A grim new world forged here by clawless hands;
Graved images, the darkling brood of brain;
Dour monuments defying time yet stand;
Stone echoes that intone rude pride’s refrain.
Vast forests here in splintered plunder lie;
Wild rivers now enslaved by slabs of stone;
Proud mountains that did once uplift the sky;
Now rubbled in drab valleys down below.
What mighty wonders has this being wrought,
And from whose charter does he seize his sway?
What future, born of havoc can be got
When conquest blots the very light of day?
What suckled creature ever here gained right
To mar his mother’s face with brute delight?

©Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

With words, as a bored child with paint might play,
I toyed with tender images of you.
As if, but not to tarry through the day,
A word of red, another yet of blue.
A word red for love of crimson deep;
A word of blue for trust that’s true and pure.
A word of green, for you my heart to keep;
A word of white, your beauty to endure.
A word of grey when you of leave must take,
A word of pink to herald your return,
A word of black when you my love forsake:
A splash of rainbowed hope, for which love yearns.
Yet as time passed, it grew quite plain to see—
I did not play with words, but they with me.

©Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Like a great painting etched by crazing Time,
So has your visage grown more rich with praise.
His lust to ravage leaves you more sublime,
For age so shackled can all eyes amaze;
But how can youth with years seem yet more strong
When all else tested crumbles to decay?
Even Helen cast in patinated bronze
Leaves but a battered memory of her day.
No beauty can hold out against such siege
Even bared on canvas, bronze or marbled stone.
No icon shaped by man can yet achieve
A legacy that ages can’t o’er throw.
Still, beauty’s grace embossed in minds of men,
Endures in echoes wrought by hand and pen.

©Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

As silent yellow leaves fall to the ground,
So does their passing signal summer’s end.
The green whose glory once did here abound
Resigning to a fate it can’t contend.
So each shall follow each ’til none remain
Save crooked branches strained against the sky;
Each sequent leaf on leaf but to maintain
That every living thing was born to die.
Still, gnarled branches in warm breath of spring
Do resurrect the glory of past days,
And nascent blossoms with sweet scent do bring
From dead of winter, living hope upraised.
So thoughts of you, when absent you may be,
Are like a breath of spring to aged me.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Time is a gift whose measure is unknown
Save that our lives are metered in its sands,
And metaphors of sand have often shown,
Fine particles slip through the strongest hands.
A minute wasted is a minute lost;
An hour passed is never found again,
For time so tallied sums its righteous cost
And life thus squandered does fair gift defame.
As precious minutes slide through narrowed glass
So does sweet life slip forward to its end,
And surely as this day shall come to pass—
Tomorrow can’t its yesterday amend.
Then mark these words and measure hence your time;
As metered worth makes measure of this rhyme.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

If I were there to fight and die,
My scattered bones interred would lie,
In foreign soil beneath a sky-
My lover would not see.

Yet surely she would dream of me,
And cherished would my memory be
That often she on bended knee,
Would muse upon my grave.

And at her bedside she would save
A lock of hair of one so brave,
So that the blood and breath he gave
Would not be spent in vain.

Indeed yet when the letter came
The tears fair passed like summer rain
And shortly was my memory stained;
She did my troth forswear.

And so my lad be thus aware,
It matters not that she be fair,
Nor yet again of what you care:
Dead soldiers are still dead.

©Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

As cat with mouse, you do now play with me,
Abusing with cruel love, then letting go;
Then, to claw back again with savage glee
In pain my tender flesh has grown to know.
Once bitten and released, I crawl away,
Toward the light that shines through open door,
But just as I escape, comes my dismay—
That dream of freedom played is but no more.
A feline fantasy seems my sad lot;
In tortured turmoil I shall spend my time,
Repeated horrors haunt the love I sought-
Where loving you remains my only crime.
For you, love’s joy resides in bringing pain;
For me, love’s sorrows bring me back again.

©Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

If I were just a poet,
And you were but a rhyme.
I’d wish that you I’d written,
In praise for endless time;
That words could recite beauty
And you’d be ever mine.
If I were but a poet,
And you were just a rhyme.

Though I am scarce a poet,
It still would be sublime
To try and capture beauty
In just a single line;
So in these words I’ve written
Imprisoned you shall shine,
For I am sure a poet,
And you shall live in rhyme!

©Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

If love be love then I was n’er untrue—
For love and lust have ever been the twain.
True love cannot sweet promise misconstrue,
And to staunch hearts, remains its guiding flame.
Lust is the shadowed all consuming beast
That feeds on flesh and weak unguarded souls,
Blinding its prey with wanton devil dust,
Perverting passion for the devils’ goals.
But denizens of dark do fear the light
Of fervor that is truly heaven blessed,
And surely as a torch allays the night,
Fades to pitch black, until the next behest.
For love’s enduring flame burns ever on—
Lust rages at the moon, and then is gone.

©Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Let it be known my love shall die with you,
For I have given all I have to give.
When you have fled, this love shall not renew,
Unless I have another life to live—
In your dear arms I’ve placed my fullest score,
The sweetest treasures of my heart and soul;
And for your sake the burdens that I bore
Seem but small tokens paid for love I hold.
Though time may squander beauty, will and grace,
And memory shall fade to dark of night,
I pray I may forever see your face
When shuttered eyes forbid the dawning light.
Though mortal life and love will not go on…
We two shall live forever in this song.

©Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.