a lifelong romance

for i was in love with thee
but now, all i'm in love with is me

The sea, my friend, does not dream of monsters.

Tiny beings, bursting with vitality,

throwing themselves at him,

sinking or swimming or drowning,

no, the sea does not dream of these.

He does not wonder about his own endless

depths, or the way that the world has made him. He does

not speak to himself about himself,

though he is boundless, and in him

swim things even he does not know.

Those rafts that sail upon him are

swatted hither and thither,

an angry god, a beast

ridding himself of mild

annoyances.

One such as he

is ever-changing,

but does ever one such as he

dwell over that change?

He does not witness the oil towers.

He does not judge the parting of waters.

He does not contemplate change,

for he merely is.

Though you may dream of the sea, my friend,

the sea?

he does not dream of you.

Home

They say home's where the heart lies
For home is a sight for sore eyes
So though home is built from brick made of lies
Home is also the only place that tries

Home is where you wear no disguise
However small home is, it's always the right size
Whenever you leave home, a little part of you dies
For you know that leaving home is ever unwise

Staying at home won't earn you a prize
For you'll never see the colour of the rise
Of the sun, as he stains the oceans and the skies
You won't get to hear the dawn and her cries

But home will tolerate your hows and your whys
She'll protect you from your enemies and their spies
Watch as she kills them, and as their blood dries
She'll keep you and your heart safe from their lies

Words in Chains

Write your words on twilight paper

Keep them away from the deep blue night

Read them by the light of a thin brown taper

Never let them wander out of your sight

 

They live in the wild, with bears and with sharks

They will not stay safe, surrounded by walls

Their home is the dangerous, the deadly, the dark

They won’t hark to any of your calls

                                                                So you must

Trap them with honey and glamour and wit

Chain them down with whispers and gold

Tie them together with bootstraps and spit

And don’t let them go ‘til their stories are told

The words of the wild dance for the sea

They sing only to the moon and the stars

To make them listen to you and to me

You must cage them behind adamantine bars

The fables they spin are more wondrous than whales

Use them with wisdom and you’ll not go wrong

The work of the wordsmith is to assemble her tales

Words only fear strength; you must be strong

Write down your words on twilight paper

Keep them away from the deep blue night

Teach them how to obey their shaper

They won’t go down without a fight.

 

*

 

this comes from anger and betrayal. once i wrote well. now i don't write at all.

(Stake them, drown them, stab them in the back

Break their necks and hang them from the trees

Stretch their souls on a silvershine rack

Cover them with honey and throw them to the bees)

we used to write to each other

with paper and ink (though it took days

and days, until they turned into months,

transformed into years, we could pretend

that it was because the mail was still on its way

lost in the post, and of course it would reach eventually

the postal service was terrible, but not

evil, exactly, merely incompetent, after

all, so we’d wait and wait and wait and invariably

there would be a card, with greetings and

half-baked comments about the weather

why, even weathermen

do not argue about clouds like we didn’t

leaving all the other words unsaid)

and now, we fail to write to each other with email.

him

there is melancholy in the wind
and sorrow in the grass
and ne'er before have i doubted it more
that even this shall pass

her

when the rain of sadness falls
its tears upon your brow
the earth it feeds bears the seeds
that into trees of happiness shall grow




*

it has been two years since i wrote the first stanza, of which the first couplet belongs to someone else. but it is good.

Her eyes, seem to have

arms that are

impossible to see but they

seize me, hold me in place
as if I

were nothing but a

fly caught in their

dangerous, destined grasp.

And my eyes, they

somehow hear the invisible

(they cannot turn away) imagine

their delight and joy at

finding a special ode

to them

in her eyes,

their arms.

*

tell me, how can one hate love?