Similar to how
Platypi secrete
Poison from their
feet
the heels of your lips
rips my heart
apart
soul surrender
modern art
Poison guise
covert convalescence
from the claws
of your eyes
Laws of lies'
essence
intrude to conclude
an earnest feeling
dealing with the fact
that I love you
deeply
And much like Platypi
I am often confused
for something
that I'm not
but
in love
with you
this I'm as certain
as Platypi
are to amphibians
for Beth
Have you tasted the bitterness of tears of despair?
Have you watched the sun sink through such pale, balmless air
that your soul sought its shell like a crab on a beach,
then scuttled inside to be safe, out of reach?
Might I lift you tonight from earth’s wreckage and damage
on these waves gently rising to pay the moon homage?
Or better, perhaps, let me say that I, too,
have dreamed of infinity . . . windswept and blue.
I lost count of just how many nights I’ve cried myself to bed.
My own embrace the only arms to hold me while I said:
I can’t make people love me, and I can never make them stay;
And I’ll never know the reasons they always choose to go away,
Or why my needs get met with sorrow, failure and despair...
An ironic joke, the reach for hope, to feel and nothing’s there.
Her Candle
So many candles I’ve never burned.
A marriage candle,
two first communion candles from my kids,
a bicentennial candle,
millennium candle.
So many candles I’ve never burned.
Her candle I’ve burned for over twenty years,
not every day, but most every day.
A memory of what once was,
of what we had
me and her,
her candle.
Originally voluptuously large,
beautifully ornate,
burning bright hot and fast.
We were young then.
