There is a sadness at times
that lurks around every corner,
swims the moat of my outward defences,
climbs the tower of optimism
and seeps into the walls
of my stalwart fortress.
It is then that I must take up arms
and fight
to defend the citadel of my convictions
and secure my treasury of hope.

                                          Ida Werrett

I admire her in silent reverence,
though she doesn't know my name.
Milky skin and graceful curves
will haunt my every day.
She radiates a boundless wonder;
sets my heart ablaze.
Oceans swell in desperation,
longing her embrace.
And when she's fallen, I'm adrift
by daylight's sullen gloom.
No other woman can eclipse
the beauty of the moon.

His eyes
Pressed into her with the pull of polarity
A haunting indication of an impossibility too beautiful to protest
He looks
With a longing he has hidden deep in his sock drawer
So no one can tell him he’s wrong or irrational
A locket only to be worn round his pulsating mind’s mannequin
But she wears on her sleeve what he’s trying to leave
And dressed like a nightingale
In feathers so free
Her eyes with a fire that waves like the sea
Closer they crawl
Past night’s shadowed humans getting drunk off doubt and betting on beauty
Past the scratches on stools once straddled by sorrow
And Isolation, his lover
Who lost her last words somewhere under the covers
That they shook out in morning
To shake off the mourning
But the streets crave a sweep
For the ashes are thick and catch on their tongue
Reminding the runaways to stop feeling young
And as they both draw so near
With the friction of fear
And the whip of a wish
And a harsh hit of hope
For the call of a kiss
Her hairs stand on stilts at the nape of her neck
An impatient frenzy that’s waiting on deck
But the lights left her lonely
A bubble-bruised brain
And he left her only
The promise of pain
As he grabbed another hand and rushed out the door
She smiled a sadness that left her lips sore
And gathered her hollows
And the last of her trust
And took to the streets with the ashes and dust

Pressed with
starched confidence
I told her—
I want you to feel
the weight of my words.

Oh, they fell heavy.
Collected in institutions
of incarcerated desires
with no consideration
for the future capacities
of emotional faculties,

shirking the responsibilities
of such fragile hopes–
stomped to shattered pieces.

Pressed  with
ironed resolve,
I held down the diction
that resists the grips of reason,
my clenched fists spilling
to the ground, the dust of it all.