you think of nothing else but me.

I want to be the poem that camps out in your head,
The poem that you'll keep repeating incessantly
When Alzheimers has your mind in thrall,
Droning my lines in a sing-song voice,
Your head bobbing to the rhythm of the verse.

You may have figured it out by now.
This poem is trying to seduce you.
You know you like the bad boys;
Byron, Baudelaire and Bukowski,
Poets with chips on their shoulders
The size of boulders and passions
Hot enough to make your heart smoulder.

I want to be a poem like theirs,
A two-fisted drinker of a poem
That swaggers into a bar and takes
Possession of it by sheer force of personality.

I want to be the poem that drinks Dos Equis.
I want to be the most interesting poem in the world.

I want you to notice me.

I want you to want me.

I want you to love me.

I want to be your poem.

Haiku

The condemned meth house
Was loved once.  Tulips gaze up
At boarded windows.

Pigeons tend their young
On the roof of the porn shop
Where love is defiled

Daffodil heralds
Raise golden trumpets to sound
A fanfare to Spring.

Gleaming fairy-eyes
The wanton winks of fireflies
Sparking in the night

Algorithm

Have you ever noticed
How the amount of shit
That a wife will put up with
Proportionately increases
In relation to the size
Of her husband's paycheck?

Monster Truck Bitterness

Cousin Hemmy slams into family gatherings
Angrily, snorting like a powerful monster truck
Entering an arena.  On the blunt, menacing hood
Of her face is painted a savage smile,
Like that of a P-52 Tiger Shark
Diving down upon a Japanese Zero.
She growls like a rotweiller through the mud-pit
Of amenities, aggressive as big tires
Ripping ruts into a wet track, Crunching
Conversations into frowns of dismay,
Confrontational as a game of chicken.

Embarrassed, her mother begs her pardon.
"She's just bitter because of her failed marraige."

Yeah, her husband saw himself about to be crushed
And had the sense to get in his car, step on the gas
And get the hell out of her way.  Now here she comes.
Unfufilled dreams hang on her like the acrid fumes
Of deisel fuel, and the battered fenders
Of her psyche mask scars of even deeper pain.
Now she's a malevolent behemoth
Fueled by her early disillusion with love.
Heartbreak's passion has curdled to emnity's sludge.
An emotion that she's far more at ease with.

A Portrait in Love's Gallery

Your perfumed vision drifts into my thoughts
Stealthily, like fog's enveloping embrace.
From the ivories of my mind's drawing room
The mellifluous music of desire
Wafts a passionate sonata to my soul.
I drink in your harmonious presence
Hungrily, like parched dry earth soaking up
The welcome moisture of a summer rain.

I respond to you like a plant does to light;
You've given me the impetus to grow.
The bright radiant warmth of your being
Has become the chlorophyll connection
That has coaxed this dull, sullen weed to burst
Its seed of self-absorption, to ascend
From its damp sepulchre of black despair
To dare the blinding bewilderment of love.

If I could paint the ecstacy of life
In love in words, I'd do you a field
Of fragrant clover wet with morning dew,
An emerald carpet of sun-drenched calm
Where rabbits frolic, their fur soft and warm
As your touch.  But my words are lifeless oils
Of inadequacy, doomed never to attain
The passionate eloquence of your kiss.

Innocence

Soft as a white tuft of dandelion puff
That a breeze picks up to examine,
Caress, then set down in delicate balance
Upon a blade of grass, you fled from me,
As quietly as a whisper of regret.

Like that lingering patch of April snow
That's there in the morning, yet gone by night.
Like the dew that glistens in the first light
Of a summer day, then flees before the heat,
You slipped away, along with childhood's wonder.

You didn't slam the door in a white hot rage
Or punctuate your decision to depart
With an explosion of recriminations.
It wasn't a memory milestone moment
Such as the loss of one's virginity.

I looked for you one day and discovered you'd left.
My sand castle of boyish illusions had been levelled
Beneath an all-engulfing tide of experience.
The leaders that I'd trusted to clear my path had
Lined their pockets and let brush devour the trail.

Our Nation's laws that I'd been taught to revere
Have been forged by corrupt black robed judges
Into the chains of greedy sweat-shop overseers.
My God has become a "Bogey-man" tale whose hell
Is used as "muscle" in evangelical shakedowns.

Love proved the cruellest disappointment of all.
The bright flame of reverent adoration
That I tended when I was its worshipful acolyte
Dimmed to cynicism as I saw love sold on sidewalks
Or dangled to peddle items from beer to mouthwash.

So Irretrievable is innocence now
That when I walk the woods to pluck at twigs of solace,
I can hear the frightened heartbeats in the burrows,
Sense the predator, and smell the musty decay of death.
Although I seek it, even Nature offers no solace,
So irretrievable is innocence now.

If God So Loved the World

If God so loved the world as I love you
And I'd his power, I know what I'd do.
I'd rid your world of hunger, death and pain;
I'd bind Mr. Devil in a golden chain,
Putting an end to his sly, wicked reign.
Of evil your world wouldn't have a clue
If God so loved the world as I love you.

If God so loved the world as I love you,
He'd remake the Eden that Eve once knew
For you, and you'd wield your influence well.
His fiercest wrath a smile of yours would quell;
Your tears would pardon the damned from hell.
He'd view his works in a much kindlier hue
If God so loved the world as I love you.

