Richard Schnap- Three Poems

RENDEZVOUS

I look at a young girl
And see a flower afraid
To open itself to the sun

While I look at an old man
And see a tree that’s bent
From decades of withering winds

And the girl sees the man
And wonders why he seems
To be on the verge of tears

While the man sees the girl
And wishes she would bloom
Before she learns of the night



OBSESSIONS

There are those who crave fame
As if without it they are nothing
But ghosts in an overcrowded graveyard

And there are those who crave money
As if it could buy them a way
To forget their asylums of desire

And there are those who crave love
As if it would allow them to believe
The road of life is not one walked alone

And there are those who crave nothing
As if they feel the more they gain
The more they are likely to lose



LOUNGE CAR

There was the fat California salesman
Who told me in a slurred speech
That computers were the next big thing
As he gulped down his thirteenth beer

And the prostitute on her way
To a prize fight in Las Vegas
Wearing a red dress so tightly
It seemed she wore nothing at all

And the heroin addict from Chicago
Bound for a rehab in the country
Who chain-smoked a full pack of Marlboros
Then asked if I could spare one of mine

And as the train rolled onward
Into the mouth of the night
Its whistle cried through the shadows
Like a child that had lost its way