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Poetry || SubmissionsPoems by Gerald BosackerA DEATH IN VENICE Sleepless Casanova glumly eyed his impudent sentry, aflame, standing erect, purpled with pride. Was it just crimsoned blush of shame that colored his too fickle friend? Maybe just pressure of accrued ashes from sour grapes brimming to send the last of past night’s wine re-brewed? Or could it be, that nether member, only now, alert and awake, would choose to dance round the May Pole in November. Slumbering through calls to arms. We lose esteem with each eager fair flower poised to bloom. Those blooms ignored while open and fulgent, soon sour or brown, and emanate discord, that all other blossoms will see. Casanova eyed his standing spear, with vile contempt. “They will doubt me, expecting the passion of a steer.” I too, now blush from cowardice! It ages my face with shame, in fear that when I rise to piss, you will deflate, hang limp and lame. You are the same age as I.. How can you wear out while I still feel the young man’s needs. Why now when I most need love, does your steel backbone turn to limp spaghetti?. Grateful Ladies once tore apart their best nightgowns to make the bright confetti to salute their lusty conquest.” The rest of Casanova died of shame when his admiring crowd turned wary while passing years had doused his flame and left his shaft too soft to bury. DYING LEAVES dancing in the wind, halt and rest in patchwork piles. The roaring wind shouts loud "This is my quintessence, my colors, my very best truth, much more lovely than the bare boughed tree". The nude and embarrassed tree, can only brace against wind that blows harsh on wintry eves icing white each branch, to rashly place snowdrifts over its collage of betrayed leaves. At last, comes Spring, and brash wind tries to blow down the stalwart tree it did not freeze with heated breath that stirs the frozen sap to rise bestowing verdant cloak, strip-teasing bashful breeze. Gerald Bosacker MY FATHER'S CAR Slanted rays of the late afternoon sun gild the dust motes emancipated from the mohair cushions by my sudden settling, intrusive and possessively on their long tranquil couch. Rising in the reddened rays they dance in chaotic patterns, like miniature birds rising up from their cover. Some invade my nostrils with traces and places of my father, hinting of sojourns with his beloved Buick while he could still possess his share of the highways, and of his furtive sessions behind the wheel, pretending the state would still let him drive. I smell fragments of chocolate kisses from floating flakes of untwisted tin foil wrapped around his forbidden, high cholesterol treats he had hidden in the glove compartment, but from whom? Mother, already gone, no longer policed his diet, and his progeny were too engrossed in our obligations and his grandchildren to monitor his poisoning of his blood from risky treats nor would we forbid occasional life shortening cigars, we could taste with his kisses. I could not smell one wisp of tobacco smoke here in his refuge from a youthful society, so I realize he would not poison it's upholstery with the tell-tale tarry smoke that had tortured and surmounted his lungs. I copied the mileage from the odometer so I could place an ad in the paper, extolling Dad's treasured Roadmaster's low mileage and pristine condition on the back of a receipt for a casket, and blurred the numbers with fresh tears. How could I sell his car? Why did we not seat Dad in his beloved Buick and inter them together instead of in a casket with a suit didn't fit? DEATH CAME CALLING, waking me from my fever with an icy hand that burned my soul. "Come with me," Death whispered in my ear, "Die young. Avoid growing useless and old. See the greatest mystery unfold, come walk with me." I was young, two months twenty and I was in love with all that was life and would not go away with death, even though he touched me with his dry ice hand. I Looked him in the eye, and said, "Life is still out there and must be beautiful, I will not go with you, I will not die until I've tasted everything." Death left, alone and life went on but my innocence was gone. When I was forty, Death came again to take me from my lovers arms. I recognized him at once, he hadn't changed. His face was colorless, fifty shades of gray, no black or white and not a hint of color although the bedside lamp shone in his face. "Come with me and never feel the ache of pain or sorrow of parting again" Reaching out with that same frosty hand, he pulled me erect and turned toward the door. "I cannot go with you, I have so very much I must undo. I pledge to follow when I'm through." Death left without me, but he took my hope with him. At sixty, Death came and asked for my child. Spare him, take me, I lived so long and won't be cheated of early blossom or funerary song. And we were spared and he turned away and left but took my parents with him. Now I'm eighty and all pleasures are over. I'll go willingly for now I have remembered the passing view of heaven, cloud-like while resting beneath a swathe of fresh turned clover. Today's Situation
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