Ship Of Love

When married life is full of stress and anger seems to reign,

Just spare a thought for others, who choose single lives again.

They’re now just fishes, floundering, in life’s tempestuous sea

And finding there is more to life than being young and free.

Those lonely souls, who pull apart, not really knowing why,

Are wishing they had learned much more but now they only cry.

They realise, too late, that love will help us through this life,

As man so surely understood before he took his wife.

But woman too, was well aware as man her husband made,

That married life’s not all just pretty beds of roses laid.

Married life is more like sailing ships on worldly seas,

Sometimes it’s rough; sometimes it’s calm but never sailed with ease.

Your words, in anger, hurt each other, time and time again

While loving words, though hard to say, will bring you joy, not pain

As when you made your vows in love, to honour and obey,

Those vows and other promises should mean much more today.

So, if you feel in anger that cruel words must oft be said,

Try biting tongues, or better still, try cuddling instead.

You’ll find that if you heed these words, then it will surely be,

That your ship of love will always sail a calm, embracing sea.

© StClair-Armstrong 1995

                                Love Out Of Africa

The silver veil fell down around the angels face of gold

And I wondered at the prospects of dark secrets never told.

Those crystal pools, no ripple stirred, yet fire danced deep within

And longings stirred within my soul, to make the pain begin.

Once more, I yearned to touch and feel forbidden fruits of love,

To feel caresses now long gone, like the touch of a velvet glove.

The bronzened form, no flaw disturbed those lines of timeless grace

And how I wish we two were two, alone in another place.

But here beneath that fiery globe, where marble turns to gold,

A warning voice calls out to me, ‘Why will you not be told?’

‘The jaws of love are opening to consume you like a fire

And you’ll be the ashes left behind upon a funeral pyre.’

I turned away to cut the line of longing formed between

A lonely man who chances luck with one more siren queen

But as I turned, I caught her eyes and saw the tempting pout

And in a flash, she new she’d lost and the fire of love went out.

© StClair-Armstrong 1991