Innocent love, far sweeter than a child’s,
Unconditional, free of vanity,
Her heart was pure, her body lithe and mild—
Blue eyes so clear, her soul lay bare to see.
She loved me true, of this I always knew
And what she gave, she asked naught in return;
I took her love as any man might do—
Embraced the form, while yet the heart I spurned.
Time is both balm and bane, it often seems;
Somewhere along the path I lost my way,
And soon I held her solely in my dreams,
‘Midst echos of the tender things she’d say.
In private moments when I breathe her name…
I wonder if she smiles—or does the same.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

But faint, she rises from the waxing gloom—
On scalloped, half-shell barque borne on grey seas;
Waves waked by Zephyr’s breath, blown to a spume,
Deliver her to shore with graceful ease.
Awaiting on the sands, fair Horae Spring
Holds forth a flowered robe to cloak her form;
On fainter breath, sweet virgin Aura sings,
While roses ‘round her golden tresses swarm.
So bright she shines from off that mythic shore,
A sight more lustrous than the brightest star;
With skin of alabaster, polished pure,
No mortal dream could match her by compare.
A lock of gold transgresses there her thighs—
Transfixed, I bask ‘neath Botticelli skies.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Where does love go when it departs from hearts?
Is it the quiet moaning of the wind—
Perhaps the sad lament of summer showers,
Or angry rumble as dark storms begin ?
Does it form clouds to strain the warmth of sun,
Or yet perhaps lay snow upon the loam?
Does fleeing love turn golden leaves to dun,
Or cast pale sorrow o’er the rising moon?
No—love pursues the ever noble things—
In every act of kindness it resides;
It dwells in happy songs that children sing,
And in warm hands or smiling eyes, it hides;
Though love may seem to leave, it is not gone,
And hearts that here now grieve, shall smile anon.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Your sins became a blemish on my mind—
A stain of dark betrayal and love lost;
A blot I hoped would pale with passing time,
Yet through the years I found that it would not.
Instead, love’s worth grew deeper, more sublime:
No fleeting fancy merely to indulge,
A sacred trust to brave the breadth of time,
Proud thought and action waiting to divulge.

Of vile deception, what remains to say,

Save pure love can be damned by wicked lies;

And when so blackened, what may love portray

That still is true, and cannot be despised?

But lo—a sweeter love expunged the stain,

While your black heart, in shadow, shall remain.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Here you shall live, immortalized in ink,
Like beauties past, of whom proud poets sing;
And those who read shall wonder and bethink,
Entranced in tableaux that my verse shall bring.
All vestitures of beauty you do wear,
Like sovereigns’ jewels glittering in the sun;
The hues you own, no sylph would ever dare,
To paint in prayer with  brushes soft and dun.
Proud pens and portraits cannot capture yet
That loveliness that in your heart does dwell,
Where inner beauty and that outward set
Ensconce a truth that has no parallel.
All belles that read these words and bid compare:
Hold council with your glass…and so despair.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Why have you stayed, when time has sapped my youth
And bent my branches like an aging oak?
Your sunshine smile metes life, and still does soothe
To melt dread winter’s cold like warm chinooks.
Relentless time has weather-worn my bark,
And on my crown, the faded leaves hang shorn;
I stand a craven relic, visage stark,
Whose frame has braved the might of every storm.
What shelter yet can crooked limbs provide,
Now barren, grey, and stiff—bereft of cheer?
What promise do these fruitless hands betide
When heavens’ thunder stroke looms ever near?
You grant new life, much like the breath of spring;
For when you smile, loves’ sap fair flows again.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

What mountains must I climb to reach the sky?
Wrestling and wriggling, wracking and writhing,
Full-driven by that call of do or die—
Legs straining, heart pounding, hands seizing
Razor rocky outcrops, shorn clods of grass
To gain advantage on that murderous mound
Of granite, thrust upward from an ancient past
That raised steep crags from cataclysmic ground.
What dubious joy to stand atop that peak—
Pure freedom now, with nowhere left to strive
But back the same…or downward, o’er the brink:
The final choice no sane soul would decide.
Yet if I choose the latter, who would know,
When summer’s melt unbinds these bones from snow?

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Sylvia, sweet Sylvia, where are you now?
My heavy heart still pines to have you near;
The grieving moon lays low, pallid with rue,
And stars do twinkle cold, bereft of cheer.
I let you go without a fond farewell,
Still dreaming we would soon embrace again;
But time eclipsed you in its umbrageous veil—
Now fretted memories of lost love remain.
Oh, that this mottled moon would show the way,
And light that darkened trail back to your heart;
From your soft warm embrace I’d never stray,
And we, love-blessed once more, would never part.
Would but these star-strewn heavens hear my plea,
And guide me to that face I long to see.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

You left me burning in the morning sun,
Which leered through unwashed windows by the bed;
Cold sheets reminding that you were now gone,
Vapors of vodka torturing my head.
I still could sense your pungent, sweet perfume
Mixed with erotic sea-musk on my fingers;
Your sultry essence haunts the darkened room,
Melodic laughter—still in memory lingers;
The pillow near me, smeared with lipstick blue,
Though in dim light I thought the color black;
Your absence twists what memories construe—
Except the dream you might one day come back.
I gazed across the nightstand’s grimy top;
The money still was there—the rose was not.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.