Goodbye, 2012

Goodbye, 2012

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And leaving the past behind...

Happy New Year!!!

Regret

Regret

Quiet whispers haunt my restless dreams,

A familiar voice; pained, weeping,

Crying her shaking sorrow into the darkness…

“You should have known better…

You should have done right by me.”

I toss and I turn and I punch my insolent pillow

While no peace finds me there.

I’m staring into the abysmal nighttime mirror,

Lost to the face of the one I’d betrayed.

I broke her heart

More effectively than a bowling ball

Carelessly thrown through a window pane,

And as I see the tearful hate in her eyes,

I know there’s no going back…

I could have been a better man…

I should have been a better me.

The honeyed words she once spoke to me;

The tender sparkle in her smile…

Gone… all gone… in my unforgivable cowardess;

My cruel ploy, reeking of fear and doomed to fail.

What have I really gained… what have I lost…

What have I done?

The Chanteuse

Chanteuse

Awash in the dim light of fading red candles,

I sat ‘round the rickety table,

Dizzy from the thick aroma of stale whiskey

Caked on the walls of the dingy speakeasy.

“Bum-buh-Bum-Bum” thumped from a towering upright bass

To the percussive “CRASH-BOOM-BOOM-CRASH-CRASH,”

Accompanying the jangling ebony and ivory “Chunk-a-Chunk”

That shook the audience from their shimmying stools.

But I only had ears for her… the chanteuse.

Her soulfully raspy voice, full of enchanted possibilities,

Electrified the midnight hour;

Delicately vulnerable… powerfully commanding.

I listened raptly… in love from the very first note.

Her trembling timbre rocked me;

Her quavering moans of passionate longing

Sent shivers through my hungrily stirring soul.

Our eyes met for an infinitesimal heartbeat

And I dreamt a little dream;

We both were alone in that smoky club

And she sung her serenades just for me.