Venice

i.

Fountains spill crisp
coconut's fresh-split
white against strawberries
waterway bound upon
cobble-clatter,
chattering history about
eager ears, pressing
romance into winsome eyes.


ii.

Gondolas transport
essence to sixth century
canals where Casanova
dances freely about lace
and slow-sipped wine;
illusion warms flushed skin
to revel with delight.


iii.

Definitions spray
eclectic epistles before
lapis and gold mosaics
lined cathedral walls;
aerosol ghosts dusting
baroque buildings --
a traveler's bittersweet.


iv.

I am captured;
breathless amid ancient
beauty and modern scribble
as consistent sun presses
her gold twilight into
St. Mark's Square.










Pamela A. Lamppa
Copyright © 2013
all rights reserved

Your Last Goodnight

I saw your eyes
in evening snowfall,
blue as daylight's
midday sky ...

They say:
"Expect about ten inches"
and of course I wonder
why?

Why you carried self
so silent
over years of
press and burn

when you saw
the love you'd missed
in every twist
and turn?

Never once
would you look forward
to a life that
might have been

only now
within the secret
could one see
what you had seen.

Eyes of yours -
the evening snowfall;
like the full moon
at midnight.

You never saw
that blizzard coming
when you said
your last goodnight.







Pamela A. Lamppa
Copyright © 2013
all rights reserved

Abject Despair

Small eyelids
cradle tears;
bent stomachs
fill with broad
lunges for
the idea of hope.

Whispered condolences
press perseverance
into our children
yet understand
the frozen tundra
of a warring world.




Pamela A. Lamppa
Copyright © 2013
all rights reserved









 "It snowed and snowed, the whole world over,
Snow swept the world from end to end.
A candle burned on the table;
A candle burned."      -  Boris Pasternak, Dr. Zhivago