If God so loved the world as I love you,
He'd scan heaven for as beautiful a view
As you, and failing, deem it incomplete.
He'd leave his Angels for one more sweet,
Forsaking his throne to kneel at your feet.
If I had God's power, that's what I'd do
If God so loved the world as I love you.

Don Juan

Cloaked in bitterness brought on by a surfeit
Of desire, he made love out of contempt

Of self.

Enraptured only with the romance of the pursuit,
His  lust would cut through the pretentions of love

To wound

The woman who would soon come to despise them both;
The Prize, with her severed pride dripping its blood

Of tears.

Content to be with her tonight, though.  Aroused
By the perfumed warmth of her body, her breasts,

Her touch,

He almost came close to telling her that he loved her.

Almost.

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!"

A Villanelle of Unrequited Love

Come my fair lass and lie with me
My need for you I here reveal.
With you is where I long to be.

Let me become your devotee
And with a kiss our love we'll seal.
Come my fair lass and lie with me.

For my heart's lock you've got the key,
My loneliness your love can heal.
With you is where I long to be.

Please listen to my anguished plea,
Before you I abjectly kneel.
Come my fair lass and lie with me.

Don't spurn me with a harsh decree
Or pierce my heart with your spiked heel.
With you is where I long to be.

If need's a crime, hear my appeal.
I'll plea bargain; now here's the deal.
Come my fair lass, just lie to me.
With you is where I long to be.

The Love Song of J. Snidely Whiplash

Let us go Nell, you and I
While the Canadian sunset is splayed out
Across the blood red sky like an otter pelt
Stretched out upon a skinning-board.
Let us walk through pine-scented woods,
Down trails that wander like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent.

What?  You don't trust me?

When I tied you to that railroad track
And you watched that locomotive coming at you,
It's whistle whining, its air brakes screeching;
It was just my obsessive devotion.
If I couldn't have you, then no one should.
If you were my woman I'd never hurt you.

In a room where couples come and go
I'd trump them all with you in tow.

You know, when I lashed you to that log
And turned on the sawmill conveyor that carried you
Ever closer to that deadly whirling blade,
It was just an act of love; showing you symbolically
That I could never share you alive with someone.
If you were my woman I'd never hurt you.

Would it be remiss
To ask for just a kiss?

Curses.  Foiled again.

I should have been a pair of bankers claws
Stacking bills gleaned from a teller's cage.
Someday there may come a time
When I may tire of turning widows and orphans
Out into the Canadian cold.
Already my hair is growing thin;
I'm seeing the start of a double-chin.
I now need more than just a little moustache black
To camouflage the ravages of time.
Otherwise, you know what they say...
There's "No play for Mr. Gray."
There's no love in a single's bar for an aging rogue.

I have measured out my life by foreclosed mortgages.

When I tied you to that other log
And sent you hurtling down that flume
Toward death in an icy, log-jammed river,
It was just a way of stating metaphorically, Love,
That I'd like to take you on a wild ride.
The wide-eyed terror that I witnessed on your face
Was at least an emotion more comely
Than the indifference or scorn you've shown me.
If you were my woman, I'd never hurt you.

In a room where couples come and go
I'd trump them all with you in tow.

Is it the perfume on your dress
That makes me so digress?
Would it be remiss
To ask for just a kiss?

Curses.  Foiled again.

Goodness isn't all it's cracked up to be, Love.
Doesn't the urge to be somewhat naughty prick you
A little bit, like the stays of your corset?
That straight-arrow Boy Scout of a Mountie
With the cleft jaw and the I.Q. of a sea slug,
Won't he become boring after awhile?

Deep-six the ribbons and bonnet, Nell,
And jettison the virtuous look.
I'd like to see you in stiletto heels
And a short black skirt slit up to your hips.
I'd love to see your long golden hair set free
To cascade like a waterfall down your back,
Your smile brightened by whorehouse red lipstick,
Smoke curling seductively from the cigarette
You hold in your slender manicured fingers.

Is it the perfume on your dress
That makes me so digress?

To see you dressed so fetchingly erotic,
My Love, would be a sight enticing enough
To make any man's moustache curl.
You know, my black beaver hat
Isn't the only large possession I take pride in.
Why do you think I wear a loose cape?

Let me be your Alec D'Urberville.
Let me do my damnedest to corrupt you.
I'll bet ther's a sultry vixen
Simmering beneath your muslin skirt.
I've seen you stroking the muzzle
Of that stupid Do-Right's horse,
Like some doped-up burlesque queen
Getting ready to straddle the bologna pony.

Let me take you downriver, Nell,
To dwell in Big Easy decadence.
There we can laughingly stroll past Piety
And choose to live our life on Desire instead.
We'll make love in the languid mornings
And Revel at night with the Dixieland bands.
We'll drink absinthe, and shuck and suck oysters.
You can flash your tits from our balcony, and
I'll help catch the beads that are tossed up to you.
Together we can live a life of lavish excess

Until our sins engulf us and we drown.

Remember Me Then

Like fruit that's plucked too soon, I'm too bitter.
Set me upon the windowsill awhile.
Let me ripen beneath a woman's smile,
And through the pane we'll both view the glitter
Of dew upon the grass, the colorful blaze
Of autumn leaves, and their gentle flitter
To earth that follows frost-etched fall mornings.
Remember me then as fruit crushed to wine
To warm your heart anon, as now you do mine.