A poetic journey through my mind

Doug Baldauf

Doug Baldauf #4, Musings

MEMORY BOOK

Remember the girl of sixteen

who smiled at you because she liked you

and you smiled back?

You were handsome and tan and twenty-one

with amber eyes

and a Mercury convertible

And someone said you beat everyone at tennis.

I worshiped the ground where you had stood,

as only a girl of sixteen could,

and called it love.

As many summers have come and gone since then

as I had lived

and the girl got left behind somewhere

in a memory book of you and other heroes

with forgotten names.

And in that time I’ve been with you

and come to know you well

I’ve seen behind the amber eyes

and found a gentle man

who beats almost everyone at tennis.

The Mercury convertible

brought three babies home from the hospital

before it fell asleep one day for good.

Your once dark hair is streaked with gray

I’m sure I caused

and still I smile at you

and you smile back

and know I love you.

 

 

 

TEA FOR TWENTY, RAINY DAY

Painter of pictures

Dreamer of dreams

Writer down of soft words

Child-woman

Lover

Mother

Present giver

Flower grower

Cheerer up of sad friends

Funky junk collector person

Smiler into camera person

Comer into living rooms

I’ll never ever see

Beach walker

Peace maker

Tennis playing cookie baker

Life of the party

Feeder of birds

Complex and uncomplicated,

Stable and insane,

Through the window rain watcher

Wonderer who I am.

July 1, 2012 | Categories: Doug Baldauf, Green mouse ice cream!, ice pops!, Smell of blue! | Tags: , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Doug Baldauf #2: Love Poems

VALENTINE

Because
you came along
to fill my heart
with warmth and joy
I only found before
in summer mornings
I promise not to hassle you
for being hard to figure
difficult to reach
and impossible not to love

 

YOU ASKED ME WHY

For your patience
For your sense of humor
For always being there
For taking me to Hawaii
But most of all
for loving me
a long time now

I ironed all your shirts today
fourteen of them

 

From “Barefoot on Warm Sidewalks” by Doug Baldauf, c. 1975

June 11, 2012 | Categories: Doug Baldauf, Green mouse ice cream!, ice pops!, Smell of blue! | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Doug Baldauf #1

(*pouts*  Dougs poems are uniquely shaped, some lines out, some under, etc. Unfortunately I don’t seem to have the tech./html knowledge to make WP do the formatting correctly, so we’ll just have to settle for this.  🙂 )

 

Dedication

 

For Larry, the kids, the cats,

and me.

For our good times,

our awful times.

For the times when no castle built

could be big enough.

For the times when our tiny den

by the fire

is just right.

For the laughter, the learning,

the fighting and forgiving.

But especially for the love

we have

while growing up together

under one roof.

 

The First Poem

 

Barefoot on warm sidewalks

I’ve hop scotched

through more than thirty summers

And thought that daffodils

invented the color yellow

for as many springs.

Up to my knees in leaves

through autumns

I’ve wandered

till I’ve landed

breathless

in winters bed

to make angels in the snow.

 

So many things I’ve done and seen

in all my seasons

but Christmas Eve I found just once

in a pair of eyes.

 

From “Barefoot on Warm Sidewalks” by Doug Baldauf, c. 1975

June 6, 2012 | Categories: Doug Baldauf, Green mouse ice cream!, ice pops!, Smell of blue! | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments