I can write no stately proem
As a prelude to my lay;
From a poet to a poem
I would dare to say.

For if of these fallen petals
One to you seem fair,
Love will waft it till it settles
On your hair.

And when wind and winter harden
All the loveless land,
It will whisper of the garden,
You will understand.

Out of the mid-wood’s twilight
Into the meadow’s dawn,
Ivory limbed and brown-eyed,
Flashes my Faun!

He skips through the copses singing,
And his shadow dances along,
And I know not which I should follow,
Shadow or song!

O Hunter, snare me his shadow!
O Nightingale, catch me his strain!
Else moonstruck with music and madness
I track him in vain!

All along while you were sleeping
beneath the gaze of a missing moon
a light was lost, left us questioning
a sunrise too late? or a sunset soon?
There came tears, downward streaming
it’s disappearance remained unknown
only howling wolves remembering
the night the moon, left the night alone
They blamed dawn and dusk for stealing
none dared to dream another dream
all through the night of restless sleeping,  
weeping was heard across the stream
The night lamenting in search of light
The wind blew lanterns flaming high
the day was to be spent to make it bright
by flicking fire to burn the sky
till silver ripples appearing on the bay
there a moon settles from a journey far
returning home and on its way
from the funeral of a falling star

I have sunsets on my cheeks.
Blushing roses
and pinks.
I have flowers in my hair.
Blooming,
growing with me.
I am a wanderer
around my life.
Navigating
who I am
and who I want to be .
I wonder what
the seed of the maple knew
Before he was told
to be a tree.

Under cold compress
I feel the dank
Cell swelling saturation
Driving me into unreachable
Depression
Bleach flowing from my eyes
Innundating the slits in my cheeks
Farewell to everything.
I lost my will in a game
I didnt know i was playing.

I.
She waits in the shade
Of a best-loved oak,
Where he once carved their names inside a heart:
"This means forever."

II.
The heart needs tending
--she visits from year-to-year.
Her security, a vow.
His constraint, a contract.
She made to open the door but he detained her,
A perjury.
Pruning stems, branching
--cognitively speaking--
Dead or alive.

III.
The landscape has changed:
This place no longer holds water.
Listen now for love's addendum,
Measured in the signal-to-noise ratio.
(You'll hear it all the time).

IV.
Oh, painfully leafless gray meadow.
Sufferance is a viable timekeeper,
When it storms the weak run for shelter.

Maybe next year I'll tell you
I love you, the platonic type,
the words light from my mouth
as though constructed from bubbles
and you could be there, set to let them
pop against your tongue, maybe reciprocate.

The other type, I've heard, resembles falling,
but does that feel like floating, your body
when dancing, suspended in air for
a cluster of seconds before caught
by your sequinned partner, all smiles,
or is it more sinking,

we did this at primary school a few times,
the chilly, barefeet-plastered hall floor,
told to close our eyes and gently melt,
pretending we're chocolate in a microwave,
every boneless portion hopeless, floppy
until our teacher revived us with her sound.

Otherwise, it could be a tumbling of sorts,
a trip-on-the-first-step-smash-every-limb-kind,
skin blotches that gasp in agony with a touch,
your mistake stains in violet tones, or,
if executed with a more Wonka flourish,
just lust in the blood. Perhaps you'd bleed pink.

Like I know the feeling anyway.
If the words in my throat are
painted with truth, I'll say it, mean it
and breathe or let embarrassment
crush me in its reptilian silver claws.
You might even say it back, platonic or not,

even if I don't know you much,
even if my bedtime is your breakfast
and you handle cutlery better
and don't mind my eczema if you ever
see it on a fuzzy screen or body to body.
Even if my lips have never known what to do.

Aching,
empty.
Restless
but not
in motion.
Words
blocked
like a
******'s dam.
Leaking through
the cracks
waiting for
the flood.

The terrain of your loneliness falls under my hands
soft as cinders in a snuffed fire
We have both burned, in our way
and under my breath
Embers ignite, the soft glow
And incandescent heat of our palms, tenderly met
Lanterns in a grey sea
we light as beacons
For our lost ships
calling them
To safe harbor.