EDITOR’S NOTE: Fritz Crytzer moved to Georgia in 2016 after having lived all around the country, including Mississippi, North Carolina, Texas, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, where he was born and raised, as well as 11 years in Germany. He graduated from the University of Texas in 1974, with a BA in Economics, and spent the next 30 years as a civilian logistics advisor for the U.S. Army. He began his poetry endeavors one night in a Heidelberg, Germany Gasthaus, enjoying a good German bier, in 1984. He says he’s always enjoyed the beauty of poetic words and has been associated with several writing groups around the U.S., in North Carolina, Mississippi, and now Georgia. This poem offers his reflections on the topic of love.
THE ROSE
Somewhere in my world there grows,
Out of reach . . . a deep, red rose.
I have seen this rose, at times,
And have wanted it for mine.
I have spoken to this rose,
Words of anguish, fear, and woe.
It replied with loving care,
Taming sorrow’s wild despair.
I have touched its sensuous leaves,
Supped sweet nectar ‘tween its sheaves.
In my heart the rose touched me,
With caresses, fervently.
O! tried I to pluck this bloom,
To possess its spiced perfume!
Thorn edged daggers, bloodily,
Pierced self-dreamed serenity!
Whispered pleas in saddened song,
Sighed, “O cease! This deed is wrong!
Agoned, paling death will nigh
Rape tomorrow’s warranty!”
Curs’d subliminal thought revealed!
Wouldst slay, my wounds unhealed?
-FRITZ CRYTZER
Somewhere in my
world there grows,
Out of reach, a
deep, red rose.
I still want this
rose, at times,
But alas! ‘Twill
not be mine.