Easter Eggs and Tulips
Grandaddy was a quiet soul, born in 88 on a spring day.
He often stopped to graze his sheep, on the lush green grass shoots in May
found at my grandmother’s old house, where she played with dollys and jacks.
Knowledgable gardener by trade, he grew crops and purple lilacs
catching a beautiful maid’s eye, some 20 years older was he,
and yet from his earliest glance, he was steadfast to his Corrie.
He planted stately green magnolias, bordering the road and our land,
growing his own pipe tobacco, his battle with bamboo most grand
exotics brought from the Great War, in France’s trenches he sat long
wondering if he’d make it home, the mustard gas a near swan song.
I have childhood recollections, of you digging in the dirt bed
planting Avignon tulip bulbs, silky pedals flowering red
bursting freely with Easter Eggs, cleverly hidden from our sight
by gentle liver-spotted hands, unfurling them with slow delight.
You left us when I was but nine, my memories are vague shadows,
dreams of you with a spade in hand, smelling sweetly of pipe tobacco.
Categories:
avignon, easter, flower, grandfather, world
Form: Heroic Couplet
Lazy-bones, forsake your bed!
Shake off dull sloth, rise from the dead!
On the bridge of Avignon
there is dancing. Join the fun!
Ye gold-laden, ye who beg,
off to that bridge and shake a leg!
Young men dance with dash and vigour,
old men cut a less bold figure.
A priest and soldier back to back
flash their colours, red or black.
To the sprightly, to the lame
the piper's call is just the same.
Will you dance or will you nay,
all must dance, come end of day.
Categories:
avignon, celebration, dance, life,
Form: Verse
Alone, in Paris
The flowers sing
Le jardin du Luxembourg
I look at all the pretty ladies
Which one of them pray tell
Is you
The one who wishes for that sweet caress
The one whose painting hangs on the wall
The one who knows beauty runs deeper
Than a river running to kiss the oceans swell
The grandest of castles with candles dim
There in the damp night would bonds begin
If only you would listen to my whispers deep
Forgiving the scars I have suffered
As in the night I have wept
Napoleon marched forth across great lands
I the knight have lesser demands
If only you, whoever you are
Would take hold of me
As we dance away our eternities
Sur le pont de Avignon
Where the river flows
Like poetry
Categories:
avignon, heart, paris, romance, sensual,
Form: Light Verse
Entwined in a lovers sweat
Passions sated, as a cool breeze
Brings in the scent of the night
Tongues tasting of wine, fully satisfied
Eternal happiness, could this be?
Or should I run under gloomy tormented skies?
Hand in hand we traveled, across the fields of love
Into historié
Sur le pont d’Avignon
We danced the night away
Round and round did we go
Our love fell into the Rhone
Devotion seemed a certainty
Love was passions muse
Broken, life fell in the abscess of my demise
All I truly desired, left sur le pont
The battle of Avignon left me defeated
As my memories fade, melancholy recalls to me
The kiss that never was
Meant to last
Categories:
avignon, beauty, gothic, love,
Form: Light Verse
In the lover's tongue's
they call them romantic
languages for their own sake
Escucho tu susurro amor
I hear your love whisper
Her Spanish tongue trills,
a lingual click on her
ivory teeth reminiscent of
glossy blanco castanets
Her billowing blouse, a hint
of hiding romance underneath.
Colorful skirt flows, just -
just like her sensuous legs below
Sento il tuo soffio d'amore
I hear your love murmur
Dark-haired Italian woman
arms raised to Tuscan air
fingers together in emphasis
tells of passionate effort
to make herself known to
her lover - il suo amante
Je sens votre amour dans mon coeur
I feel your love in my heart
Young blond from Avignon says
as she sits graciously
at the small table
off the Rue Carnot
fingering her necklace
and looking at, you.
How could you not feel that
love is in the air?
Of course you do...
it's soon to be spring,
isn't it?
love grows - amor crece - amore cresce - amour grandit
© Goode Guy 2013-02-22
Categories:
avignon, beautiful, love, nature, passion,
Form: Free verse
Blackj
on
white art-
sepia
in a time capsule.
Ekphrasis-A Memory of Avignon-Edward Hardman-Photographer.
Categories:
avignon, art,
Form: Fibonacci