Because you gave your very life to me;
Because you know that I would die for you-
What greater measure of true bond could be,
What proclamation left for love to prove?
Though mortal breast can never outlast Time
And beating hearts shall cease one day in rest,
Our spirits shall live on in love sublime
There joined forever at dear god’s behest.
It is my hope that we shall carry on
And in some heaven live in love supreme,
So I your beauty may yet gaze upon
And we embrace in never ending dreams;
Our final resting place shall be the stars:
No hell or hate this promise shall e’re bar.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

When I do see the nascent buds of spring
Bring life to crooked branches dead and grey,
When feathered songsters with fresh voices bring
Sweet heralding hope unto a newborn day;
When rays of warmth fair rout retreating snow
And winter’s dregs surrender to new reign;
When vessels bearing life do start to show
Burgeoning fruit to here the world reclaim.
‘Tis then my thoughts as always turn to you
Sweet vernal countenance that melts all hearts,
That gift of love and life you fair imbue,
There with a simple smile so to impart;
As ancients venerate the waxing sun,
So shall I you, until our song is done.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Why should I pander to sad critics lame
There to some unnamed failure beg my worth,
For where in lines of rhyme shine forth their fame,
What treasured musings might yet give them berth?
Why suffer censure from some petty pen
That sees no color in another’s ink,
Damning proud verse that may there be arraigned
For adjudged slights from lines they could n’er think?
Why pageant skill to mediocrity,
Or ask opinion from a biased heart?
How can a dullard yet with brilliance see
Where jealousy black shadow does impart?
Let bards be judged by words they fairly writ
And not by fools that never penned a whit.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Though eyes may never scan these worthless lines
And tongues may never speak the words they hold,
Though heaven may not bless, this hope might find
Some paltry reverence as a story old.
Surviving as a parchment from this age
Perhaps requiring translation to explain,
Desiring to some distant soul engage,
And touch what human vestiges remain.
Once, lost in time, a man a beauty loved
And he did love her with a force supreme,
But yet his troth to her could not be proved
And she a mighty truth forthwith demeaned.
What matters to a love that lasts all time,
If it be etched in unrequited rhyme?

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

No, I had not prepared myself for Death
Although I knew that he would one day knock
Upon the door of life; I felt his breath
When the door opened, a clammy shock
Yet I welcomed him in and poured a glass;
He drank it down looking suitably grim.
So who have you come for today, I asked;
Why your father, of course, I’ve come for him-
But he is far too young, I did protest,
His meager life has fairly just begun;
That matters not to me he did confess,
I claim them all, those souls, both old and young;
But no, not him! Not him! I did implore-
He took him by the hand….and closed the door.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

I did not watch them shovel dirt on him
After he was laid in the cold black earth;
Surrounding faces seemed so wan and grim,
Staring at the epilogue of life’s worth.
Though hymns were sung, were none I do recall,
No words the preacher said rang clear, no none;
Someone mumbled something, and tears did fall,
With blank heaven above and a wizened sun
Looking down on black ants, that moved in mime.
I recall only sadness that day in June,
And many cheeks bleached by hot sweat and brine,
A world grey with voices out of tune-
A feckless god in an amorphous sky
And eyes bled red when all the grief ran dry.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

I found a path forged through a nameless wood,
O’ergrown from seldom travel it appeared,
Where man or beast of purpose surely could
Still plumb those depths of claustrophobic fear.
Though bramble choked and dark, it still called out
To dauntless travelers that might give it heed,
Where every step it’s thronging weeds would flout
And passage there it’s girdling green impede.
What purpose then could such a trail once serve,
And for such service, who would blaze it there?
To navigate those depths, what might I learn
Of unnamed motive lost to disrepair?
Would journey such to sate a curious mind
So justify the thorns there sure to find?

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

These tears of ink fall silent on my page,
Scribing my pallid face in crooked lines;
That well of ink, of depths no pen could gauge,
No words there writ could yet this grief confine.
‘Tis here my heart spills out it’s blackened stain
Now worn in blemished smudges on my sleeve,
And at my desk a crumpled man remains,
A soul bereft of why you chose to leave.
There is no god above, no god stands tall;
Or if there is, he chooses not to hear
This suffering love torn man who gave his all
And cherished so, the one his heart held dear;
Still I implore blank heaven in sorrowed ink,
As love and life in hopelessness now sink.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.