LOVE POEM 3

To hold you in my arms is true bliss.
Then the wonder of it all – a kiss.
There is a feeling I cannot describe.
It is just wonderful to be alive.

Your presence warms my heart.
I glory in the times we are together.
The time drags when we are apart.
Your warmth your beauty is forever.

The time I spend with you.
Is the best that I can do.
And if in some measure you feel as I.
It is like the sun shining in the sky.

L. Austin

BETTY 4 7-22-04

Betty since I met you life is better.
The jokes are funnier.
The days are brighter.
And my mood is lighter.

But my bed is lonely; I would like you there.
It’s a place we have many things to share.
Our feelings for each other in the naked light.
Many things happen in the quiet of the night.

For you I will be the best I can be.
Because you bring out the best in me.
We are a couple you and me.
And the best is yet to be.

L. Austin

IDENTITY

I am young?
I am old?
I do not know
Do you know?

The old man in the mirror is not me
The young man peering out is me?
When my joints hurt I am the old man
When I dream of the future I am the young man
Who am I?

I can envision beauty and romance
And I am the young man
I can feel the pain in my joints
And I am the old man
Who am I?

L. Austin

HEALING GROUPS

We meet once a week,
We think, feel and sometimes speak,
We have all lost a mate,
And we dam that part of fate.

But here among friends,
We emote and we feel
Through talk and through friendship,
Slowly we heal,

We go out from this place,
Just a little bit stronger,
And the beauty of each day,
Gets longer and longer.

L. Austin  4-15-04

War Poem 3

I was in the war.
All around were blood, death and gore.
There is no glory in battlefields score
There is death, heartbreak, fear and more.

There is no glory in loosing a leg.
And no justification to have to beg.
O God the fear the pain the hate.
Why am I here and what is my fate?

Am I to die in this stinking place?
For what? Not the betterment of the inhuman race.
I could have kids a wife a life.
Instead a bullet to end my life.

Why me, or my buddies or the enemy too.
What have I done to you and to you?
That I should die.
Thrown aside like a worn out shoe.

Lenny A.
7-23-04

AIDS

If you are young I will kill you.
If you are a mother with children.
I will leave them motherless.

A father, I will cut you down.
Your family will starve.
When I kill, families weep.
I bring death, destruction, mayhem.

Will you devote money to stop me?
Will you help the people I infect?
What will you do?

You know me.
You know where I live
You know how I move
You know my name.
AIDs

L. Austin
11-23-05

KOREA 1 1952

The sun is hot it burns you black.
Your body drips with sweat.
You break your back to pitch a tent.
Your clothes are dripping wet.

The patients come they fill the wards.
They are carried to the knife.
The screams you hear can turn you gray.
As they fight so hard for life.

Each day they come in a steady stream.
You battle for their lives.
So you won’t send a body bag home.
To their sweethearts and their wives.

L. Austin
1952