There is a little romance in me,

There is a little romance in me,

Deep down where my heart lies

Wrapped up in tissue paper, tied up with string

Snugly settled to keep it safe

When the days are frosty

The company bittersweet

Hidden from sight behind the bluff and bluster

The laconic reticence to engage

The ‘keep your distance’ dismissive

Sodden with too much sorrow

Soaked in whisky strained through a coffee filter

Drip fed

There is a romantic in me

It is there, in the tears stains

On a pillow, after midnight

Upon waking

At sunrise, for a moment

Before the cacophony begins

The smell of freshly cut grass

The refraction of light in a crystal cut glass

At sunset, in the silence

When the wind whispers in reconciliation

As memories of other days linger

Longer than a moment of surrender

To the keening lamentation

Of an inner voice

Waiting to be heard above the noise

Of disaffected restlessness

And oblivious abstraction

Roiling in obsession

I could sing a love song

Let the words roll across my tongue

Without regret or apprehension

Shaping the meaning

Restricting the flow

Truncating the evidence

Of the romantic

Lying somewhere in the deep

Pining for release