the cold is piercing
there are birds chirping
and i can love

your fingers caress me
hot iron dragging
along the landscape
of my rashes
lookin for a weeping sore
prodding for satisfaction
my skin blistering
like raspberries in summer heat

I was fed a lie
and as stupid as I am
I believed
and ate it up like honey
until betrayal's claw
fermented and
burst from my stomach
grabbing me by the throat

is delicate.
breakable.
prone to trauma,
and thus an effortless
vehicle for vengeance.

with a river of pain coursing
through arteries
and slender vessels linked
between the most vital
***** and the source
of thought, emotion
quite often thwarts wisdom.

And, oh children,
a steel serpent lingering
within easy reach
remains ever ready
to strike
at will.

have mostly passed,
pressed into the pages
of history books, but how
they linger in memory!

two men, reputations
mutually compromises,
meet to prove their valor
on the feild of honor.

with great ceremony,
their seconds present
the pistols, oiled and gleaming
deadliness in the wavering light.

the rivals take their places
and, beloved guns in hand,
they stand back-to-back,
gathering courage.

eight paces in opposite
directions, at the signal, turn,
take aim, praying it’s straight,
that your sight remains plumb.

Fire.

will supersede innate character,
if such a thing, in fact, exists.

consider every infant enters
the world essentially a blank journal.

you might say the quality of the paper
will determine the ultimate value

of the chronicle, but who could argue
that the words to be imprinted there

matter more? if one scribbles
******* on vellum, it remains *******.

take a child by nature gentle,
teach him to excise insect wings

and reward him for such behavior?
he’ll run off in search of butterflies

with no regard except, perhaps,
pride at leaving his indelible stamp

on the natural realm. dear ones,
instruct your youngsters well.

is vastly overrated.
you can think you’ve tucked
something far, far away,
relegated it to a dark cupboard
inside your psyche, slammed
the door closed.

but you can never secure
the latch completely.

childhood traumas
are especially persistent,
knock-knock-knocking,
ricocheting wall to wall to wall
until finally a crack appears,
leaking memories.

and with them, often,
the desire for reckoning.

here, character counts,
reinforcing strength of will,
the lean toward good or evil
as much about programming
as instinct.