SE Reimer

SE Reimer Jan 2017

~

her coach, like Cinderella’s,
was what brought her to his side.
but what she'd failed to see,
is that a good man may not be,
quite exciting as the bad boys way back home,
so she packs up all her shoes n’make up,
headed home where she can wake up.
now its coach that takes her,
and all he sees are fading lights;
as that red-eye in his mirror is roaring,
down the runway then is soaring,
off into a stormy night.

he used to think that
fairy tales were promised,
that all a woman really wanted,
was a knight in armor shining.
but now he knows that love can't grow,
when all its seeds are tumble weeds,
that roll on down the open road;
just looking for a good time man,
a handsome cowboy and another rodeo.

now all he’s left with is,
trying to make some sense of this;
all her lying to him,
why she left him crying for,
all the good he thought she’d brought.
but sometimes it takes
some time in silence
to see what damage has been done,
to see the cold side of a woman,
that all her prettiness and fun,
is a terr’ble substitute for love.

he used to think that
fairy tales were promised,
that all a woman really wanted,
was a knight in armor shining.
but now he knows that love can't grow,
when all its seeds are tumble weeds,
that roll on down the open road;
just looking for a good time man,
a handsome cowboy and another rodeo.

this i promise, know it well;
good-time girls can’t cast a spell,
that lasts a lifetime, when a fellow
needs a love line, nor can they
ever heave a lifeline, when
all the chips are down. 'cause,
when someone else is drowning,
and everybody's yelling ’bout
a fire the house is burning down.
that’s when she does
what she’s best at...
running out of town.
no, a good man needs a woman,
who will always be around.

~

*post script.

please don’t ask where this one came from... he does love country music and it may just be one too many catastrophes he’s had to watch; it’s certainly not about his own woman, for she has been his privilege to love and care for now just shy of forty years.  no, maybe it's so many lives exploding, love imploding... sometimes it feels like so few know what love really looks like anymore!

Jan 2017

Phil Lindsey

Hour of Decision

In the blink of an eye of a hurricane,
In the nick of time after time,
In the heat of the night of the living dead,
It is I for whom the bells chime.

In the midnight hour of decision,
In the moonlit sky filled with stars,
I am cut with a scalpel’s precision,
My blood flows, but soon will be scars.

My only friends will betray me,
My own words have a venomous taste,
I can spit at those who would slay me,
For I’ve outrun all the demons I chased.

In the blink of an eye of a needle,
In the nick of time running out,
Perhaps one more time I can wheedle,
The voices within me to shout.
Phil Lindsey 1/8/17

SE Reimer Jan 2017

crafting poetry

~

from the dock he calls her name,
now beside he grasps her rails,
deftly steps aboard her frame,
to loose her lines of mooring.

leaned o’er, he shares his secret hopes,
ocean breeze her mast is callling;
then wings are spread with hoisted ropes,
the call of ocean’s blue alluring.

he guides her through the shallow drafts,
gliding faster, hull and ballast,
like seabird’s cry on wing, her craft,
his touch responding in devotion.

she heels about now, lunging forward,
together ’cross the waves;
he, the author of this poetry,
keeps rhythm with each changing motion.

they float above the salty spray,
white sails, her wings, a swan of grace;
in fading light, ’cross waterway,
her highway now a full moon bright.

his bearing set for emerald isle,
she tacks to follow compass lines;
together tame the ocean’s wild,
in flight as one to form their rhymes.

from high atop her outstretched form,
he guides her body through the night;
shifting lines to feel the storm,
like bedsheets thrown, arched and open.

then far above this watery bed,
her canvas flows with watercolor,
of sapphire, jade and ruby red;
a sunrise o’er bejeweled ocean.

sailing on,
in stunning sight;
as one they sigh,
in heavenly flight.

~

*post script.

unwinding from the first work week of the new year and a chaotic Friday night commute, these out-of-the-blue, out-from-the-blue lines strike me as i hear strains of Chrstopher Cross crooning his 1980 classic, “Sailing”, from my dear wife's Pandora station, aptly named.

“Well, it's not far
down to paradise,
at least it's not for me.
And if the wind is right
you can sail away,
and find tranquility.
Oh, the canvas can do miracles,
just you wait and see.
Believe me.”

the song takes me back to a simpler time in our marriage, but sailing... this always takes me back, all the way to childhood, and a carefree state of mind.  and no wonder... for in my pre-teen years, i and my brothers helped our father build a small, eighteen foot, sailing sloop, crafted after plans he found in a Family Circle magazine.  thereafter, childhood summers were spent freshwater sailing at the foot of Fuji, sometimes alone, sometimes together.  it is no surprise that today i am most at peace on or beside the water.