Idealism trumping reality
They hear a different call
It’s hard to love an artist
But it’s harder not to fall

I want to be where beauty’s born
Not where she has fled; people mourn

I want to tag-along when beauty splits
Share her glamour, adore her glitz

I long to be in beauty’s wake
Whatever crumbs that fall I’ll take

I want to sail with beauty’s gales
A lanteen launch from life’s travails

I want to be where beauty flies
And life is bliss with press of thighs

I want to see through beauty’s veils
Lay intoxicated in her sweet details

I want to look up beauty’s dress
In my heart she will be no less

I hope that beauty hears my pleas
For I know that she can be a tease

So let me join this beautiful race
To kiss her lips; to hold her face

And die with beauty in a warm embrace
(Perhaps in some far-off exotic place?)

Yet a rhyme can strike chords
In major minor keys
Hold you as you cry
With haunting harmonies

Words can channel feelings
Marred marrow understands
Not all endings satisfy
Even with the best laid plans

So if you need some moment
For sojourns to the past
Lyrics lift a lightning rod
To mourn pains borne en masse

And if there is a message
That is what I have learned
Life is of waters sailed
Not in bridges burned

A poem gives not the gift of flight
To a soul devoid of song
But if soon, you rekindle tune
The sonnets sing along

What I mean
And what I say
Sometimes are
Night and day

And when I write
Right on the nose
You still find subtext
In my prose

What I feel
What I see
Just complicate
This reality

As the moon
Reflects the sun
Truth comes forth
We come undone

He let me grow
Into who I am
Answered questions
Gave a damn

He never asked me
Of my aspirations
Never had to
He had observations

When he left us
I knew what to say
It took no thought
I knew his way