You burn me with your poisoned tongue
Your vicious bile you spill
The hatred pours from every spore
Hating people at your will
Who gives you the right to stand so tall
Who gave the right to judge
What made you such a bitter cow
The right to hold a grudge
What makes you think I give a ****
About the thing's you say
I'll just hold my head up high
And simply walk away

I like your skin
when it is covered in goose bumps
I like to stroke my fingers
lightly,
lightly
over the surface
and feel changes

I like your skin
when it is rough
I like to examine your calloused
hands, and hold them
so tight,
so tight
it reminds me of your past
and how you survived

I like your skin
when it is freckled
I like to look at the map it makes
next to my skin, where we match
perfectly,
perfectly
I wonder where we'd go
if we followed our flesh

I like your skin
when it is wet
I like the way the water runs
between us, but never washes off
our love,
our love
I like when it shines
but even in the secret dark

I like your skin
when it is touching mine
I like how you feel my heart,
shoulders, stomach, thighs,
and the rest of me so
slowly,
slowly
I like when there is no space
between ourselves

I like your skin
when you like mine
I like how my smile makes yours,
and how my laugh does that too
I like the way I tickle your knee
over,
and over,
I like when you kiss my skin,
and know it is your skin too

twilight trees –
a flock of blackbirds
empties the shadows

--

morning mist
lifts from the forest
. . . a haiku rolls in


.

You are my heart and upon it
I have etched my secret hopes for you:
My hope that you burn brightly, and long—
That your most heartfelt desires lash themselves
Upon the winds of passion
And that your heart’s love flows
Out of eyes and mouth to the tuneful ears
Of those who surround you.
That hope survives and blooms in the inclement weather
Of disappointment—
That you find and etch your secret desires
For your own child—
And that when I am gone,
That in a flowering corner of your soul
That you feel my love for you—


Copyright/All Rights Reserved Audrey Howitt 2011

It is not the sun that lights my path.
It never will and never has.
And as age slowly cripples me
I realize, without the sun I'll ever be.

In this time of plastic body parts,
A culture with no concept of art,
Lit by the fake and fluorescent suns,
Where the only language heard comes from the mouth
                                                    ­                               of a gun

I am not alone in this dark and natural dankness.
We are children who grow|and are thankless.
We cannot even dream of open spaces.
The television reflects a bleak reality on our faces.

It's a time of war|the enemy is everyone.
Time has stopped in this world void of sun.
All that's left is the intent to ****.
And our only way out is to simply stand still.

Typed words flow
Across the screen.
Cursor blinks
seen, unseen.

Electrons racing
through the wires,
Transporting meaning
as word inspires.

Sensors picking up
the textings.
Users taking in
the sextings.

Social networks
come and go.
Human beings
move so slow.

Time's reduced
to microseconds.
Attention spans
too slow I reckon.

An elderly priest
sits on the dilapidated
stair to his hovel

Contemplating once again
the stinger he delivered
in his Sunday sermon.

An attempt to strike a note
of serious consideration of
the consequences
of sinning to his
congregation.

And yet, as he leans with
his gnarled hands upon his
walking stick,

He can not help but
smile at the wicked joy
he witnesses as a

Drunken Santa Claus and
a skimpily clad *******
weave their way past
him down the
cobbled lane.

You are banded for life -
marked and set apart
to be despised, hated.
The yellow stripes tell it all -
you're to be feared
should one get too close.
Only among your own
are you accepted,
and then but tenuously.

--