Up In The Air

~ JWKS

There’s a restaurant in Niagara Falls

that sits atop a tower more than 60 feet

up in the air.

Slowly the restaurant revolves in a circle

revealing the beautiful unique terrain

A lovely young woman

is sitting across the table from me,

a high-school senior, like myself.

Our orbits have been intersecting

for the past three years,

a conjunction reflecting the transit of Venus.

Bodies in motion tend to stay in motion.

The transition to adulthood is intense

and still uncertain.

But the subtle music of her smiling eyes

beguiles the flight of troubled times.

The waiter brings a fat red menu,

boasting a black tassel and long thread.

We are easily the youngest couple

caught in this tourist trap.

Were the lobsters on our dinner plates ever tourists

before the last slip of the trap’s latch?

We are drinking champagne, the bubbles rising

as the elevators on the side of the tower.

Although the views outside the window are spectacular,

the attention of my lens is an attempt to apprehend

all the benefits and blessings that her presence could foretell

to behold and be held

We are all going,

Going round and round

in circles

up in the air

(c) Ken Sullivan, 2020

Brevity is not the Soul of Whitman

~ HK

Brevity is not the Soul of Whitman
                Onandonandonandon

And

                Onandonandonandon

Should we create an AlAnonandonandon
for writers who just don’t know when to quit, man?

                 Yet what 
exquisite ecstatic embracing engaging enraging enraptured
enthusiasm. 

You may decry it
You can’t deny it 
So go and try   it
On
For sighs. 

(c) Ken Sullivan 2022

Margy

~ HK

While the twilight was turning into starry night,
On the roads of Rose Hill we would walk,
Past the rows of beach houses bestowed on our right,
To beguile the sweet time with soft talk.

In a cardigan sweater that went past her waist,
Incasing both shoulders and arms,
With a mouth whose moist mirth I was longing to taste,
While embracing emblazoning storms.

On a bench as we sat, our duet “Heart and Soul”
Was controlling what fingers were doing.
Her left shoulder of my heart had quite a firm hold,
While below the bench our legs were wooing.

Her laughter was musical, rounded, and shy,
With her smile a conspicuous gift.
Dolce redolent Renaissance brown hair and eyes
In whose gaze in a daze you would lift.

Only eighteen short summers you gave our lakeshore
A rare form of such delicate grace.
But what I, in my mind’s eye will see evermore,
Is your soul through your radiant face.

 

(c) Ken Sullivan, 2020

 

Sharon

~ JWKS

When vulpine, voluptuous Miss Sharon Redd
first entered the room, I went heels-over-head.

In a soft, suede, short-sleeve, short-short one piece
lovely light limber-lithe legs exposed,
hyper hip shoes and painted red toes,
Miss Sharon Redd entranced my apartment,
a hurrysome whirl of womanly woes.

Vividly I remember the first time
when she breezed in, those high check bones!
Full red rich lips, O those twins that singed l’amour
Sur toute les choses. 

In a Virginia-accented sweet speaking voice,
easily laughing at life absurd.
Dishing the dirt but fairly, discreetly
with the inflection of sensuous birds.

One morning after staying up all night,
to the Pierre for breakfast we went.
Cafe-au-lait with my cafe au lait lady
Lay, lady, lay, on my big brass bed
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.

Singing, SINGING!
The girl has some mighty righteous pipes
Stunning honey running past the haunting pain,
Sung through panes of stained glass windows
Summer winds summoning the mourning rain.

Love at first sight does exist.
Long before the lips have kissed,
Comes desire that will persist
Until some becoming bliss
Leaves you with someone to miss
When the Miss turns into missed.

(c) Ken Sullivan 2020

Family Portrait

~ HK

My mother, my father, my sister and me,
On horseback regarding the camera, smiling. 
My brother is absent as he’ll always be, 
An incomplete course, the college requiring. 

Just one month after the picture was taken, 
He was found walking alone with a Bible,
Naked as the day when he came from the womb. 
Shy, gentle Mike broke a State Trooper’s finger. 
Soon he was subjected to electric shock. 

Then descends a curtain of uncertainty,
A tension ever present with intention
And attention hesitant and reticent. 
Presentiments of future futility,
Fatality shattering reality. 
A kind quiet soul, simply seeking serenity 

Chased

~ HK

A chaste kiss on the cheek for a farewell,
The haste of the departure guaranteed
No time for an embrace, but just as well,
It seems the more we get, the more we need.
My arm around her waist reminded me
Of evenings from our past, quite long ago,
As flies in amber, chambered memory
Inspected, resurrected joy and woe.
Fleeing and flown, the evening at an end,
Is time well spent expended on the past?
Past Perfect passed perfectly the Present tense,
The question is, I fear,  intense at last.
Add an “e” to past, to create a paste,
Too pasted to the past, a life’s a waste.

The Yard

~ HK

WELDing THAYER MIDDLE, her HOLWORTHY WIGGLESworth.
mmmmmmm ass a chu pusey strauss etts

WELDing THAYER NORTH
Pack’er Penny, Pack’er Penny, Pack’er Penny, Pack’er Penny
Greenough,    ough,   Ough,   OUGH!

WELDing THAYER SOUTH
Widener,         W  i  d  e  n  e  r,       W     I     D     E     N     E     R

Stacks!

We LAMONT Time’s passing packs.
pax vobiscum                                                                 pax aeternam 

The Yard                                                                                they come

The Yard                                                                                 the   f a l l