Spring Racing Carnival
Spring racing carnival is upon us. This is the time of year we have our annual outbreak of a terrible fashion sin.
Advice for Spring Carnival
When the racing is done
and the crowd departs,
if you've too much fun
the trouble often starts.
Not the stumbles and falls,
the fights and the passion.
No what really appals
is the true sin against fashion.
Here's the news:
(I’ll keep it brief)
win, draw or lose,
don't carry shoes.
Paris might be wearing more.
Your fascinator can flop and wilt.
You may pash a complete bore
But walk proudly without guilt.
Get a stranger to hold you,
walk leaning to one side,
carry a bottle, do what you do,
but keep your fashion pride.
Here is my simple wish
as fashion guru in chief:
drink like a thirsty fish,
but shoes must never swish.
Your feet will ache and hurt
from a racetrack's abuses.
Even ruined, covered in dirt
accept no "shoes off" excuses.
For every seeming temptation
for freedom and foot ease.
As you wait at the station
keep soles out of the breeze.
Enjoy, frolic, drink champagne.
At home your toes will find relief.
Tomorrow you will nurse your pain
and wait for carnival to start again.
The flirt
Returning to a familiar theme:
the flirt
ensnared by a temptress who knows how to flirt
with eyes that burn love and a subtle allure.
my heart leaps twice with every swing of her skirt.
I won't (can't) get away; hooked deep by her lure:
her hand on her neck; a flick of cascading hair:
the half stare that holds my eyes 'til I burn:
indifference that ends with a small gesture of care.
the pain of doubt as the heart begins to yearn.
every move she makes is an engraved invitation
from which a start is deliberately omitted.
she knows how to defer my longed for elation,
working vaguely in signs, never over committed.
I will wait, yearning for an unambiguous sign
that flirting will end and the tease will be mine.
The subtle mystery that is love
at first you have only hope
a fear that your chance may not come.
One day the world is transformed
by passion and a joint reverie.
From then life does not exist without
the small signs of the beloved.
Physical and emotional joy may fade
but you will always hold fast
to a small piece of skin upon the cheek;
the way a newspaper is read aloud;
interlinking fingers in the dark.
These subtle signs, each curious, unique,
sum to form the mystery that is love
as one breath follows another without notice.
The Simple Life
I sit some days in my french chateaux
And slowly sip '64 Margaux.
around me, my servants come and go,
yes, the simple life is the way to go.
A harem of beauties are mine to know
I have designer clothes for sun and snow.
Everything I have must sparkle or glow
perhaps the simple life is the way to go?
I drive sport cars fast. Never walk slow.
I greet others with a "yes?" not "hello"
I never feel the cold or winds that blow
is the simple life is the way to go?
If you have the money, you never need know
whether the simple life is the way to go
