An American Romance

A new original poem, written on 8-19-13. There is a great back-story to this, inquire if you are interested-enjoy!!

An American Romance

What brought you here-
Mandarin-clad and manacled?
What tempest tossed your dreams
Like exhumed Earth on an open tomb?
Did you not gaze past the crowded bay
And see azurean eternity?
Why did your beam linger upon me
-Fervent, Unbroken-
And not stay with sinewy freedom?

Still, I could have taken your hand-
Saved you from the vacillating lover,
Laid you beneath lavender trees
Instead of tomes of law,
Should I have kissed your lips
Before he,
Sauntered, Should I have been around,
I know-love, you must believe-
That my caress, a balm and sweet reprieve,
Could have saved thee.

Wait, pray, wait for me in the doldrums;
Carve my name in symbols and strain to see
A lover who waits for you endlessly.





***Copyright 2013. All Rights Reserved. Richard Cameron Morgan***

A New Poem-dedicated to my grandparents

Friends,

This is an original poem that I wrote for my grandparents recently. This is simply a snap-shot of how they met and a brief picture of their serendipitous meeting and uncommon love. Hope you enjoy!

It was Nearly a Century ago

By: Cameron Morgan

First drafted: 5/27/2013

Last Edited: 6-20-2013

All Rights Reserved. Copyright R. Cameron Morgan. 2013.

It was nearly a century ago

Sweat-choked sun-rays bore down up-on Ford-worn streets,

You could walk miles up those staircase hills-

Climbing toward some stunning dream.

An engine of churning opportunity,

Store-room like a pre-war Airforce hangar -

Endless stereotyped rows of hollowed suits

And regimented, clean-cut servicemen-

Enlisted by the need for money or honor-

Ready to give their lives in the service of one phoenix day.

She could’ve been mistaken for a model,

A front page starlet bathed in the black and white-

Lights of creased magazines-

Stately, irrepressible, a beauty

With a future-fixed gaze.

She was scribing numbers and smiling

Like an impatient sun;

Burning too brightly for the gossamer shroud of night

To long smother, and so-

When nestled home in the more suburban streets of Salt Lake City,

She sang loudly through the tennored throat of violin-

Strumming summer strings like seasons had no end.

Her dream was the baritone prose of her father:

Steady hands still shading the contours of

Her pointilist verse,

A melody mellifluous in the rhythmic heart of time.

Yet another sun-stroked day,

Fire-heels striking anvil pavement:

Red glow and incandescent echoes.

She gently swung-open the long-rusted

Malt-shop door; old-flaky white and plaintive hinges

And touched gently-down…a malt; Old-style Vanilla Bean ice-cream.

The violent heat slowly strangling the sedentary fans,

But the soft chill of the confection

Consumed her with joy-

Lost as she was,

To the promise of its transitory eternity.

He didn't often trek up those labyrinthine streets,

But convention seemed silly in that shattering heat.

He was searching for something beyond the sun-soaked horizon

Respite from lectures and lingering worries long after hours-

Somewhere to rest his weary soles and paper- paste-dry tongue.

He spotted the malt-shop, sugar-hungry eyes straining

To see the strangely-sweet scented oasis;

Almost broke into a smile as he sauntered up the last steps-

Like training camp all over again;

His big-smiling, big-toothed friends, laughing sanguine-splashed- white

Teeth stained with strawberry malt and bough-picked cherries.

The door ululated in a joyful squeal

As the first soldier, a jock and a drunk, caught his eye.

Slumping like a tree felled by tempestuous wind

Into that dusty-hard backed chair,

A sound slap warmly greeting his sweaty back.

Awaking from that moment as if a dream,

Shaken to reality by glowing eyes and candied zephyrs:

He saw… her,

Phosphorescent smile like the ever-opalescent moon-

Overcoming the thin veil of opaque night.

He knew from that second that he had to know her,

Learn her name; share a solitary moment that would

Mean everything in its subtle transience.

He held her glance like a reticent hand,

For just a second before turning as if he hadn't.

Sipping his straw-strewn malt stronger now

To drown out the sound of her syllabic gaze.

Instead he turned, steady tremored heart trembling

With a smooth hello.

She was rightfully reticent; having known the Army-type:

Shiny boots, slicked hair and slicker souls-

So she kept her distance with an askance glance…

Still something told her to listen:

Strangely, when he asked for time to spend and a night to share

She accepted, assured by his honest handshake,

Unwavering, like the love that began 3 weeks later

With their fire-fly marriage-

Enduring 70 years with calloused hands

And un-exhaustible wells of understanding.

He took her eager hand to the alter

And wrote every day while swept away

By the undulating tides of war.

Every letter stained with pacific ink,

Like strawberry-malt-spotted teeth.

70 summers, 70 rapturous falls,

70 Winters too cold and too long-

And a love that has endured them all.

When she speaks...

As I ebb in the tide of another reverie, I ponder her. She would be the death of me, if death was not callous, was not selfish; if death was a indefatigable gift. She would be life, if life was not suffering, was not unsteady; if life was a brook that need not babble, but flowed mellifluously.

She would be love, if love was not confined, was not bound; if love could eve mimic her tender sounds.

Oh, but when she speaks, God is silent.

And so, my words are deaf to the tones of anything, save her September voice.

And so, she will inspire the magnificence of my dreams, and the paucity of my words.

And so, tepid etchings will not bring her back to me. Will not spur her heart to beat to the stanzas I lay bare at her feet.

And as I dream now, of her peerless face, I whisper (and always shall), requiescat in pace.

Goodbye.