Forbidden Love

One Poem from “Poems of Romance”

From my Poetry Web Site https://williampadgettblog.wordpress.com/

I.
Like a dream she pranced through the smoky haze.
Her light blond hair haloed her lovely face.
Her pale blue eyes met my embarrassed gaze
For a moment before she set her pace.

The “Unicorn” song filled the bar-room air
As she danced atop the stage and catwalk.
Shedding her clothes, she modeled herself bare –
Two tassels, a G-string, and the crowd’s gawk.

She smiled as she moved, but her eyes touched me.
Their half-dressed sadness glimmered through the dark.
Did her life or the song sigh this soft plea?
Was she a Unicorn who missed the Ark?

Questioning riddles – how they tease the mind.
Pity or ploy wrests money from the kind.

II
She stalked her pursuers and snatched my heart
As she pantomimed those scenes of her choice.
Her tight abs plied the undulating art.
Lip-syncing lines, she swiped the story’s voice.

I sat on the stool that I picked each night
For I could not get enough of her show.
I fought the inner war of wrong and right
But my wayward heart compelled me to go.

Our ship docked in New Orleans for a week
And I was barely old enough to drink.
I braved Bourbon Street and breathed its mystique.
Lonely cravings fogged my power to think.

Even a sailor, daring, bold, and free,
Should know illusions from reality.

III
Two worlds met and their eclipsed shadows kissed.
Each life was full and had reason and rhyme.
Burlesque, by high society dismissed,
Sustained a sailor through a lonely time.

Fantasy fought reality, such strife.
I could not have her, I could only gaze.
I had just a faint peek into her life,
Had she noticed me through the smoky haze?

Though I could see every inch of her,
I saw nothing of her and her veiled world.
“I love you so! Could you love this sailor?
I treasure your smiles as you dance and twirl.”

“I daydream that you dance for me alone.
You hurl my feelings like a wild cyclone.”

IV
I looked mostly into her eyes and face.
I did not rape her with my captured mind.
Though she displayed herself with all her grace,
I tried hard to show her my heart was kind.

Intrigued by a nude female’s fluid motion,
I savored each sexy curve’s ebb and flow.
Slipping, I gave her my full devotion,
My eyes slipped from her face and feasted below.

I would catch myself and feel my blush burn.
I fought temptation and cursed my weak will,
Then felt my strong inner resolve return.
She must have known and calmed me through her skill.

I came to see a nude dancer, for shame.
She amply fulfilled the reason I came.

V
Oh, hypocrisy, how I judged her so,
For I thought to take her from her dark life.
Yet I came to see her nude dancing show.
Would ‘saving her’ be a cause to take a wife?

Did she live in a fake fantasy world?
Did she have to do this public display?
She was a highly skilled bar dancing girl
Who hid her shame in her innocent way.

I think we both lived in pretend worlds then;
Each taken while so young and innocent.
Living where opportunities were thin
The Navy and burlesque seemed heaven sent.

Speak of those times past, full of quiet goodbyes.
When I think of her, tears still dim my eyes.

-William