Tammy Sue

I once knew a girl named Tammy Sue…
She was the prettiest thing i ever knew.
I never told her that in fact,
Because I was just a lad
Much older now, looking back,
I wonder what if i had?

The day we met was a summer dilly,
Me mum said come for a ride.
“I’ve got a friend near the eastern lillies,
with a daughter about your size.”

Mum, mum i cried,
why must we always twirl?
You know i don’t like leaving the house,
much less for meeting girls!

“Get your butt in the car,”
She said with that look…
of peril i’ve seen before.
So i skedaddled my butt
Into the seat –
And then i closed the door.

Wind, wind, rushing us by,
Passed a stop sign or two.
Then up a hilly drive,
On in to meet my rue…

Once inside the living room,
Family portrait on the wall.
One of them pretty!
And spinning around i found –
also very tall. 

She was indeed quite pretty,
and so i couldn’t figure why…
She seemed quite curious of me,
As if she’d never seen a guy.

And there I am, Just John you see,
A guy with never nothing.
That such a pretty girl as my Tammy,
would search for any something.

She wasn’t just looking at my eyes, you know?
She reached in through the hole.
And nestled in next to me
On the day she touched my soul.

Over the years I’ve wandered much,
And have wondered of Tammy Sue.
And I regret some things i’ve done.
And  things i didn’t do.

When I tell you, it will be hard for you,
but even harder for me now grown.
Because on that day of long ago blue,
I walked away, and left Tammy alone.

Eyes so brightly enigmatic,
and that I did not merit.
For i was but a rough shod relic,
Just  a slimy little ferret.

There’s a rule of attraction
I’ve always known  to be…

A girl as pretty as Tammy,

Was never meant for me.

Against the feelings in my bones,

And though I was never sure,

I left my Tammy all alone,

For I wasn’t worthy of her.

Life

Black darkness swallows whole my innards –
this life of flowers and bees and persimmon trees –
constantly adorned by bluest sky and puff puff clouds –
with rolling waters so cool and clear –
sighting God’s love far but yet near.

And we, those cast from heaven,
to walk the soil of years’ past shit.
To toil and grasp hands in filth,
to plant a seed of new life born.
And sprouting from this cesspool death,
is God’s beauty beyond the norm.
A green leaf pops up through,
and we attend our Sunday pew –
to give thanks for life come anew –
and sustenance which we can chew.

Oh God, oh God, your plan is clear –
that we be damned year by year –
sentenced to hunger and pain of life,
suffering intolerance and radical strife,
to bring a war – to bring the blood –
to kill a man for words lacking love.

Am I Cain or am I Able?
Living for love or for the sabre?
To which of these do I owe my fate
– being destined to walk upon this earth?
If Cain were sentenced here –
this life of toil and crime –
it would certainly make sense –
But why Dear God did Able come –
What was his offense?

If misery could be given a name,
I would call it Life.
As the only relief that I can find,
is my dearly beloved wife.

Thank you for the most wonderful thing I know.

An “H” Food for Sweetie

Hominy bibbidy bobbidy –
Hominy bibbidy boo –
If I had a nickel –
I’d spend it all on you!
And if that nickel could buy a kite,
I’d fly it just as high –
as you make me feel –
each and every night –
So here is some hominy,
my bibbidy bibbidy boo –
I don’t really like it –
so I’ll save it all for you….
And if you need an “H” food,
to put across your lips,
I might suggest some hummus,
’cause it’s really good with chips!
Perhaps some ham covered in honey,
or halibut with horseradish sauce –
could complete an “H” food melody –
That could easily make you floss….
Hamburgers, headcheese,
hearts and pickled heels,
herbs and huckleberries,
heros and banana peels!
Bananas don’t rhyme.
They don’t have too.
They’re better than everything except the hamburger.
Bananas should be an “H” food.

Better Headstones

Silly tenure –
Mausoleums…
Angels standing tall –
Marble faces –
outstretched wings –
eyes mere chisled balls –
Grass cut so neat –
trimmed around the stones –
Death trimmed nice –
quite complete –
garnish the moonlit shone…
And I, who ran through orchard high –
to find my angel there –
him speaking but in German tongue –
of years long gone by…
Tell me Angel, oh thee of stone –
Why do you speak to me?
On this dark dark night –
of moon shadow sight –
At quarter past hour of three…

“Oh my dear sir”
parted thousand year lips
“If only you could see
the wisdom and quests ‘neath me –
Of those lost in age from love –
of headstones weathered and worn –
of hearts beaten and torn –
names dribbled to sod –
lost to years and God –
Remnant lay in Earth –
Lost and forlorn…”

And I – a simple man –
known of Earth – but with a plan –
Through that of German tongue –
from age of Thor and thunder –
That I am but a simple man –
whose death shan’t be asunder…
And now I know –
From paupers to kings of past thrones –
The thing we really need ….
in this world of loveless creed…
are simply better headstones.

So quiet your thousand year old stone angels –
and just use granite, right?

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© 2015 John Allen Richter
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A Man’s Grave

Quiet day – slumber..
Wasting away it’s own time.
For neither wind nor song of bird should rile this place –
Nor cricket scamper across its green.
Here lies majesty – an earthen treasure –
Of love and life and mind sublime –
So that only the rose shall slowly open its petals –
to receive the sun.
And there within such beauty rose –
a captured love of mindful prose –
that he of past somehow arose –
to project the love –
to protect the rose…..
Duty done, now can doze –
In quiet grave – we suppose…
As all creation stands afroze,
In awe and honor of all things being –
Edgar Allan Poe’s……

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© 2015 John Allen Richter
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Roses that grew in enchanted garden,
Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe –
Fell on upturn’d faces of these roses
That gave out, in return for the love-light,
Their odorous souls in ecstatic death –
Fell on upturn’d faces of these roses
That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted
By thee, and the poetry of thy presence.

