Memoirs of a Baby Voluptuary

Memoirs of a Baby Voluptuary:

Derrière et Devant

He crawled to the first step

Of that seemingly endless

Twisting staircase,

Which,

 Curved up and out of sight,

To chase the colored light

Filtered through the windows,

Breathless in wonder,

And

Kept,

To emit

In his old days

The joy of it.

*

That first taste of ‘real food’

Blew the baby mind,

Still soft, mind you,

But

Warm,

A delicious culinary mood

Ensued

And

His busy spoon

Wouldn’t pause.

Because,

As he later thought

3/4 of a century later:

“Fabulous!”

Chocolate pudding!

*

A warm spring breeze

Had held him

Blanket-like,

But,

Crawling away from its embrace

He felt the cool green

Brush his face

And

BAMM

The heavens opened up!

His baby body thrilled.

The grass was ALIVE !

Years later

In the dying days

He considered all the ways

That it might have been….

Just possibly,

A touch of God

And

Just as easily

Let it go.

*

In memory:

His father held his boy hand

Standing in the lobby of the Pierre Hotel

Waiting for his mother to descend

Like Violet Venerable

Suddenly Last Summer

In her gilded cage of an elevator.

At the twilight peak of cocktail hour

A band was playing C’est Magnifque.

When the doors slide open

A beautiful woman stepped forward.

Pausing, she

Tilted her head just so,

Her long gloves

Adjusting a black net veil,

As she

Pulled close her silver fox wrap

And

 Swept past.

A lingering scent of Joy,

Same as his mother’s enveloped him,

But it wasn’t she.

He noticed her black and white oxford heels

Softly gliding over the thick carpet

And

That elegant black stripe of her silk hose down the back of her calf.

His mother was late.

*

An anodyne devant could lay before him

In latter times,

Gracing with that bundle of baby years

Choices, struggles and tears to fore

But,

Did not diminish the sensate thrills

That still brought chills down his spine

Ever as wonderful as chocolate pudding

Or

Streams of rainbows from the Chartres interiors

Of his mind.

He found in the shadows of ecstasy,

Freedom from

The shame of bourgeois fantasy

In the pure delights of a demimonde world

Of dance

Of touch

Of love

And

The hard play of men

When

Walking from the meatpacking district of NYC

To the Village at Waverly and Gay

Given a native’s tour view

Of

Brilliantly colored trompe-l’oiel

Graffiti fantasies on grimy back alley walls

On the way home before dawn

And

The delight of a leather jacket clad arm around him

As they stumbled home

For an early morning of love.