your lips

YOUR LIPS

YOUR LIPS

Your lips are like a cherry I have bitten
into, and your smile is like a riff
music sung by Ella or a Briton
whose upper lip is transiently not stiff.

Below your neck your features are outstanding;
I love your breasts, your narrow waist and hips,
and thighs that seem to have an understanding
of what between them greets before it grips.

I love you since you seem to be laid back,
a minstrel mistress with a loving lay;
you have program that I want to hack,
to spend the night with you till beak of day.



Inspired by a song, “Your lips are like a red and ruby chalice,” whose lyrics, according to Garrison Keillor at the Greek Theater two nights ago, were written by Johnny Mercer after he heard the tune written by Lionel Hampton and Sonny Burke in 1947 on a radio station seven years after the tune was written. He phoned the radio station as soon as he heard it, and it was subsequently sung by Ella Fitzgerald. These are the lyrics written by Johnny Mercer:

MIDNIGHT SUN

Your lips were like a red and ruby chalice, warmer than the summer night
The clouds were like an alabaster palace rising to a snowy height.
Each star its own aurora borealis, suddenly you held me tight
I could see the Midnight Sun.

I can't explain the silver rain that found me--or was that a moonlit veil?
The music of the universe around me, or was that a nightingale?
And then your arms miraculously found me,suddenly the sky turned pale,
I could see the Midnight Sun.

Was there such a night, it's a thrill I still don't quite believe,
But after you were gone, there was still some stardust on my sleeve.

The flame of it may dwindle to an ember, and the stars forget to shine,
And we may see the meadow in December, icy white and crystalline,
But oh my darling always I'll remember when your lips were close to mine,

And we saw the Midnight Sun.© 2009 Gershon Hepner 6/7/09