Lovers Lament

Claude Monet

La Promenade, la femme a l'ombrelle

Lovers Lament

That summer was the summer of Anne,
As blond as wheat,
Brown-eyed, sweet,
Laughter-filled, eighteen and tan,
A girl to turn the heart of any man.
And turn my heart she did, she did.
It flipped and flopped.
It nearly stopped.
But when I made by smitten bid,
Within my chest I heard it skid.
“Too young, too young,” was her reply.
I shook my head.
My heart played dead.
Ice and sleet invaded July.
Too young for love, too old to cry.
So there I stood – disqualified –
When I was ten and the world too wide.

~ Leonhard Dowty ~

Incident

Norman Rockwell

The Problem We All Live With

Incident

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.

~ Countee Cullen ~

The Death of Santa Claus

Norman Rockwell

Santa’s Surprise

The Death of Santa Claus

He's had the chest pains for weeks,

but doctors don't make house

calls to the North Pole,

he's let his Blue Cross lapse,

blood tests make him faint,

hospital gown always flap

open, waiting rooms upset

his stomach, and it's only

indigestion anyway, he thinks,

until, feeding the reindeer,

he feels as if a monster fist

has grabbed his heart and won't

stop squeezing. He can't

breathe, and the beautiful white

world he loves goes black,

and he drops on his jelly belly

in the snow and Mrs. Claus

tears out of the toy factory

wailing, and the elves wring

their little hands, and Rudolph's

nose blinks like a sad ambulance

light, and in a tract house

in Houston, Texas, I'm 8,

telling my mom that stupid

kids at school say Santa's a bigfake,

and she sits with me

on our purple-flowered couch,

and takes my hand, tears

in her throat, the terrible

news rising in her eyes.

~ Charles Webb ~

True Love

Edwin Hopper

Sunday

True Love

In silence the heart raves. It utters words
Meaningless, that never had
A meaning. I was ten, skinny, red-headed,

Freckled. In a big black Buick,
Driven by a big grown boy, with a necktie, she sat
In front of the drugstore, sipping something

Through a straw. There is nothing like
Beauty. It stops your heart. It
Thickens your blood. It stops your breath. It

Makes you feel dirty. You need a hot bath.
I leaned against a telephone pole, and watched.
I thought I would die if she saw me.

How could I exist in the same world with that brightness?
Two years later she smiled at me. She
Named my name. I thought I would wake up dead.

Her grown brothers walked with the bent-knee
Swagger of horsemen. They were slick-faced.
Told jokes in the barbershop. Did no work.

Their father was what is called a drunkard.
Whatever he was he stayed on the third floor
Of the big white farmhouse under the maples for twenty-five years.

He never came down. They brought everything up to him.
I did not know what a mortgage was.
His wife was a good, Christian woman, and prayed.

When the daughter got married, the old man came down wearing
An old tail coat, the pleated shirt yellowing.
The sons propped him. I saw the wedding. There were

Engraved invitations, it was so fashionable. I thought
I would cry. I lay in bed that night
And wondered if she would cry when something was done to her.

The mortgage was foreclosed. That last word was whispered.
She never came back. The family
Sort of drifted off. Nobody wears shiny boots like that now.

But I know she is beautiful forever, and lives

In a beautiful house, far away.

She called my name once. I didn't even know she knew it.

~ Robert Penn Warren ~

Looking Forward

Diego Rivera

Night of the Rich

Looking Forward

When I am grown to man's estate

I shall be very proud and great,

And tell the other girls and boys

Not to meddle with my toys.

~ Robert Louis Stevenson ~