The Kiss

I can feel your heart
A bird beating hard
Against the ribbed cages
Of your breast
Your eyes echo your need
For escape
But I must close
Up the spaces between
As I lean
Almost in a dream
Drawn in by your breath

With blood on our hands

Some of us must have
Blood on our hands
For the redness to
Bloom innocently
Upon other cheeks

Love is born out of the debris
Of wounds
Borne by strangers

Flowers bloom
In ruins
Beauty rises
Among desolate things

Shall we lay waste then
To the worlds we've built
And risk destruction
At the prospect of love?

Girl from another world

The girl from another world
She turned to look at me
Her face framed by a smile
The shock of it lingered
For a little while
Till I happened to look up
I looked into her eyes
And there I could see
The weight of a thousand lives

We stood, rooted for a while
Exchanging stories, longing, and smiles
And then, before long, I stood alone
My eyes crinkling fields of mirth
Sprouting from seeds that she had sown.

The Lovers

For in this cruel world, you see
There is no space for you and me
We build little worlds of our own
Forsake myriad lives unknown

Memories of tender touches
Of kisses, and loving clutches
Begin to take the shape of sin
With time, they become lost in
Illusions of knowing what we do
In words that negate me and you

Innocence is such a fragile thing
It does not last the thoughts we bring
The prejudice of reason kills
The tremors of love lie stilled.

Each thought that rang out clear and true
Each act of love between me and you
Is consigned to pasts we never knew
And lost in a murky moral stew

As we pretend to know, and grow
We snuff out life itself, you know
And so many lovers, so many songs
That almost lived, now lie stillborn.

Sacred

And shall we go then, you and I,
To dance upon the edge of a sigh
And let our rhythms come undone
Forgetting the worlds that go and come
In these whorls of learning and regretting
Shall we dance?
On the knife edge of the sacred
And cast useless worship to the dust.

Ephemeral

I awake with thoughts of you in my head
From the detritus of dreams upon an unmade bed
You rise
Your fingers linger
Languorously leafing
Through the tangled mess
Of my hair
And with the coming of the sun
You leave
Melting into the sudden light
Vanishing like a sprite
With just the ghost of a smile
Left behind
Playing upon my mind

Of what use is time?

Of what use is time
Except to drive divisions
Between your mind and mine

Of what use is time
Except to say
That this belonged to yesterday
That the world has changed
That tomorrow belongs not to today

Of what use is time
When what was said during the day
Is no longer valid at night
When we turn to wrong
What once was right

Of what use is time
When we use it to define
Why we must no longer meet
Why the years must make walls
Between what must now be sour or sweet

Of what use is time
When the years no longer allow
Declarations of fondness or love

Of what use is time
When I must no longer play
The games I used to on another day
When I must no longer run as hard or fight as fine
Oh, then, what use is time

Of what use is time
When you cannot be mine

Of what use is time
But as shackles for your mind

When your words are gone

When your words are gone
When your words dry up
And nothing rhymes any more

When the day awakens
Without a song in your head
And you lie blinking
Soundless, in bed
And no more poems emerge

What then is there to remember
But death

then you smiled...

The day was bad
The day was long
I was left feeling
Like I didn't belong
I felt like a beetle
By a shoe defiled
All crushed to a pulp
But then you smiled...

I was dropping bombs
I was oozing hate
I was burning people
With acrid distaste
I was losing my mind
I was getting all riled
Snapping at shadows
But then you smiled...

The world was harsh
The world was tough
I wanted to give up
I had had quite enough
I was about to lash out
I was about to go wild
And smash it all to pieces
But, just then, you smiled...

There was no end in sight
I was fresh out of hope
I was jerking on the end
Of a really long rope
At the end of my tether
I would not be beguiled
When you were walking by me
But then, you stopped, and smiled...

What love...

What eyes shall hold your eyes
What mind shall touch your mind
What wistful dreams arise
What vows shall we rescind

What hand shall link in yours
What heart quicken to your beat
What kind of hooks and lures
Shall make the sour turn sweet

What time shall bring, who knows
What fires shall light your stove
What arm shall wind in yours
What love shall find your love