My silver mirror marks the scores of time;
Alabaster and gold corroded grey—
Yet in the eyes remains a light refined
The last proud vestige of youth’s brighter days.
Still in that glass a story there retold,
In lines of love and laughter, joy and strife
To chronicle a passage rich and bold,
One not to be recast, though flaws be rife.
Once long ago a boy did make a sword
From sticks he found upon a forest floor,
He raised it high and in soft solemn words
Pledged there to vanquish dragons, this he swore;
And demons fell each day throughout his reign,
Though darkness ever loomed…the light remained.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

No sonnet ever written frames your grace;
No tribute so enshrined by mortal means
Could here do justice to that peerless face—
Proud work of God, which paltry words demean;
Here I hail not, His work speaks to this truth,
Yet still I write where human thoughts amaze…
In hope these lines might capture peerless worth
That reaches yet beyond all earthly praise.
Humbled thusly, still so compelled to scribe
By hope some soul might share my awed delight
And in this verse through reading yet divine
Those hidden graces that transcend pure sight.
Assailed so, what man could hold his sum
On seeing timeless beauty, nary one.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

What grace yet bides within a woman’s breast
Where she forsakes a helpless human child
And so disdains the fruit of her own flesh,
By actions vain, love’s strongest bond defiled;
A mother’s love, once pure in deed, assured,
Now doubted quite, as whim of wicked queen;
This love once true, now hereby dark immured,
For love of self, life’s fondest trust demeaned.
Hearth stones  not held by mortar lie askew
And without fire, colder yet they grow;
The heath without the sun drowns in cold dew;
Bare breasts bereft of love e’er suckle woe.
An ape with babe in arms was once set free,
Climbed to great heights, then dropped it from a tree.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

The world’s awash in middling poetry
Where words of questioned rhythm make their stand,
As bootless wreckage jouncing on the sea,
Too few yet seem of worth when they make land;
Like flotsam of the tide they lie in rune
Their motley measure cluttering up the shore,
Daft jumbled voices singing out of tune
Resembling more a sea shell’s raucous roar.
Yet human echoes strewn upon the beach
Do mark mean musings of the common soul
And to the nomad, searching each to each,
Find relics there of happiness and woe.
In ink, therefore, I craft another dross,
And to the waves of time, this jetsam toss.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

I took your beauty, wove it into song,
Bejeweled it with stars of heaven above;
Bright sequined so my sweetly formed sarong,
Was lined inside with purest silken love.
Soft moonbeam threads around the edges sewn
Dusk’s purple shadows dyed into the weave,
A splash of sunshine like a sash there thrown
To dapple down like golden autumn leaves;
A dove soft mantle, ethereal and light,
Diaphanous as yet an angel’s wing,
A chiffon cloud sweet shimmering in delight
With all the wonders pleasured hope may bring;
Fair raiment right, a robe beyond compare—
I see it best when you do nothing wear.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

What of these sweetest ties that bind
My heart to yours dear Valentine
That passion grow and fate entwine
In tendrils true a hope divine.

While love may wax or wane in time
My fondness for you reigns sublime
And shall not wither on the vine
For truer love you’ll never find.

To waste this gift seems such a crime
So pledge your troth and here be mine
There to love’s bower we’ll resign
In warm embrace e’re to recline.

As long as waters flow the Tyne
And lovers raise a glass of wine
My heart to you I shall consign
And in these words our love enshrine.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Dear valentine, my sweetest valentine
The baby breaths of spring are wafting near
And I must melt that winter heart of thine
Before relentless time inters us here;
Long have I courted you with sweets and posies
Proffering them as gestures of romance;
When I gave tulips, you wanted roses,
Not deigning to give love but half a chance.
Still, life goes on and true love’s never daunted,
I know in time that you will come to see
That in my world, your grace is ever vaunted,
Perhaps one day you’ll give your heart to me;
I love you so, each day, with every breath —
This heart consigned to you, in life and death.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

What is life? To feel the sun on your face
At dawn, or the softest rain on your tongue,
A lover’s embrace or your mother’s dear grace,
A walk in the woods that goes on and on;
Twinkled stars of light on a moonless night
That quiver en pointe and parlay
The hopes and dreams of sweet passioned delight
By the fondness of shared wills and ways;
The warmth of the hearth, the smiles of the loved,
Precious tears for those lost souls long sailed;
Ardent prayers to beseech our Father above
That our terrestrial meanderings be hailed.
The truth is that life is a wondrous song…
Sung by heart and soul, be it brief or long.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.