Traces of you line every moment silver,
     even in my darkest day
Traces of you can make the empty linger,
     the second you walk away

Traces of you are my hidden treasure,
     a joy that is all my own
Traces of you are too fine to measure,
     yet brighten my darkness alone

Traces of you make life worth living,
     the birth of my very smile
Traces of you make ease of forgiving,  
     though memories tend to beguile

Traces of you turn hell into glory,  
     then turn back the other way
Traces of you rewrite the story,
     every second of every day

Stained glass coffins
Crystalline mosquitoes
Death that masquerades
In silken flags and floras
Languorous beauties
Graffiti of red and violet light
Sirens kiss the bullets
As they scatter them
To burn holes in sepia dreams
Watercolor ghosts
Casting out wildflower candy
Attics that hide under
Strawberry dust and lemons
That melts into mildew
As they pass down the gullet
Layers of ashes in the belly
“But you told us to swallow!”
Masses of children howl
The pretty ghouls hiss back
“Cannot you tell a lie by now,
By the sweetness of its taste?”

My heart's my gps
as it
always
leads me home.

they fluttter
smile
sparkle
the stained glasss
window gleams in response
two of them
mirrroring
floating gently down
resting on sillls
made of freckles

*Meggie

syrup tones slip from your
puckered bud of a mouth
oil from your eyes staining,
not quite reaching your rusty smile
tendons creak as your teeth
grind
forcing little things to trust you
"come lie down a while...

He loved her and she loved him
His kisses ****** out her whole past and future or tried to
He had no other appetite
She bit him she gnawed him she ******
She wanted him complete inside her
Safe and Sure forever and ever
Their little cries fluttered  into the curtains

Her eyes wanted nothing to get away
Her looks nailed down his hands his wrists his elbows
He gripped her hard so that life
Should not drag her from that moment
He wanted all future to cease
He wanted to topple with his arms round her
Or everlasting or whatever there was
Her embrace was an immense press
To print him into her bones
His smiles were the garrets of a fairy place
Where the real world would never come
Her smiles were spider bites
So he would lie still till she felt hungry
His word were occupying armies
Her laughs were an assasin's attempts
His looks were bullets daggers of revenge
Her glances were ghosts in the corner with horrible secrets
His whispers were whips and jackboots
Her kisses were lawyers steadily writing
His caresses were the last hooks of a castaway
Her love-tricks were the grinding of locks
And their deep cries crawled over the floors
Like an animal dragging a great trap
His promises were the surgeon's gag
Her promises took the top off his skull
She would get a brooch made of it
His vows  pulled out all her sinews
He showed her how to make a love-knot
At the back of her secret drawer
Their screams stuck in the wall
Their heads fell apart into sleep like the two halves
Of a lopped melon, but love is hard to stop

In their entwined  sleep they exchanged arms and legs
In their dreams their brains took each other hostage

In the morning they wore each other's face

I revelled in  pleasures
That you wrapped around me
And something so good
Should not ever end
I basked in sensations
From rhythmic movements
That cut off my breaths
I loved every second
Of tender sweet lips
Embarking on journeys
With chill bumps along
Each trail you would wind
It always amazed me
How feelings erupted
And left me exhausted
Still begging for more
I thought since I had you
No gold ring was needed
Oh I meant to buy one
To keep you all mine
But time winded on
And I never ventured
To jewelry places
As I failed to see
That ring that you wanted
Could be so important
In my vanity
So you lost your faith
To my negligence
Till your empty pillow
And your vacant closet
Attest to the blindness
I had for your feelings
Now I pay the price
For thoughtless assumptions
In solitare nights
Of longing for you


Copyright Louis Brown