A snippet from “To Helen”
by Edgar Allan Poe

 

 

One Night I Sang

I sat – tables in a row –
Chairs swallowing them each –
and every one – like satellite moons
half back high and swizzle sticks
shooting from their centers –
little crystal stars filled with –
slow melting ice and two fingered gins…
and her eyes shoot through  –
through the mist –
through the smoke –
through the lust and sweat and
beer stained carpet – and all the musical
notes swirling ’round the stage
don’t stop her eyes –
can’t stop her eyes –
eyes that feel me –
feel my inner nakedness –
my tiny little being in her majestic universe –
of smoke and beer and gin…
And  I sit among the swizzles –
my little stirring friends and I –
wishing I were her guitar –
and that she would rock me –
gently strum me into such –
a beautiful song as this…..
Oh how wondrous was –
the night I sang her song!

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© 2015 John Allen Richter
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A Poem by Margaret Alice Second

Through the wizardry of this internet, WordPress, and so many poetry sites abound I have discovered an absolute gem – hidden away in south Africa – cowering inside of her own ‘tiny pond’ shadow – dreaming and admiring the stars but reclusively running away from them – running for shelter – fearing her love might cause those same stars to fall from the sky….  and fearing that her addition to this world would never match the brilliance or glory of the world itself.  And she feels that if it ever could than she might destroy it with her humanness.

She is my Emily Dickinson Replacement….  My cause de’ jeur…  My chance to bring the light and love of her talent to her mind.. She is my lovely flower and I have banged incessantly on her door – relentlessly – to let her believe that the brilliance of this world is because of her and her kind – and not in spite of her.  She is such a marvelous poetic talent – and completely undervalued as Emily was.  She has thousands of dusty poems unread, unglorified, unsung…  And she wrote this poem below, Eternal Kiss, for me,  simply because I saw her tiny sparkle in her tiny pond….  I love her, and I think you will to.  Her pen-name is Margaret Alice Second…

Eternal Kiss
by Margaret Alice Second
http://www.poemhunter.com/margaret-alice-second/biography/

Nutcracker – Dancing Fairies, an eternal kiss
on my lips, Lothario or Robin Hood, frozen in
front of the messed-up-font & capital letters
converted by a machine confused like me, it
would dream forever if it had been kissed also

Maybe it was, it’s even more lost than I am &
this glory of dreams and visions changes the
fabric of reality, sleeping for a 100 years now
I can’t wake up any more, at least not yet, do
I want to wake up, a moot point – it’s going to

Happen in THIS reality but in parallel eternity
a kiss will endure for centuries yet as fast as
batting an eyelid, if you don’t look you’ll miss
it; exploding vertically to create an eternal fire-
works display, if we do not join the angels we

Shall never get to see it from outside – but I’m
going to feel AND taste colour – see melodies
and experience new being because I know of
the infinite possibility to create new dimension
as we go along, finding fishes with lanterns &

Strange deep-sea creatures, the fairies under
Puck who visited, left already – to return later
if I give them enough time and space to play

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© 2015 Margaret Alice Second
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The Measure of Margaret Alice

There within the words –
those soothing little words –
chirping all about –
flittering here and there –
finding me – my longing soul –
awash in their symphony –
gasping at their touch –
softly caressing my every drop.
And to wit – that such words fallen before –
in years gone by for mere dreams to recapture,
but often forgotten –
gone to receding waves or silent moon –
Moon so stoic and grey and pitted –
mocking us with all of those before us –
who once stood and watched her as we do now –
marveled her brilliance amongst
……….. the sparkling stars –
shining down upon such great love as
Cleopatra and Marc Antony –
or Ulysses and Penelope….
Gone now – to grave and dust –
brings sadness that such emotions
thrived within beating hearts…
As ours beat now.
But gone in the coldness of death.

Your love is no less precious a thing –
dear lover,
no less breath taking –
no less earth shaking…
no less heart staking…
than what it takes to make me live forever.
For if death promises to take you away from me –
Then I should pray, and hope, and desire only –
…… to live eternally by your side –
defying even God’s will for your endless love…
That is the measure of sweet Margaret Alice…

Tinker

Dear Tinker, Tinker, Tinkerbelle,
Can’t you come and sit a spell?
To spin a yarn and fairy tale,
where imaginations dare to dwell,
of mountaintops and old thimbles?
Oh, dear Tinker, do tell…..

Lite upon this soft maple leaf –
steal my mind like a tiny thief –
run away through the doors
or the gates of Heaven’s moors….
show me colors so worldly wise –
and clouds so soft within the skies…
Fly dear Tinker, through the stars
leaving such trails of glitter.

But won’t you please, this awful day,
take sister’s hand for one last play?
Show her love and gladfulness,
release her awkward bashfulness –
tell her of our happiness –
that she shall soar away.

And watch over her, dear tinker,
until such day should come,
that brother and I may join her,
in God’s wonderland……

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© 2015 John Allen Richter
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I Dream

Dreams come, when they come –
They drum like marching drums,
-sometimes.
My hands are cold sometimes –
when I hold her,
hold that woman I don’t know
but wish that I did –
in awake life,
which is sometimes better.
sometimes not.
She is so warm, so soft –
in my dreams.
She holds me because I am,
not because I say,
or think, or do –
or look this way – or that.
Her love is not for that –
or for marching drums
or for tit for tat.
I do not need to be Clark Gable,
or Cary Grant or tiny kitten cat –
She holds me for one reason,
which is simply that –
I am.

And so I fly in my dreams…..

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© 2015 John Allen Richter
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