For how do I embrace the coming dark
With lightened heart and equanimity?
My greatest fear is that we two shall part
And loving bonds be lost eternally.
What truth still lives in dreams of ever after;
What proofs exist beyond the here and now?
How sad the fading echoes of our laughter
When soon from loving breasts all life shall flow?
Then let us dance within the present light,
And let us drink our wine and eat our bread;
Let not your beauty wander from my sight,
But let us couple daily ’til we’re dead.
You are my love, my light, my living bliss—
And I’d forsake sweet heaven for just one kiss.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Let us not say that we have loved in vain
Though waning passion oft is love’s memoir;
For love is love, and so it shall remain
If tended near or yet unstoked afar.
Love is a kindness that is not forgot,
The dearest blessing that fond hearts bestow;
Life’s precious gift that never is for nought,
A sacred reverence that true hearts enthrone.
Love is an understanding, deep and pure
That like souls feel when they connect in time;
It is a promise that all time endures,
Untouched by creeds or dogmas that confine.
The human heart is best defined by love;
So may these lines my thoughts on you yet prove.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Black branches burdened deeply down with snow,
These silent pines like sentinels do stand,
Barring all passage—those who might dare go—
A fearsome fortress—breach us if you can!
Yet not so dreadful to a wounded heart;
Those motionless dragoons, in ice enshrined,
Whose frozen silver daggers there impart,
A spectral menace to the doleful mind.
Yet of this peril, I have now no fear
Within their ranks sweet death itself abides;
These daunting horsemen are my comrades here,
Whose icy bonds some solemn peace provides.
In frigid dark, a tender warmth I see—
Amid their stillness, hope yet stirs for me.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Should some sagacious creature read these words
In future eons—granting earth still turns—
Perhaps he deems my musings age interred
And on a heap of ash, my thoughts should burn;
But yet, perhaps, he’ll find them quaint and true
And think, perchance some dull intelligence
Reached forth from time, his conscience to imbue—
Some measured thought—of when, and why, and whence.
Thus in the future, if true love shall last,
And if two sexes still embrace in dance,
Through thoughts on you he’ll glimpse idyllic past
And marvel at the bliss of true romance—
Like Paris and Helen, we shall vanquish time;
Ensconced in verse; immutable in rhyme.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

For what is yet more powerful than death
Which steals the life from every living soul?
All creatures born of dust must feel his breath
As sure as spring’s lush blooms meet winter’s snow.
What god of love concedes to this dark reign
That every living thing be born to die—
That all the precious brood the earth shall bring
Must walk this vale of tears with death close by?
What hope-forged cross of promise must we bear,
Not knowing heav’n or hell be destiny?
What fleeting joys must mortal hearts forswear,
To flout foul death and live eternally?
What mighty theorems thrive on proofs so thin
That men brave death to find what heav’n they’re in?

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Deceit in love is yet more foul than pain,
It is an evil that devours the soul.
Though Morpheus can make base suffering wane;
No potion yet can anguished hearts console.
No tears more bitter than of broken hearts;
No salve to soothe their aching misery;
No words of solace hopeful balm imparts,
Save somber prayers in vespered sympathy.
When potions fail and callous gods decline,
And plaintive prayers lay cold at heaven’s gate,
Malevolence shrouds joy in dark design,
And life assumes the blackest pall of fate.
True love, despite deep wounds, lives ever on,
But love not true, so smit—is ever gone.

©Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Did you dream me, or do I truly live,
For my thoughts dwell on nothing but your grace;
All else seems sun-blanched early morning mist
Through which I see the shining of your face;
Yet what ethereal vapors hold me here
And leave me blind to all that is not you?
What sweet nepenthe formed of heavens tears
Did I imbibe, my longings to subdue?
But if I am a figment of your mind,
A whimsy of capricious consciousness,
I pray we never waken here to find
My dream within your dream no longer lives;
Still, if I am a child of your brain…
I’ll wait in earnest ’til you sleep again.

©Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Sweet Sylvia, where does your heart now roam—
What distant lands do you now grace with glee?
Does still your smile outshine the golden sun,
And blind the souls of those so blessed to see?
Does your soft voice still echo distant songs…
Half-remembered, half-forgotten too—
Soft-fading notes when rousing strains have gone,
That soothe and linger like Jasmine perfume?
And does the moon still gild your raven hair,
Do doting stars still dance with mad delight
When you, sweet summer sylph, take to the air,
And float through silvered gardens in the night?
I know that ever where on earth you stand,
All eyes are one—your spectacle so grand.

©Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

When time has weighed its measure on your eyes,
And passed its sentence, furrowed deep in  years;
When maquillage  no longer veils the guise—
Deep lines of time traced by your bitter tears.
What polished glass might now sad truth defend,
Or stay the sentence that the years proclaim?
Black truth in lies stands guilty in the end—
Who stays the writ that Heaven’s hand ordains?
You wore deceit like robes of borrowed lace,
And of redemption, prayers were left unsaid,
Love stood a truth you chose to but disgrace
While lust, your creed, left virtue cold and dead.
Despite brushed pigments, time has not been kind,
For life so lived leaves more than truth behind.

©Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Is love’s summation joy and pleasure bound,
Or yet subtraction of life’s grief and pain?
In what additions can true love be found,
Or is such calculus but wrought in vain?
No—love is life when joined and shared as one;
The obverse and reverse of golden coin;
For pleasure shared is greater than one sum,
And multiplies the bliss in hearts conjoined;
Thus we together form one pure gestalt—
A greater whole than merely added two;
Defying logic, we in love default,
Belying numbers, writing math anew!
While sharing be division of some parts,
The greatest sum—the union of two hearts.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.