Dear valentine, my sweetest valentine
The baby breaths of spring are wafting near
And I would thaw that winter heart of thine
Before its frost denies our season here;
Long have I courted you with sweets and posies
Proffering them as gestures of romance;
I brought you tulips—you pined for roses,
Refusing love but giving half a chance.
Still, life goes on and love remains undaunted,
I know the day will dawn when you shall see
That in my world, your grace is ever vaunted
And all my hopes are set on only thee;
For love grows fonder with each gentle 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;
Twinkling stars of light on a moonless night
That seem to quiver en pointe and display
The hopes and dreams of dear passioned delight
Along the fond path of love’s promenade;
The warmth of the hearth, the smiles of the loved,
Precious tears for those lost souls long sailed;
Sweet ardent prayers to our Father above
That our earth-born enchantments be hailed.
The truth is that life is a wondrous song…
Soul sung by the heart, to be brief or yet long.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

These ancient trees laden with snow now stand
Somber, biding, locked in their ice-frost chains;
Sad vestiges of that which once stood grand—
Proud chieftains past of verdant rich domains.
There shackled fast by manacles of white,
Fierce flayed and scourged by bitter icy winds,
Shoulder to shoulder their stance remains upright
Though to the worst of force, they bow and bend.
Yet life prevails and buried hope renews,
The deepest dark of night heralds the dawn
And though oppressed of burdens so accrued,
They bear life’s savagery and soldier on;
Staunch sentinels that stand against all odds
Because or yet in spite of austere gods.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

I met an codger leaving church one day—
Arresting me with yawning toothless smiles,
His face a raisin, eyes deep sunken, grey,
His wizened body cocked against a stile.
You do not know me, but I know you, he said
In soft and gentle tones I seemed to know;
A sense of burden in his face I read
And he went on in whispers, soft and low.
In the graveyard stands a blank faced stone
Ahead a mound, no words yet written there,
I’ve set it for you when you were newly born
And kept it waiting with a patient care.
Are you the reaper?! I blurted out in fear;
A messenger— your epithaph’s unclear.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

I best compare you to mid-winter nights—
Incorrigible, callous, cold and mean;
Your grasp, an iron fist of cold-cast might
Firm frozen to that brumal mace you wield.
Hyperborean face of crystal-crusted snow
Frost frames those glinting eyes, glacial blue;
Quartz needled icicles, your gaze to throw
Piercing those plebs that dare to flout your rule.
Hibernian haughtiness haunts heart and soul;
No vernal smile could melt that frigid stare,
Subnivean dreams your passions to cajole—
A bleak ombromanie of rank despair.
Here may these words of warning boldly stand:
Let no man ever clasp that gelid hand.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

So by what measure is life deemed unjust,
When kings and beggars have of each their reign,
Though one by rags and one by robes be blessed,
Each heart beats out its rhythm much the same.
A pauper oft in simple meals rejoice
Where to a king, a feast seems mere routine,
Yet seldom pleasure’s mark the wiser choice
When rapture stands the fancy to esteem.
There of contentment less is often more
Where too much more results in being less;
And happy days are relative by score
Though each, by time, seem equaled in that test.
In matching measure, men eke out their days,
And more or less, exult in different ways.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Powdered snow soft wafting down
Sprinkling light the sponge cake ground
Sugar coating chocolate trees
Etching silver panes in frieze.

Children on the hills now play
Sliding down on gumdrops gay
Stopping brief in fun to fight
Lobbing dollops soft and white.

Whipped cream sky melts into dark
Popcorn flakes fill up the park
Windows now sport candles warm
Glazing gold the streets of town.

Locals whisk past on their routes
Icing lines in winter boots
Caramelized by household fires
Feasted full soon to retire.

Gingered houses candied lanes
Crumb coat dashed by winter winds
Doors and sills in garland cream
Lollipop street lanterns gleam.

Marzipan on chimneys tall
Vanilla frosting covers all
Hamlet piped in gum paste sweet
Wrapped in fondant now to sleep.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

I opened up a folded hand writ note,
In cursive font it simply so did say
‘You do not know me but I like you quite,
So much that I would love to meet one day.
I shall be at the pub called Riverside—
On the morrow, I’ll be there at noon,
My auburn hair and saffron dress your guide
To find me, if by chance a crowded room.’
I wracked my brain, no countenance to find,
No red haired damsel that I could recall;
What harm to pay a visit there in kind
To find what held this woman so in thrall?
In wary hope I left the zenith sun
And sat ‘til certain that she would not come.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

I write to you sight blurred by stinging tears,
While crushing sadness pains upon my breast;
All shining hope now lost amidst black fears—
An agony no hell on earth could best.
What proclamation deemed you leave me now,
The depths of winter drawing yet so nigh?
Wan smoke here curdling o’er the housetops brow
Genuflecting ‘neath foreboding skies…
I read your note but do not understand,
How you would not arraign me face to face,
Hot venom spewed in ink seared like a brand
To scar both heart and soul in cruel disgrace;
A prisoner chained, yea sentenced here to death,
No crime alleged, condemned so nonetheless.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.