Days Now Gone Poem by John Lars Zwerenz

Days Now Gone

Do you recall Handel's porcelain rose
That bloomed in the furrow of your florid mind
And the rare perfumes it would gently disclose
When reality treated you less than kind?
Do you recall the embowered, wavering sheens
In the gardens of Coleridge, of sable-haired queens?
Do you remember the moon-graced, pristine walls
And your fervently ambitious, most wistful dreams
Of scaling Dante's diamonds in all the waterfalls
When Beethoven's fragrance fermented the streams?
Do you remember the decadent prince, who, touched by grace
Blessed a youthful duchess with her first, sweet embrace
In the haunting shadows of Baudelaire's trees
Where she swooned in his arms in the pine-laced breeze?
Now those days are gone with the vanished look
Verlaine once held that was soft, pure and true.
But that look has faded in the turquoise-blue
Of a sullen, sea-bound, sobbing brook.
It died in the sea, from hills now dry
And only the stars above the cloud-filled sky
Can tell the taciturn angels why.

JOHN LARS ZWERENZ