“All The Old Men Are Gone” for dverse.

–

All The Old Men Are Gone

 

All the old men with beautiful manners are gone.

They with courtly manners

who brush their lips over your hand

who look up the white pillar of arm

meet eyes with sweet kindness or desire-

Are gone.

 

The Hungarians, Italians and Russians

who murmur into faces

and translate with twinkling spheres,

a desire found ‘deep in their hearts’

or perhaps like a well-oiled

Casanova, who glides across

the room and anchors your vanity to his side.

 

They are all gone, dissolved in the waters of time.

 

You were glad for the flirtation,

it made the stomach flip,

it brightened  everything-

Life -Suddenly- Worth- Living!

If even for the evening

or a few hours until dawn

you were young and desirable once more.

 

With these now-ghosts,

the light came forth from dull shadows

like diamonds thrown onto mirrors

the room was a crystal ball spinning

with a magnum of champagne watering the darkness,

a dizzying  waltz that flung the heart into the Cosmos,

an explosion of Light that banished the Darkness.

A velvet undertone that smoothed all wrinkles and

put a gleam of youth on faces that were not.

 

 

They are all gone.

Now replaced with new manners

like flat champagne,

a dullness behind the eyes

capturing nothing and inspiring less-

This has replaced all the old men with beautiful manners

for they are gone and mostly forgotten

except by those who remember-

and damn well know what is missing.

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2016

Tags: darkness and light...poetry, dverse poets pub