It's no accident
When love is sown
Into a quilt
And wrapped about
Our shoulders
On a cold winter's night
Just like it's no accident
When we toss aside
Such blanketed warmth
When the new dawn
Beckons us to come out
And play

We love only
To betray

I hide
In rooms
Cold and spacious

Sleep is a hunter
Triggered
and mendacious

Through cracks
In crevices
Here I am

Studying the arts & architecture
Of historically
Dead mayhem

Affixed and frozen
To the ceiling
Of my head

Where twisted thoughts
Grin signature
Red

I can quote
All sorts
Of useless things

But none so urgent as prayers
In escaping what
My polar opposite brings

Is she like Calypso
in The Camomile Lawn,
knelt down and speechless
by the fire, resembling
Jennifer Ehle so closely,
as the camera lingers
at her being naked as a jaybird,
and quite comely at that?

Or is she perhaps
more like Felicitas
in Flesh and the Devil,
a dead ringer for Greta Garbo,
who brazenly encouraged
illicit love and rivalry, only
to go quietly by falling
through thin ice?

Sometimes the siren's call
is more a winsome variation
in its silence.

Bleed a cold,
Starve a fever,
Pray the plague don't come
Looking for you, unbeliever.

Don't sneeze at disease,
Or stick yourself with an arrow,
Just stack your dead
In the wheelbarrow.

"Every survivor of ****** assault deserves to be heard, believed, and supported."

Rainwater of
the Elysian fields,
you assuredly do
like to drown your winged heroines?
You write them as strange
bitter narratives,
spurious to the calling
or as a bit of
bloodletting go.

The history formed around either
her breaking at the seams
upon the witching hour,
and her own home village
pillaging her claims
in the bonfire;
Or the arcane notion
no woman shall give testimony
against a neighbor
on the occasion he's a man.

Yes, she cried 'no' at the temple gate
Yes, she repeated such entreaties
But she'd also been into the ale
and wore an overtly
fetching carousal dress
you incensed.
Let her dam break
Let her try and flood us over
you mocked.
She was only a wayfaring angel
one reckless bird of passage
What type of wounds
could she inflict?

How easily you lost sight
of her will & halo
becoming stronger than fright.
Down she poured in antipathy,
until covering your gaping mouth!
It wasn't rain that killed you,
for you were the rain,
it was her blood calling out
that finally did you in...

If the icebergs are melting away
How come my mother-in-law
Is still intact?

I.
Love has a pulse
A rhythm method
Sometimes
Hand in hand
Others
Hand-to-hand
Best wedding gift:
A book of matches
For those times of
Darkness ahead

II.
Coming out of the ether
The gravitate to "we"
Is no longer in
Simulation
We are space
Outer and uncharted
Breathe deep now
Once again
Let pressurization
Begin

III.
Spontaneous
Combustion
Magic hour
Learn by repetition
Crouching tiger, hidden dragon
Tongue on the verge
Circling the rosebud
Like the rise of an empire
Blown by the wind
Every which way
The blissful vein
Is tapped into

IV.
Localized storm
Waves against the sandbags
Not quite filled enough
Water gets in
Does its damage
The insurance policy
With no flood coverage
We are now indeed
An island

V.
Sacrificial offering
Open palms
Bowed heads
Recite your sorrows
And count the losses
Forgiveness comes like
Piecemeal
A little at a time

VI.
Something new
And loud and wet
Love has a different hue
To its sky
It will be cloud free
Never again
A hunt for a nap
Or dreams of napping
In this maddening mosaic
That blurs the line between
Caretaker and sleepwalker

VII.
Endurance wins the race
Not good intentions
Home can survive
The change of seasons
We plant the flowers
We water the lawn
We rake the leaves
We prune the trees
This is our garden
If we don't tend to it
Who will?

She was winning!
She had the poor sod
on his knees,
one more tongue lashing
and this nemesis
would be vanquished!
Only...
he really wasn't
her enemy at all,
but in truth,
her most beloved.
This raging battle
had so swiftly
mushroomed
from such an innocuous start
your head would spin
(like a top).

A passing observation
fueling outright war,
but he valiantly waved
the white flag of surrender.
Suddenly victory
was not so sweet to her,
thus with sword drawn
and poised at his throat,
she called a truce,
and confessed, "forgive me, my darling,
I was wrong."
Pardoned she was,
and peace ensued.
One lovable turncoat,
she traded in her uniform
to became a cowgirl instead
(like on top).

Oh, turpentine
meet Caroline.

She's diverting and lovely,
but no painter.

Completely misses a warning
on the container.

Her skin is pale
and thin as paper.

In contact with the flame
she turns to vapor.

He loved to teach...

He loved to teach her...

He loved to teach her abject lessons
      in elevators and on stairwells.


She hated to learn...

She hated to learn from him...

She hated to learn from him the inherent
       danger of buildings.

Is the sky falling
just because she's
soaked to the skin,
half-naked,
and with pixie smile
knows so little
of the affect
her bloom has,
here in the open fields?

Her evanescent day,
caught between
the suppressive cloud
of a mother's
mindful shaming,
and what it should
rightfully be,
an ingénue
let play in the rain.

Inside this box are but three things
--a ruler, a boxing glove, and kite string.

Because I never could keep my sordid
life straight.

Because I never did learn to fight my
own battles.

Because I never will soar as high as my smallest dream.

Why do I have them in the first place,
you might ask?

I just love reminiscing.
I'm a sucker for nostalgia,
even if it's over my own failings.

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Invariably,
You prefer to come
To me in the dark.
"You're more my temperature then,"
You once said.
I'm not much of a thermometer,
But I am the eurythmy
To each syllable you give
In such settled shadow.
A play of murmurs and fingertips,
You once named this.
Always I see a wreath in your hair,
In colors of Persia,
Textures of night,
And the soft blended lines
Of you I know
Infallibly.

The doctor's not in
But he makes housecalls
Especially upon young ladies
Who read one another's sacred
Journals, hoping to steal dreams
Dreams of callipygian
Dreams of tryst
Dreams of embrocation
Dreams of frisson
Each able to be held
In the hand, but
Lost to the wind
Father Physician
Is a savior of sorts
Curing them of all their ills
Yet, only for a day
Tomorrow the mind
Shall play tricks on them
Once again

Even if your planets
should align,
the way to her heart
does not begin between her legs.

If you give a troll a cookie
He will never stop with just one
Like cancer he'll spread
And infect his poison, just for fun
He used to live under a bridge
Now he resides in our very own community
Stopped he must be, my friends
Lest he terrorize HP with impunity

Sparks don't necessarily
lead to love just because
they ignite a fire,
sometimes all that burns
is the neighborhood...