Bench
- Shamae Budd 10/7/10
This lone park Bench I hap’d upon-
(By chance or fate I do not know)-
In early spring when I was young,
Seemed just the thing to ease my soul.
Upon first look it looked to me
Much like most Benches I had seen.
But ‘pon investigation found
This Bench was fairer still, and sound.
Upon that seat’s sweet vantage point
With laughter, love, we watched, unharmed.
It sweetened all the world I found,
Together, sitting arm on arm.
When I was weak he eased beneath
My saddened aching tired bones.
And when my heart brimmed o’er with tears
His strength was stronger than my own.
But as the days turned into weeks,
The season changed inside of me
And called me far, oh far away
To other lands across the sea.
And when I ‘turned (though sun still shined)
I felt this Bench no more was mine.
Though it unchanged had waited long
I who returned, did not belong.
The summer’s heat then blistered things
To points beyond repair, despair-
Aging I turned away, and left
That dear, sweet Bench’s care.
And summer turned into the fall,
The changes changing ever more-
The leaves all turning, falling all.
And with that change my heart was gone.
And when the leaves began to drift
The air turned frigid and astranged
As we, the Bench and I, had been
Once warm and sunny, now a rift.
And now the wounds refuse to heal
Alas, my heart, it cannot feel.
Have tried myself again to mend
And in those tries have lost a friend.
Perhaps if lives did never change
I could have stayed forever there.
Upon a Bench I cannot name
So sweet, so happy. Unaware.
But seasons come and seasons go
And so do Benches, Friend or Foe.
So put me in a small black box
-Shamae Budd 10/11/10
You put me on a pedestal
A gaudy columned flowery thing
And set me in a small black dress
Expecting me to dance and sing.
But, though I am a dancing girl,
I didn’t want to dance for you.
And so I did refuse to twirl.
And yet you smiled, as you do,
As though I did all that you pleased;
A young canary girl at ease
Who with her kisses and her love
Danced in your heart and to your drum.
Thus then I tried from there to climb
And found the slope too steep, too high.
And in frustration had to scream-
“This is a lie, this is a lie!”
So then a sudden in your eyes
I was transformed from saint to sin.
The small black dress a small black sack.
A small black heart now lodged within
My little ribs and little sighs.
What could I say, it was a lie--
But all deceiving was your own.
I wouldn’t dance, as you well know.
So put me in a small black box.
Keep it under lock and key!
Save all young men who are seduced
By their own vain imaginings.
You’re only one.
-Shamae Budd, 10/12/10
I know what “to love” means, I know
How to feel. How to play make believe
And pretend that it’s real. But it
Takes two to tango, and you’re only
One. So you better look elsewhere.
You better not run from the cruel
Fact of life that I hold to be true:
Though you love somebody,
They might not love you.
Heart Beat
-Shamae Budd, 10/12/10
“Don’t play with him,” she says.
“Don’t beat upon his heart.”
A heart that isn’t beating doesn’t
Play its natural part.
To sigh and swoon are well and good
But pain there is in love.
If love you do,
If heart beats true,
You’ll tear your heart apart.
