This night I shall dream
of your bedazzling Puple hair and Lion-eyes.
Wrapped in the echoes of your eyes-music,
I long to sip from your peachful lips.
In my dreams, I soar on your plush pinkness --
skimming vast continents with hands and lips.
The depths of all the oceans of the universe
shall never separate our entwined bodies.
Brilliant as enthralling lust,
the seas greet us from afar.
In the twilight we feast on chocolate-covered
strawberries and tender lovehearts  
Adorned in white silk, we pluck
our raining love chimes from our thighs.
I press the heart that you wear around your neck
against my hands so that our hearts melt into one.
You will always be my little Aphrodite,
the Lion of my own eyes of love.

Waves flow, writing gushes,
scattering rhyme like fine mist
lines of regret rescind into the sea
while verses of love crest and fall
like the heaving of young breasts
temptations crash upon rocks
daring to be undressed by your eyes
one should be careful not to get dragged
into the underbelly of this ocean
where sirens sing their enchanted songs
and pirates wait upon shorelines for your loot
there is no escape now that you've been sucked in

Beneath the blue breaths
of winter, death gratefully welcomes
the young, scattering sonnets
white with innocence, hollow rhymes.
They speak of lost love upon the seas,
fair maidens and twilight moments,
verse upon verse of nothingness,
thrills they will never know,
never feel nor see; O, these romantics!
Your works are cocooned for eternity;
Death has come too soon for you.

How could she have known
my obsession for Gothic novels?
She couldn't have known that years later
a cacoethes would emerge,
that hundreds would be spent
trying to get them back to me.
One lapse of judgement led
to a lifetime of irresistible urges...
There's another sale on eBay -
I cannot resist this deep desire any longer.

I pass her daily,
she's just like me,
but not me.
She is dark, a ghostly shell,
some alter ego
deliberately mimicking me;
Or is this my own dark soul,
the darkened wretched me?
There she goes again.
but this time she notices me in the passing.
Will she ponder the same questions as I?

While sitting in a booth, an hour before work, I try to write poetry. But the click, click, click of the cash register distracts the musings jammed into my already clustered brain. And as I try to spill words onto this page, a you child spills her soda, the tawny liquid cascades the patterns of her too-tight T-shirt and falls to the floor ~~ the floor I will mop and mop over again, as sticky footprints retrace the night's events. And the man, a cigar dangling from the sepia corner of his tightly clinched mouth, growls the angered growl of a wounded bear, bearing all to me and the child who hides behind her mother's saffron sundress. And in the child's shame, she raises two, too-large coca cola eyes to meet mine, and then lowers them as a tear trails the shadows of her sanguine face.

You, the sculptor,
shaped our lives, molded
us, your offsprings, into the model
of your desired likeness.
You created masterpieces
with the elder and younger;
they so like the perfect David,
but you are no Michelangelo,
and i, the nucleus of this family,
am not a piece of clay.
i defy your wheel, knife,
the kiln that fires your bloodline.
i take to the kiln my own David,
misshappen like a Picasso,
surreal to you.

I work with knots,
loosen ends from ends,
careful not to snag
or break fragile cords,
intricate tangles of silken affairs.
But the ends unravel
as I release tension,
and I find myself knotting the ends again.
Over and over, I bind and unbind,
until the cycle lashes out
like a madwoman in desperate straits.
I want to write the wrongs, right them,
straighten them into one long, lengthy rope,
then try my luck again.
Find strands that won't untwine;
create the perfect notaffair.

I lay upon cold steel, blinding lights loom
above my head. I hear my brain
confirm 'minor surgery' and then you
enter the room, scalpel in hand, aimed
at my chest. Not there! my mind screams,
then I feel the burn of ripped flesh;
a repugnant stench fills the room, a familiar smell,
the sickening, salty odor of blood.
Bones and cartilage moan as the scalpel shreds
with swift precision, one target in mind:
a fist-sized beating organ. Extraction.
I raise my head from frosted steel
in time to see your deed: bloody fingers,
clinched into claws, dive into the open cavity,
gouge holes into either side and wrench
the tiny organ from its cave.
You hold it high above your head, a trophy;
crimson drips down your arm, soaks
a white sleeve like spilt wine on lace; you open
a glass jar, formaldehyde mixes with drops of blood
as the organ plunges into your solution

As snow does to a fire, lull them asleep among the foliage;
between the oleander beautiful as snow;
like dragonflies threading! he sings and the woods sing!

