There exists no mortal luxury
Which rivals the pure delight
That is quiet companionship.
To fill silence
With notes of congruence
And to look out at landscapes
With bonded visions is to feel
Most poignantly
The righteousness of
Human existence.
I believe in these moments
Of softened connection
And strengthened ties,
In which I may feel that
I am one with you all
and we are meant to be
In combined presence.

There is not much to be sure of rather than beginnings and ends, but in the abstract in between I am grateful for friends.

To admire a beautiful woman you wish not to know her thoughts
Lest her image be tarnished by possible contradictory unbecoming’s
>
Which may reside
In the active mind
Of an active other
Rather it is as we please
To keep
The object of our fancy
Within constraints
A figure to paint
A portrait to take
An image of untouched delicacy  

And so I look at you and fear the words
Which strive like petals to bloom on your lips
There is a certain mystery to you
I know that I will miss
If I hear your worldly views
You may dim in curious glow
If I learn your sense of humor
The wonder of you might go
And so in hopes to safeguard
That unforgettable,
Mystical charm
I hold you secure
For in my eyes you are
Like a butterfly in a jar

To me you are
A winged thing
Adrift on the airs of secrecy
With demure peek
And a smile sneak
I ache to see you flying
Yet there lies the danger inherently
That your skyward course
Would take the route
Of your hidden truth
Which is at odds with my envisioning

Hence I pledge to know you not
Beyond what eyes may take
This is a jar
Which remains sealed
That your beauty may never taint.

I am a forest of many small fires.
Matches tossed carelessly
into tinder which waits fervently
for the touch of a sparking disarray,
I am all at once a smolder and senseless blazing flame
and the smoke which billows away from me reeks arrestingly of shame.
And so I am ashes,
purely enveloped the black sickening airs of ghastly passions,
insisted becomings and hasty stashes,
I am shame
and attempts to mask it
seem to disintegrate like the cajoles of yesterday.
I am a forest of many small fires which have melded into one,
as the blurring of myself with the long observed sum.
As dust dry bones to the carcasses of slain,
the creatures of innocence whose tried escapes but in vain,
I slough the suffering of a thousand drunkards on the undeserving lips,
of the meticulous sparrow’s sloppily incinerated nest.
I am dissolution to good and my flames stand to show,
of how easily destruction may pass for personal growth.

Your hand on flesh
Over rib’s fresh bone
Over exposed heart
For you alone.

I don’t know why
This arrests me so
To feel your palm
below my throat.

Yet contented smile
Creeps to my countenance
When affection’s physicality
Meets tenderness’ essence.

My hand on yours
On my skin
On my heart
I grasp to the prospect
Of love’s restart.

To commiserate and lament
One’s wretched enslavement
With the very captor who tends to one’s bonds
Is to indulge in self effacement,
The tragic engagement
Of assailant
With the victim
They wreak hell upon.

Yet, still,
False heaven exists
In fleeting moments of vague acceptance,
In which I feel my flattery
Has you pleased.
I shudder with the deliverance
Of the sparse and scarce evidence
That you have even meager
Belief in me.

The captive adores her keeper
When the only grounding beneath her
Is the ****-sodden earth
Of many well-turned deceits.
The kept girl festers
Unaware of her constraints
When she so blindly
Kisses the hand which beats.