Let not the arms of mother’s love despair
For love bestowed does not presume a way
Yet labors on in sweet eternal care,
Sustaining grace through constancy of days;
The wisest son doth make his father proud,
The dullard to his mother’s breast doth cling;
Yet both alike may don the mourner’s shroud
When sorrow to glad hearts flawed breeding bring.
Still, of black shame, who bears the greater scorn—
The bairn whose actions stain his pedigree?
There oft the mother’s heart doth heft the more
Which mocks her worth and work so woefully.
Still, warmest sun and too the sweetest rain
Falls yet upon both flower and weed the same.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Power to soar above on eagle wings,
Power to smite with heaven’s thunderous roar,
Power to lead with all that beauty brings,
Power to open yet each fettered door;
Power to live and shine with brightest light,
Power to give and yet humbly receive,
Power to endure life’s cruelest blight,
Power to speak the truth and not deceive.
My children dear, may God grant you these gifts
That you stand proud when voice of mighty calls
And serving passion, never stray amiss
Succumbing not to lusts the weak befall;
May conscious courage guide your every day
That you may show the world a better way.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Precious flowers borne by Florentine winds
One day did wash upon a chalky shore
And there found fertile ground to so begin
A noble form to best all forms before;
In Albion clay these changelings did take root
To spread amongst lush gardens of the land,
Fair blooms whose iridescence could compete
With any florets blessed by mortal hand;
Sweet nurtured thus they grew in praised delight
To brighten quite each cultured drawing room,
In scented worth each fancy there took flight
So every heart assailed might faint and swoon;
These beauties bright once every lea adorned
Now rare in sight, their essence but forsworn.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

It pains me future beauty may not find
A face and form as grand as yours to hold,
Or yet be blessed by sterling heart so kind
When God has deemed it time for you to go.
What loss to all who knew that sainted smile—
The very tears of heaven sure to fall
In homage to that brief telluric while
A mortal angel held the world in thrall.
I have reflected—faces borne on time—
Their marveled glory frozen, bronze or stone;
Of sweetest essence drawn from well-inked rhyme,
Or splashed bold strokes on linen canvas strown;
In all these styles your wonder stands apart—
A peerless sylph beyond the grasp of art.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

You walked into the hall and time fair stopped;
Sharp voices hushed abruptly in the room.
There every mind stood scrubbed of every thought
Save but the one your visage now did own.
Oh beauty rare, that with strong silent power,
By looks alone could every eye so glaze,
And with a single glance stun faces dour
Soft killing them in silent dumbstruck praise.
What pleasure so to see the haughty slain;
Sweet beauty’s boot upon those pompous throats
Where from thick scrags that thin blue blood might stain
White ruffled bands that those black hearts did sport;
But then you flashed a smile to souls astound—
And in an instant razed them to the ground.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

We met by star lust, shared a drink or two
Our worlds colliding, differing night as day,
A gravitas of matter’s murky glue,
Sheer Jovian impulse, now what then to say?
Had I but there a cigarette to light,
And burn the awkward silence of the Moon:
Saturnine bleakness dingy walls did dight,
Plutonian shadows eclipsing like a tomb.
Dimples of Venus, love as deep as skin—
No comet bright to burst through astral doors,
Just Piscean scents of mad telluric sin:
Meteoric clothing cratered on the floor.
I fall to Earth, blood red in Martian flame,
Mercurial madness marred by stellar shame.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

I sit, pen poised before a blank white canvas
My mindful muse slow mixing words of hue
That I might paint enduring panoramas
That capture pure prized images of you;
So here a dab of light to crown your grace
And there a glint of brightness on your smile,
A splash of blush across that peerless face
And velvet shadows soft, to souls beguile.
A touch of crimson moistens loving lips
The richest chestnut strengthens arching brow,
A grand tableau to launch a thousand ships—
Sweet bowsprit set to best all beauty’s prows,
There so upon the palette of my mind
I blend by love what painted words enshrine.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Where beauty comes to light through praising eyes,
Assails the soul and leaves on poet’s breath,
Condensing yet into his quiet lines
To persevere beyond mere mortal death;
So may your elegance bide on in rhyme
To incandesce in minds of those who read
And dream that once there was a place and time
That such a matchless beauty walked and breathed.
Of virtue you engraced—who dares to write
Where judgement of sheer worth rides on a pen,
And to that challenge who bestows the right
That paltry verse proud legacy attend?
O may the grace of God now guide this hand
That here in ink, immortal worth e’re stand.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

You, quintessence of femininity —
Unabashed and unafraid, pure woman;
A beauty true which every eye may see,
So proud to be the gifted rib from heaven.
Soft to the eye and softer to the touch
Yet with an inner strength that bides in stead,
God-manded mate no man could love too much,
Right complement of heart, to virtue wed.
You are the cradle of the human form
And by design refine that mortal beast,
Give moral compass to those sinless born
And comfort so all suffering souls ‘til death.
Demure and meek, yet with a mighty power;
The pride of Eden hidden in a flower.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

So driven wild here by your winsome form,
The devil’s hound bent on a scented run,
Bestial, raw-red, purposed, raging storm,
There not to be denied ‘til prize be won.
Fearless, ferine, and not by reason bound,
Courage infused from some primeval past;
Logic undone, tight spindle there unwound,
Web-tangled twine but to the soul entrap.
Folly divine there ne’er to be denied,
Malevolent madness mocking piety,
Desire unchained, no conscience to abide—
To have, to hold…to conquer utterly.
Then spent of passion, done, sweet glory gained;
Brief spate of pride, but now by guilt arraigned.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.