I wanted to  love  her
          like  she's  never  been
          loved before...
          With my hands
          I  unarmed  her  heart,
          with my eyes
          I  undressed  her  soul.

           and I whispered to her,
           "You are a poem
             I keep on writing,
             a book I can't put down,
             a story that is
              never ending,
              a page I cannot turn."

               Loving you
               in breathless
               moments,
               stolen kisses,
               adrenaline
                rushes...
                                                                                     Jon York   2019

It’s as if you’re not there
You don’t talk or try
You don’t speak, you don’t creek
You’re scared of the consequences
Yet you’re scared
Scared of the disaster you may leave behind you
You didn’t mean for him to fall in love
Not so deeply
Not yet
You don’t want to hurt him but you don’t want to stay
Leave and say goodbye Angel, delight of god and deliverance of hell

The night is gazing over, delicately yet lush
in a narrowed path by the meadow, filthy yet spry
where a little hidden blue eyes, cold but did survived
looked up for another twilight, in beauty but unjust
it's little auburn eyebrows, muddy yet defined
Furrowed slowly in bright light, dreadful but alright
thinking of what things to conquer, ignorant yet will pry
and the events that will take them for granted, addled yet aspires
when hunger and thirst relinquish, empty but will trance
they wait for another night lamp, asleep yet alive

What's it take
These days

To write a poem

That makes the world go mad
That brings the crowds to their feet
That spreads like wildfire
Through a dry winter forest

Is it those excessively long words?
The ostentatiously loquacious
Platitudinous ramblings
Of an insecure mind aspiring
To authentic intellect?

Is it perhaps...
     the "creativity"
               of      varied      spacing
  or...    could it be..... the lack
                              of capitalization
               the loathsome little letters
               screaming out
                         hey, look at us!
         ... or maybe it's
               the punctuation marks,
     littered, haphazardly
          through the text
                    (whether used correctly)
               or, theyre not?!
     despite worrds mispeled
          and a grammar might is broken
   can these gimmicks increase interest
        though miswritten or misspoken?

Is the trick alliteration
Whose bite brightly bids us
To center on the snappy sounds?
Although all along
     unvoiced underneath
Ideas idle in the isles
   (or perhaps the aisles)
Of the mind
To meld and craft and bind
Our thorough thoughts
And worthy words
Into lines
Which
Heard by herds
Raise the
                  Praise for which we
                  Privately, desperately
                  Pray

Maybe it's a magical mix
Of splendid in-your-head rhythm
Marvelous meter that perfectly clicks
Flowing smoothly without schism

Well-spaced stanzas
Well-used time
Well-crafted phrases
Well-thought-out rhymes

Well, maybe not...
     those gems are often ignored
     cast-aside, unread, even abhorred

Why?

Because the modern world
doesn't need your rules
your restrictions
your regulations
your misguided boundaries
your oppression
your antiquated ideas
   of "the right way"
   to write
   to speak
   to act
   to live
   to (fill in the blank)

No, what the modern world needs
is
Negation!
Contradiction!
Resistance!
Revolt!

And poetry whose words
Say the same thing
Repeat the same meaning
Echo the same lyrics
Rephrase the same thoughts
But in an ever-so-slightly
Different
Varied
Altered
Adjusted
Changed up way

Line
After line
Of synonyms
          over
               and
                    over
                         and
                              over
                                   again

-----

What's it take
These days

To not give in
To narcissism's spiral?

But more importantly:
What's it take

To make my poem go viral?

You said "I love you"
But did you really
You claim you care
But how can you?
You are so unaware
But I accept it
You don't understand it is what I deserve
But I'm thinking about calling it quits
Goodbye

i wrote you
a letter every day
letters to tell you
just how i feel

written in neat, curved
writing i told you
just how sweet
i thought you were
how you made my heart
glow

letters in which i wrote
with various colors of ink
pouring out my whole being
to you

i wrote you
a letter every day.

i wrote you letters in which
i told you how you made me
bloom.

eventually
i found myself
pressing harder on
the paper
than i had before.

creating tears in them
similar in shape
and size
as the ones
inside of me.

i began to send
letters
with creases
and bumps
and stains
splattered with tears

pouring
from my eyes

as i wrote
the anger
bubbling within me.

my last letter
addressed to you
contained
no words

but was blank.
because
i had none that

could reach
as far

and deep

into the cracks
of my
heart

to describe
just
what you

had left
of me.

Does your kiss
Still taste
Like everything
I drank to forget?