Yes, Dionaea laughed and danced with me,
Her gown a pastel green and ruby red;
And I, in turn, did laugh in gaiety;
A joyous chorus piped inside my head.
Her perfumed breath, in silence, did enthrall,
As did her nectar kisses, honey sweet;
And her bright smile was surely my downfall,
‘Midst other female wiles, which from her reeked.
So I, bewitched ‘twixt tenderness and lust
Abandoned all my grasp of common sense;
In female virtue placed my hapless trust
And sealed my fate, that wedded bliss commence.
So now, entrapped within pudendal grasp,
I struggle still, set soon to breathe my last.

©Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

It is my wish that I with pen in hand,
Devote my waning minutes to your grace;
That those read in ages yet to span,
May know the wonders of your sainted face.
Yes, paintings may ensconce the outward glow,
Daguerreotypes entrap reflected light;
But in a poets’ ink we yet may show
The captured essence of the soul’s delight.
True beauty is not just a shapely form,
Nor yet a visage blessed by angels fair;
It is a truth that never can conform
To vogue belief—or yet fond fashion’s flair.
But beauty’s truth unknown succumbs to time—
Hence yours shall live forever in my rhyme.

©Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

True beauty is not just an outward light,
But rather glow that stirs the soul within;
The outward beckons moths in mindless flight,
The inward is pure truth’s undying glim;
For outward beauty’s but a lustrous sheen
Whose gloss may yet conceal a darker heart;
And lack of luster may the converse bring—
To show that light the inward may impart.
Bright beacons can confound both moths and men
Oft leading promised pilgrimage to doom;
But from the humble butterfly we learn—
The truest light is not the one assumed.
For beauty is not always as it seems,
And shadows lurk beneath the fairest gleam.

©Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Yes, those who read this verse in times to come
May doubt the truths that I have praised in pen;
Yet could they spend one minute of time’s sum
In your sweet grace, all doubt they would suspend.
Though many speak of Helen and her face,
Yet few recall the color of her hair;
And who remembers Cornelia and her grace,
Whose virtues bathed in light beyond compare?
True beauty is much like the rarest flower
Whose lease of heaven is both short and sure;
Yet once she’s picked and dried, she fades in power
And dies a death no physic can yet cure;
But in this song that I shall sing to men,
Your truth abides—your beauty lives again.

©Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

In my mind you will ever remain young
As to that moment when our gazes locked;
I see you in that place where we began—
The cover of a long-loved cherished book.
Time cannot mute the colors of the light
That shone forth from your heart-arresting smile,
And though some claim my eyes were blinded quite,
I do protest—conceding love beguiles.
Love’s golden book is but a storied verse
That weaves two songs mysteriously in rhyme;
Sweet strains of life no mortals can rehearse,
Both truth and myth played out in precious time.
Although the story’s end is yet untold…
You stay a mistress young, and never old.

©Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

The tyranny of time shall not prevail,
For in these lines your beauty shall live young.
Time’s jealousy shrouds beauty in his veil;
Worn, tattered vestment proving youth undone.
For Time himself cannot but ever age
And covet that which he can never hold;
But in these words his spoil is here forbade—
In living ink, your glory now retold.
As long as men can read and words avow;
As long as beauty’s grace remains esteemed;
As long as thought transcends the here and now,
So shall your visage live, and be redeemed.
In stalwart lines your beauty shall live on,
And mock his might till human hearts are gone.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

I penned another verse for you today,
My mind’s eye focused on your visage fair;
And as a child with blocks, with words I played
As though to build a strophe beyond compare.
With stalwart pen each word was put to form
And each did follow each to mark your praise;
Thus in so doing, some gestalt was born-
A tower of truth, set to all eyes’ amaze.
But towers of truth may still come crashing down;
These jumbled words now speak toward this end,
Fair tribute in such form cannot be found
For truth and beauty rarely can be penned.
Now here I sit midst scattered words so strewn,
A humbled child, set but to start anew.

©Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Was it the cruel October wind and rain
That brought back bitter memories of you;
Or yet, perhaps, the leaves all crimson stained
That harkened to our caustic pained adieu?
Perhaps it’s but the winter yet to come
Whose frozen breath casts stinging shards of ice,
That frosty shroud which smothers like a tomb—
The hollow shell of some deceiving life?
Though recollections fade with passing years
And pain may be assuaged by soothing time,
A single falling leaf can beckon tears
When brisk winds send a shiver down my spine.
How notions stray, I may yet never know—
But thoughts of you return when cold winds blow.

©Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

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.