Elegy

When a person dies
It's so easy to be nice
To praise and eulogise
The things that they have done
To cover up with lies
To compare them with the sun
To say they shone so bright
Though the truth be otherwise
To call them misunderstood
Then to call them great
To conjure perjurious love
From out of your hate
It's so easy to be nice
When a person dies.

I long for the tenderness

I long for the tenderness
Of gossamer wings
For the wondrous touch
Of tenuous things

I long for the tenderness
Of shared dreams
Of fingers touching in the night
Of faces marked by delight
Of eyes that gleam
In silent adoration
For the quiet love
That grows
In silences

I long for the tenderness
Of joy and laughter
Of mirth that sings
Of foolish things

I long for the tenderness
Of April showers
Slow drizzles
Gentle as the mist
When glinting droplets
Left by the breeze
Of heartfelt sighs
Like dewdrops lie
Upon the ground
Without a sign to mark
Their passage down

I long for the tenderness
Of strangers
In the night
For fragile threads
And connections
For moments of light
In the forgiving darkness

I long for the tenderness
Of gossamer wings
For the wondrous touch
Of tenuous things

When true love dies

What thoughts were mine
What dreams were yours
What words should rhyme
Which ones turn to prose
How do we decide
When true love dies

How do we separate
The tangled webs
Of our lives
When true love dies

What comb, what brush
What hallowed hands
Can untie the knots
Can unhook the strands

When true love dies
When the doors are closed
I don't know what is mine
I don't know what is yours

Lust Song

Would it be enough then
To talk to you of your luminous skin
And so to unleash that beast within
To the possibility of some better end

Hopes, like butterflies, arise
Fluttering their way into life
With every movement of your lips
Moistened, parting with every sip
My eyes, like desert crabs, then crawl
(Across softnesses that, incessantly, call)
Thirsting for a touch of mirth
Within your eyes, or better still
A lust to equal the rising tides
Of wantonness beneath my eyes

They roam the softness of your neck
Yearning, like a bird of prey
To swoop, and peck, and rip away
To quench each rising wave of need
Within some thoughtless word or deed

But, caught up in politeness's creed,
We share pleasantries and mundane things
In words, under layers of etiquette and tact
The odds against desire lie stacked
As my fingers flex against my thighs
Railing against the masks and the lies
My mind roams with a tongue of it's own
Down the hollow of your back
Into every little crevice and crack
Under the fabric it wanders alone
Questing for answers like a thief in the night

Like a man struck suddenly blind
Hankering for the touch of light
These metaphors stretch and blow my mind

Under such rites and rituals bound
We do not traverse unfamiliar ground
While our hearts make mad fantasies
Our minds find ways to mask our needs
Squelching the yearning and the sighs
With words that are considered wise
We engage, spar, spin desires base
And then we go our separate ways.

Period

Your bloody towel hangs
Limply
By the side of the bed
While I lie beside
Limply
Bleeding inside
The knife of your stress
Cuts me deep
Every time

Every month
I take your wounds
I bleed for you
Partners in despair
It's all that's there
Between us now
Between me and you

The bloody towel
Lies mute beside
Drained of all the tears
We two have cried
Caked with the blood
Of drops that dried.