Off with this head
If it ever forgets the way
You once chopped wood!
And to think
That slew of giddy admirers
Might ever have dared you
To flex those arms a whisker
When the reverence
You basked in
At the jailhouse arm wrestling tournaments
Was a given.
Bah,
Not even an iron army
Loaded to the teeth
With bayonets
Could wipe my memories
Of how those damsels
Batted their eye lids
When you made music:
Indeed, the grandeur in the notes you reached
Mocked the realms of possibility
In the pipes of the blue bird!
And what a face for sunlight!
The silken mane
That curtained it
Shielded the mob
From a beauty
More alien
Than the blackest moon.
The ailing husband groaned as he leaned over the side of the bed
To drop his cigarette butt
In the old lemonade bottle
That spared him lavatory visits
In the dead of night,
In the mire of winter.
It sure is something to be remembered,
He thought,
Pensively,
As she continued.