The Arts - Poetry ---
Le Menu
by
Ric Couchman
---Hors
d'oeuvre---
In which neither
of us looks at the other,
But I caught you
stealing a glance at me.
Like brushstrokes
on the landscape
A sea of verdant
green blooms serene,
While in fitful
sleep the dead lie beneath.
Truly great was
their loss;
They hung their
heads in burdened sadness.
But the soft green
will come again.
[Photo
Art 1 & 2 by Ric Couchman]
[Photo Art 3 by Adilson Araujo]
*****
---Plat
Principal---
She spoke to her
that day,
The silence
unexpectedly defeated.
Her answer, her
voice, the sweet reward.
"I am reading
Plato's Dialogues."
That was the
answer she gave to the question.
A happy season of
love followed.
That summer the
sea saw them daily -
What's the
difference between thirty-two and eighteen? -
And the boardwalk
heard them laugh and speak.
"Let us meet,
you and I, at the Brooklyn Museum
Let us play video
games at an arcade on 42nd Street
And we shall
stroll together, hand in hand, in Central Park ."
Those lost years
of her late-teens?
They were returned
to her that summer in the college town
"When
Harry [Met] Sally" in Poughkeepsie
And the season
ended abruptly,
And so did that
summer of love and raisinettes,
Giving place to a
long, cold, and loveless winter.
The sea and
boardwalk saw them no more,
Nor heard their
infectious laughter,
And she never
stopped crying.
[Photographic Art by Adilson Araujo]
*****
---Patisserie
& Dessert---
By Darkness is
light consumed,
And in this sea of
blackness imprisoned,
Wisdom cries for
freedom.
We await your
crumbs,
Anticipating their
fall to the platform.
The worms, we know
no more.
Necessity preys
upon innocence,
Destroying her
with ruthless impunity,
While silently,
the others look on.
Declare your love
for me;
Quiet this
tumultuous heart of mine.
Break this stone
to pieces.
Death plummets
down,
Vanquished at the
hands of Life;
Birth leaps for
joy.
[Photographic Art by Ric Couchman]
[Note: Photo #3 is part of a mural from Mural Alley in San Francisco