Fearless and ferocious
This little tiger has moxie,
If I’m not careful,
Watching for the details
Going to my coffee *** like a thirsty gazelle,
He may just pounce to bite me!

Proud lion,
Standing upon the cardboard mountain
Eyes darting to passer-byers
As he sits tall

BUT WAIT

"What is that?"
A flick of his tail
"I must attack"

And he does,
Chasing himself in circles
Dizzied until he flops flat,
And concludes his dance
With a little spell of a nap.

What a silly thing,
My tiger, lion, cheetah
House cat

Illumination,
Not only lighting my way
Opening the pathos for my ethos
My memory is on full display.

Feel the course of knowledge
Coarsely exfoliating my pretense,
Cognizant of the folly—
Of never seeing through to the end of the show.

Illumination,
Not only chases the shadows,
But shows off my deep scars,
Rooted systems of traumatic plants
In a garden, I hide behind secrets.

Sacred thoughts,
Priceless feelings,
Caught in vine-riddled ramparts
I can’t be bothered to open a draw bridge
Can’t trust that the enemy isn’t calling from inside,
Chasing me like a phantom,
All my pain in tandem, nerve death like a bad tooth.

Illumination,
Not only a granter of knowledge,
But a memento mori of a past life,
Reminded of innocence at it’s last rites
Buried so far beneath the core of the world,
I’d explode like a neutron star over and over
To relive a single moment over.

Illumination,
Illuminate all that is dark in me,
Warm me with your cruel heat,
And make a better man of me.

If you utter my name,
I shall manifest as an entity—
A horned wolf crafted from obsidian shadow.
My reddish eyes will dart through you,
Consuming your light and leaving you with only endless onyx.

If you dare to reach for me,
I shall corrupt you, overriding your DNA.
I shall consume your soul like a cannibal,
Invading your spaces like a parasite,
And you shall become my vessel.

If you sing my praises,
I shall repay you in broken dreams.
I shall reveal that blood is merely wine,
As you sip from tapped vines,
Renewed  with a steeled spine,
Forever  twisted and turned—
mine.

I am the wolf, hungry and insatiable,
A demon with a slicked tongue.
Some perceive me as an incubus,
Capable of misleading you into darker deeds.
I shall ravage your body while you beg me for mercy,
And when the day is done, you shall seek release.

From my dungeon,
I shall emerge into the streets,
Until you find an emptiness in need.
Speak my name, reach for me, and sing my praises,
Until I come to efface you, nameless.

In the heat of moments,
Where incandescence mirrored flame
Dancing marigold shadows on alabaster skin,
Flush pink rosy cheeks greet with ruby red lips curled
A quaint smile, in a quiet Manor.

Quiet manners,
In succinct hungered eyes
Staring into permissive lashes
Batted from sapphire pools,
Lively looms of auburn Toole
Shading cherub roundness of her French features,
Obstructing beauty that begot but a heavy sigh.

Pallid cold fingers,
Reach to swipe the silken veil,
Close to her heat, she’s radiant
Sun-washed white, Christian pure.

She offers her hand,
Like an hors d’oeuvres,
She encourages the beast,
With tiny begs and pleads.

Fangs descend,
Parasitic hunger contends
With romantic candor,
Need not to soil sentiment,
He won’t be rude or offended.

A kiss,
Chilled lips touch throbbing wrist
Tongue teasing the riverbeds,
Sending them into blued shivers,
And then a pang rang through
Screaming at the synapses,
The sinew snap of the epidermis,
Snap pea in its clarity,
A rarity in her giving so charitably.

A lashing flick,
Twirling like butterflies patternless flight
Suckling the honeysuckle nearly dry.
As sapphire eyes slated to drained gray pearls
Slinking frame bracing on the shoulder of a chair
She smiles still, given fanatically
She loves with majesty and anima.

He kisses her like a long goodbye
A farewell crept upon phantasmagoric moments
Splashed as vividly as neon paint along black-lit canvases
Her body pocked with punctures
Polka-spotted chic in tapped keg kinesis.
She yearned to join his side,
Like some corpse bride
Under the guise of sanguineous wines
Forever entwined,
And who could deny it?

But he did,
Hid behind chthonic masquerades
And never wishing to see the day
An ageless love betrayed his fragility,
A heart that ached so eternally
Tragic in their symphony
Played out in hungry morsels.
The immortal who loved a mortal
And her spectral haunting,
In every drop given.

Why is it so cold when your fingers touch?
Why can’t I feel you on my tongue?
When did the magic lose its spark in the way you used to hold me?
I would do anything for one more dance in the rain.

Open me like a letter,
Spill your fingers over the contents,
And let me say the words that stay hidden,
Locked behind the space of fear.
You won’t find them kissing upon your ears.
I need to know if you still see me.

You’re an apparition to me, translucent,
Passing through me, taking all my life force.
If only it could make your lies work.

It’s so cold when your fingers touch,
And as we kiss, I cannot feel you on my lips.
It’s like loving the air as toxic as it seems,
Choking me as I fall between the seams of reality
that there is no fae to guide you back home.
And I dance alone.

This world is corporatized,
No longer human we see only brands
And at hand is the sanctity of all we ever had
History honored is now history be ******
Voices spent focused on idiocy have become weaponized.

Nothing is soothing in this silence,
No static in the ears, and no waves within the canopies.
Nothing is stirring beneath the verdant cover.
Stirring chitin remains still, and not even a spider dares to tap on her limbs.
Something inexorable lurks within the fog, watching.

There must be something in the water when the mist rises in toxic cover.
Dead fish float like chopped logs from arboreal slaughter,
Skeletal deer prance with an urgent need to flee—
As the shadows morph into tenebrous forms.
Limbs outstretched, they choke the light from the sun,
And colorful flowers rot in their bloom.

A billow of smoke creates a room, walls of fog closing in on him now.
No escape from judgment as it approaches.
Hear the scrape of the scythe on pavement cutting,
The echoes of the ****** calling.
Deeds and sins replay in a cinematic recording.
When peace was offered, he did nothing.
Cold, invisible fingers catch the nape of his neck,
Grasping this wretch as the time comes.

Oh, there must be something in the water, where his ego lies and dies.
The metallic smell of old blood pollutes his senses,
Iron-laced perfume gathered on mildewed, moldy linen.
Red spots from his transgression stain his clothes.
He kneels in the shallow water, gargling black water to express his confession,
But it won’t top the procession.
It’s coming through these closing walls.

Nothing is soothing about this silence,
No miracle befitting to save the ******.
Brimstone and sulfur scents assault his senses as the fiery gates open like a welcoming parade. Fingers reach from the depths signaling charades as the reaper leaps and slashes away.
Welcome to Forever.

You’re just another, something in the water.