Love yourself—accept yourself—forgive yourself—and be good to yourself, because without you the rest of us are without a source of many wonderful things.” ~Leo F. Buscaglia

You couldn't believe
so quiet could be the croc
its eyes a wise sage
scales rigid rock

lay frozen on the mud
no flies could stir
stubbornly in trance
mind elsewhere

sixteen feet in size
dumb cool in creek
in the hermit's guise
lamblike tender meek

pounce it does when needs
not preys on what eats not
the human hunter feeds
on hatred and whole lot.

Break, break, break,
    On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
    The thoughts that arise in me.

O, well for the fisherman's boy,
    That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
    That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on
    To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
    And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break
    At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
    Will never come back to me.

A Sonnet is a moment’s monument,—
Memorial from the Soul’s eternity
To one dead deathless hour. Look that it be,
Whether for lustral rite or dire portent,
Of its own arduous fulness reverent:
Carve it in ivory or in ebony,
As Day or Night may rule; and let Time see
Its flowering crest impearled and orient.

A Sonnet is a coin: its face reveals
The soul,—its converse, to what Power ’tis due:—
Whether for tribute to the august appeals
Of Life, or dower in Love’s high retinue,
It serve; or, ’mid the dark wharf’s cavernous breath,
In Charon’s palm it pay the toll to Death.

I watch you move between my palms
What a soul you are between your bones
Straddling skin like a sacrilegious nun basking in the glory of Satan
Just a taste on my tongue
Like bitten words of repression you ache for mercy
Funny how we are nothing but rot in the end
And still I love you, in the state you are in
A far cry from lively
But still
Just as lovely