Beau Boudreaux
Beau Boudreaux has recently won a chapbook competition by New Dawn Unlimited
titled Significant Other. His poems have been published in The Antioch
Review, and The Cream City Review, Louisiana Literature, and Margie. He
teaches English in Continuing Studies at Tulane University in New Orleans.
Bonhomie
I’m not ready for what’s going on outside
male faculty calls for “guy” activities
for small talk—
Kobe’s recent ligament injury,
Hornets’ streak despite attendance,
printout of college
brackets…athletics like a snug harbor
back to oil from the sun—
Wednesday wiffle ball league
with Eric the adjunct on Airline Highway
seems a stretch, the inviter’s innocence
tastes like warm beer
choose the lesser of evils—bowl
for charity, ruse hot on the line.
Christina, Christine, Chris...
Cinch her perfect pinched nose, Southern
California sheen, oh, and once a prom queen
she gets away over
drinks saying the same story—wink
and tug on the sleeve
name drops—shoots Paul Newman from the sky
like a doubloon at carnival,
ching conversation—
whistle, cat call her safe on the other
side of a ten foot fence
when she’s not looking
make a face
unsnap her carmine purse
powder those rose cheeks
good reason to quit or start smoking again
planes cross overhead
a kid kicks his soccer ball into the ruddy river
over the hour, her sweet jasmine scent
seeps through a seersucker suit
who can’t like natural blond, rinsed a bit out
hairdo of a pixie...
a masterpiece, off the shelf, leather bound
bits of dust on the jacket.
Irascible
You can find women who have never had a love affair,
but seldom women who have had only one.
—La Rochefoucauld
Snap of her carmine
purse, adjusts the rearview
times he should have spoken, brought flowers
cork floats in the Merlot
oh no, he tacks back
his blindfolded dive for pearls—
nerve, asks a favor,
pounding her door
she’s not ready
so he lingers like a skiff
on the lip of a sunshot horizon.
Madrid
Romance language from the chambermaid
fumble my dry wad of tongue—
Spanish seduces like a splash
of her agua de colonia
our hand signals
muffed catch of Carnival...
I should wait in the bathroom
as she turns down the sheet
grins my way her twist
undone cascades a caramel waterfall
chilled champagne sweats its urn,
in earnest this fantasy—
wave a thousand pesetas
advance, undisguise my terry
cloth wonder of robe
el placer es mio—
she adds an apple, grapes, banana
atop the credenza
drapes dance for the open window.
Ten Thousand Waves
Time for him to take a dive
from the shore, lip of the lake
there, in his wake alone rose
a kid gasping for breath, turning blue
nearby nymphs stir in their pool
Echo comes to catch him confess
second-rate Narcissus can’t confess
floats like a bobber, his dive
shallow and dire into the cool pool
on the bank of the darkening lake
ribbons of cane sway with the blue
sky and he flounders like a wilting rose
a green trout stirred in the hyacinth and rose
through the reeds to surface made Echo confess
anger from beneath her lily pad, a blue
lure, a youth never seen in these parts dives
in and winter turns to spring at the lake
long afternoons he casts into her shallow pool
mirror in the lake glistens like a pool
Nemesis stirs a long stem chocolate rose
dying a new color for this southern lake
enough to make a youth confess
he loves himself, boy on the pier should dive
not belly-flop into the allure of blue
water color of a bruise darkening electric blue
as if Zeus takes a leak in the pool
more his shadow fools a child to dive
and Narcissus never sprouts like a rose
for the occasion he fails to confess
swallows and swallows the lake
muddy water, the breeze kicks the lake
the sky wants a deeper blue
a night time, right time to confess
gazing too long into the pool
causes Echo to float her dead rose
for the gorgeous boy who took a dive
into a chocolate lake reflects his pool
and Echo now tends a blue rose
confess she wishes he never took the dive.