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.

Dread death deprives good men of lives,
It’s breed that’s their revenge.
Below hard stones lie hallowed bones,
That once did death avenge.
But come each day, and come what may,
The fight remains infernal.
It’s in a poem they shall come home
To praise brave hearts eternal.

The fight is long and must go on,
We live or yet we die.
We shall not yield ‘for God’s our shield,’
This is our battle cry.
The charge is made and bodies laid,
‘Midst blood and crud and steel.
It’s do or die, with swords held high,
Blood rage now wrought with zeal.

‘Til wrath is spent and steel bent
The wine of life be spilled;
And blades shall flash and teeth shall gnash
‘Til vengeful hearts be filled.
Yet where is pride when men have died,
For causes false not true.
And who shall pay when kings waylay,
Whose hearts will feel the rue.

It’s not for kings or venal things
Brave men lay down their lives.
It’s for their breed and things they heed –
Their rights, their creed, their wives.
When spirits flee to distant lee
And tender hearts be torn.
True love’s the wain that bears the pain;
And will forever more.

But men of right fear not the night
And make that sacrifice.
Their hearts they give, that others live,
In love that never dies.
But come each day and come what may
The fight remains infernal.
It’s in a song they shall march on,
To live in praise eternal.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

If I might sow a line for you in time,
On what fair aspect of you should it dwell?
Should it be prose—or better still, a rhyme?
What silent secrets of you might it tell?
Of peerless grace and beauty would it speak?
(Well knowing words can never capture worth.)
Or should it sing of sterling heart replete
With virtues rarely seen upon the earth?
To willingly commit to such a task,
Yet setting out the goal in but one phrase,
Is but an errand that a fool may ask;
(Or yet a lovesick muse bereft of praise.)
One line but sown with seed as rich as you,
In time, from ink, this sonnet tribute grew!

©Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.