In the wine of daylight the willows shiver:
- its coolness on my feet, the star has wept rose-colour.
The wolves howl back with great conquering black eyes.
- from violet forests: where the stars are sleeping.

The black gallows moan, on the calm black water
embroidered with black moss and the horizon rushes
and the murmuring waters came snowing;

I no longer feel myself; I have seen maelstroms eternal,
of the sea star-infused and the yellow-blue awakenings
the scented twilight, of silver waves.

There's no room for a butterfly
in this half-wacked world he's created.
He even sucks the color out
Of rainbows after rain, destroying
Both foliage and flower;
Now nothing sacred has a place to land.
He just wants to keep this butterfly
pinned on display, to study it, deny it freedom.
But when it escapes, (and it will)
it will find beauty again
far away from his captive world.

Fast, hot windows quickly love a small, small flower.
Walk loudly like a cold light.
Ooh, love!
The light runs like a dry rain.
Workers work!

Whales rise like sunny clouds...
Life, courage, and endurance,
Sail quietly like a rainy sun.

You’ve slapped me emotionally
Beaten me to a pulp; twisted
Your words until I dropped
From exhaustion; degraded.
You may as well have taken a knife
And ripped my heart out, left
It bleeding … You spoke
Of reconciliation, begged
For forgiveness, but I know
It was all about karmic revenge.

A year ago I left you for her
Loved and lived freely
For six whole months,
But you couldn’t even last
A month with the wild child
You chose to take to our bed.
You claim you feared her…
With her black arts, she cursed you,
Left so much negative energy
Surrounding you… will you
Ever recover? Will we?

Midnight, quiet
woods except the buzz
of dew drop insects
your kisses taste
of fresh honeydew melon
your delicate neck curves
into my shoulder, soft curls
caress your young face

Hidden by foliage
we make sweet innocent love
our hands barely touch
one another, tantalizing
soft fingertips explore
valleys, hills and streams
Our breathing becomes heavy
sighs release between kisses

And just at that moment of release,
a hawk screeches by, covers up our secret.

There is no physical body here
Only emotional bandages:
Layer upon layer added
With each critical cut of your tongue.
Your fits of anger now linger
On the outside, barely visible.

I remember the first bandage,
The beggar in me pleaded for you to stop -
O, the panic that swelled from deep within.
And your need to be right added
Suffocating layers over the years.

The slashing of critical words
Didn’t damage my physical body,
No one could see my pain,
But those slashes have left scars
Deep wounds that may never heal.

Now you’ve made your own critical error:
I take this razor blade, plunge
It deep within my chest, remove
My heart and smash it
Into your damnable face.

I cover my self-inflicted wound, turn
And walk away, just as you made me: heartless.

Trusting you was my first mistake;
being naive enough to believe
you would change was my last.
You shredded my heart
right in front of her;
No one messures up to your standards.

You are savage in your skill:
Find a woman, begin to slowly mold
her into your ideal -
large breasts, tiny waist -
she should be prepared for a lifetime
of your rules and righteousness,
your drunken condescending words
until her heart slowly dies
just like mine did.

I am rhyme, you are rhythm,
I pen ivory, you dance ebony
and together, we share
our own classical-hip-hop world.

People still gape
When they see us together
The stark difference of our skin
Yet in nature, we mesh perfectly together.

I am ivory, creamy white chocolate
You are ebony, dark hardened chocolate
Melted together, our offsprings
Become butterscotch and milk chocolate

What beauty the world beholds in children.

This is not a death camp for bards,
but a river which flows
sometimes freely, sometimes stagnated,
words linger for days
until something knocks them loose.

Gushing verses pour forth
to gain and lose meaning, design,
even precious rhymes held dear.
Because in poetry therapy,
there is no rhyme or reason,
just open the dams and let it all out.