All flowers spring from the bud,
And waves from bellows of the ocean,
Thunder springs from the cloud,
And ataraxy from a zephyr's motion.

Day springs from the ebony night,
And night from fading beams of day,
From fire springs flames of light,
And many a time crockery from clay.

The mountains spring from the earth,
And from pleasant bowers a haven,
Fountains of love unto joy give birth,
And stars from the shores of heaven.

All vapor springs from the water,
And rain from the far melting skies,
From the sun springs a golden glitter,
And pulchritude from my lover's eyes.


©Kikodinho Edward Alexandros,
Los Angeles, California. 9/5th/2019.

My dear Icarus,
Have you brought tales of gold for me?
You-- the master of self,
The one who held his own thread and shears.
Don't share of how hard you beat your wings
But how the air beat against your brow.
Don't echo your father's faded cries
But sing the songs of the Aegean sea--
Sing them only for me!

My sweet Icarus,
Is the world as grand as the travelers say?
Are crumbling maps and hand-spun tales nothing to compare?
I've read of Sicily, where your father rests his mourning head.
I've traced its rivers as they curved against my torn papyrus.
Sicily, the land of Aetna.
Oh, to watch the land shake at the beckoning of her call
(Oh, to fly free of these labyrinth walls)!

My darling Icarus,
Tell me-- is life better above the blanket of Grecian blue?
Is it better than what the Fates designed?
Is it better than what I hold today
(please, let it be more than today)?

My beloved Icarus,
Will you give me your wings--
The mingling of feather, wax, and dreams.
Will you give me your wings and
Your will to yearn higher and higher

So that I too can reach the city of gold.

Behind my old house
once grew a mango tree;
last year they chopped it down
to build a highway, toll free.

It never inspired much awe or poetry
it was like other mango trees,
under which I played since I was three
and was home to some possessive bees.        

When strong winds blew
it never bowed,
its branches somehow grew
that is until now.

The ground on which it stood
is now covered with asphalt,
and it will never be understood
as to who was really at fault.

And as for the bees
well, I never did like them,
but then you see
they were here longer than I am.

My neighbors and cousins
with whom I had lots of fun,
seek all sorts of reasons
why now we have none.

I can only say, for what's worth
when the Almighty does an inventory,
He may label planet Earth
"An old cemetery".

By celestial shores is there burnished gold
More fair than I see in my lover's eyes,
Or seraphs whose pulchritude to behold
Nears my queen's opalescence of the skies?
For though I know days will fade into night,
And nights will evermore melt into day,
But my love, like as hues of the sun's light
That ever glows the same, so shall it stay
With constance like as tides of gushing time
That neither man nor birds of skies above
Can dare grasp, but watch 'em roll clime to clime.
So, as far as lives time, so shalt my love,

   For like as water doth abound the sea,
   So doth her love upon a heart of mine.


©Kikodinho Edward Alexandros,
Los Angeles, California. 9/1st/2019.