The Princess and the Prince (2013)

Look at her, beauty beside the lake:
A princess! Dipping her tender toe
To check the water’s warmth, and – “Oh!
It’s much too cold!”  She can’t go in.

A princess is a tender thing!

The lake has made a cruel mistake
To cause such beauty to shiver and shake!
How cold!  How dreadful! How awful indeed
To make her tremble like a reed!

Oh bitter world, what shall she do?
Look at her, shivering, her hair askew:
Oh wretched girl, oh wicked world!
To ruin the locks that once were curled
So prettily on her pretty head –

And now she wishes she were dead.

“The water’s cold!” she cries aloud.

Her shoulders slump, her head is bowed.

Will anyone save her?  Can something be done?
She attempts it once more – and the lake has won.
She cries out in pain, a cry so steep
It slays the beasts, the bugs that creep,
The fishes deep, the frogs by shore,
Til nothing lives for a mile or more
Around her.  Truly, when they hear her cry,
The birds drop dead from out of the sky.

And so she weeps beside the shore
Until her eyes can weep no more.

And then she sleeps, a ragged mess,
In her tear-and-grass-stained summer dress.

Oh yes, a tragic sight to see:
The epitome of misery.

But then, what luck!  Along there comes
A prince with two opposable thumbs.
He’s had some practice with girls like this.
He knows their wits are hit and miss,
So there’s little hope to save her soul
(Such things being often out of one’s control),
Yet he knows one thing, he can set her free
From her self-inflicted misery.

In one great swoop he plucks her up,
And lifts her chin like a china cup.
He winks at her, she goggles at him.
He whispers, “hey baby, how well do you swim?”
“Oh quite well, indeed!” she perfectly croons
(The first pleasant sound since she murdered the loons).
“Oh good,” he replies, and he tosses her in
Like a sack of potatoes in a granary bin.

She starts to cry out, but she hasn’t the time
To condemn him for such an abominable crime!
Her mouth’s full of water, her hair is a wreck,
And her thoughts are directed at wringing his neck –
But wait!  This is pleasant!  The water’s quite nice!
Refreshing and soothing, its nothing like ice!
“Oh, thank you,” she chirrups to the prince on the shore,
“I don’t want to kill you at all anymore!
The water is lovely, why won’t you come in?
To stay on the shore is a terrible sin!”

The prince winks his eye, and he smiles at the lass,
Who moments ago would have chewed on his ass,
For he knows that such types, when they’re put in their place,
Can be quite lovely girls, full of silence and grace.
So he takes off his shirt, and he takes off his pants:
And thus was begun an enduring romance.

Two Ways (2012)

Two ways exist for the hearts of humankind,
And through my thirty years I’ve known them well –
Known both: known love and its beguiling spell;
Known love so patient, tender, true and kind.
Known suffering as a lover no longer blind,
Who helpless watches the sea storm’s rising swell.
Through thirty years I’ve known these ways most well,
But never, as in you, were they combined.
These ways exist, I think, to stretch the soul
Beyond what we could do upon our own.
We learn our utter frailty, how little control
We ever have, yet find that we have grown –
Yet not for each other.  It was not meant to be,
For dreams are not the same as destiny.