A darkness crept into my waking crypt,
Its tendrils coiled to grip my tortured throat,
Till retching, retching, gurgled on a rote,
Prostrate, held in its clutches, tightly gripped —
No eye perceived this devil as it slipped
From day to blackened day inside to gloat;
An instrument was I to sound its note,
A plaything used, discarded, broken, stripped —
The world became a window; The outdoors
Turned alien; The beast remained inside,
Content to keep the prison of my mind —
From time to time I dared unto the stores,
        But ever on returning I would find
        The nightmare waiting where we both reside.

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.

From flowers so fair picked I the most fair.
Hues of her boughs, a rainbow put to shame;
Her scent, all roses, jasmines draw not near,
Her luster, like shore lamps of heaven the same.
Now that I bore the fairest of all flowers,
Like rays of sunshine parting yonder clouds
So didst I get enriched with bliss showers,
But unto her came many a bird in crowds
With covetous eyes coveting her shine
They were doves, ravens, among so many more.
Though I know not which stole a gem of mine,
Thou bird, flint-hearted thief of my flower,

      Hast thou no pity a flower now thine
      Upon my soul left her perfume divine?

© Kikodinho Edward Alexandros
Los Angeles, California, USA. 11/22/2018.

One day when closed shall be my book of life,
When I am hushed to eternal slumber
To rise and away soar to climes where strife
Of love hath no space to ever whisper,
In lands where tides of thy sweet memories
Might ebb no more unto shores of my heart
That culminated into smithereens
Since yon dead summer's day we fell apart
And thou, fair queen of stars, didst dim thy light
That ever shone upon shores of my mind
And enslaved me in dungeons dark as night
To sight no other star but ever blind!

    Oh hark! Like a wildly rolling river
    So shalt my love gush thy way forever.

My sonnet to: my future love to be
Tho' now I know you not, I know you some
Enough that you have wit, to love for me,
Let words impart, before our love become.
Refrain from early use, of that called love
As night to day, is past onto that word,
Yes tho' no doubt, our love will form above
I'll be that darkness still, where pain does gird.
If gentle, as imaginings create,
This heart you love, be gifted - soft the touch;
Then through your tones, will 'love' then hide in wait
Until that love shall shine the day as much.

Then all is yours my distant, darling one
Till then I too will wait, where love is none.

Sleep well Sweetheart and do not worry much —
Tho' snow and ice shall ever be my bower,
I share with God and thee this final hour
And in thy ***** dwell — Thou art my crutch
To pluck me off a perch, and in thy clutch
I soar beyond the mountain, and its power
To hold me in its grasp, consume, devour,
To leave me destitute without thy touch —
    The herald Sun plays fanfare to my passing,
    The priestly Mountain keeps his stony face,
    The clouds above like mourners are amassing
    In slow procession by this resting place —
    As slumber steals me from thy lovers’ touch,
    Sleep well Sweetheart and do not worry much.

When we first stood, those fifty years ago,
outside the church together, man and wife,
we had no way of knowing if our life
was bound for sun and smiles or tears and snow.
In the event, we had our share of each.
When children came, as we continued longer,
the highs and lows made our love all the stronger,
and happiness was never out of reach.
Together, then, we've weathered many a storm,
and having lasted now for half a century
I think we're justified to call it victory
to know our love continues just as warm.
(Although age may reduce youth's fiery passion,
a long, slow smoulder's never out of fashion.)

In woods of life a lion there so dwells,
A lion mortal men dost truly know,
All animals and birds of strangest dales,
For whiter than snow robes his heart doth glow.
His love not of here but of heaven's sphere,
For like as stars of yore and now sleeps last,
His cab's prey he must rummage here and there
Yet like as sun of yore and now wakes first:
His cabs in glee, the cynosure of all
Hence would as lief hunt through the darkest moor,
The entire shadowy un-trodden vale
To dress his cabs in joy-robes evermore.

   Hark! If this be no lion but rather
   An angel proud I am to call mother.


Kikodinho Edward Alexandros,
Los Angeles, California.

11/20th/2018.
              
#Shakespearean sonnet

#Been penning this poem since yesteryear