Green Eyes and Black Hair

Green eyes and black hair,
you did delight me and I wanted you.
I wanted you in my arms all day
and under my arm all night
with that last ember of blind boyish love.
The ember which turns to coal and hardens the man.
We danced every night and I loved to dance with you,.
spins and twirls and kicks and slides,
until that night you weren't drunk enough
and just sober enough to see us
and my happy awkward unconcerned
out of time rock and step embarrassed you.
You did delight me and I wanted you,
but I heard a voice that said,
She'll never do.

Crazy Redhead

There she was and there I was and there we were,
but Fogelberg and Chapin wrote it first and maybe better,
old love and the ghosts of Christmas past.
Songs are more forgiving than poems.
Slow the tempo and drop the key.
The clock twists backwards and slows,
caught in a relived moment that died in the moment
and took a piece of me with it.
The poet has only words and no music,
while life is such a sad song and sadder still,
when you can't hum the tune.
There she was and there I was and there we were,
ten years vanished in the air with no idea where they went,
a sweet monument to victory over myself
and walking away from problems I could not cure,
stepping over the snare, backing out of the unsprung trap
while the Who sang, won't get caught again.
Call it selfish, call it self centered, call it self preservation,
I couldn't save us both.
I wish I could have kept you.
Why didn't you?
My brain locks in mid-spin.
I don't remember the one hundred reasons, good reasons, everyone.
My drinking, right?
Not one hundred, just one.
There she was and there I was and there we were,
ten years captured in a word.
Thrown out, dried out and tried out was what it took
to solve your problem and I had the solution all the time.
My gift to the world.
There she was and there I was and there we were,
married to different people and beautiful baby pics on a cell phone.
Once, just once, I wished another man's child was mine.
There were one hundred reasons.
I remembered them all before the morning.