My heart doesn't skip a beat anymore
when I see you, it pumps twice faster
ricocheting to my throat and suffocates me
and sometimes I think you can hear it
a familiar beat you held to your ear before
you look around wondering of this nostalgia
your fingers cold to the touch it used to bring
craving for the sear when they touch my back
once, your eyes found mine in the sea of people
and they play our happy memories
and they smile at the thought of it
and they slowly realise, the hurt
and they become blank again
and they were the last I've seen of you;
reminding me of what we once had and how
we'll never get it back.

You are a compass, and eventually every direction you lead me in takes me back to you. I think I am the north pole. I think I'm confused, or just confusing you; I think we're two of a kind.

I once watched your magnetic heart swell when I touched you: I realized I was hurting you as I loved you all too tenderly; I never thought of that as a possibility.

You quickly made yourself a home in my cerebellum; I can't even sleep anymore. You're always there, tapping, tapping, tapping, sneaking your way through me, pulling strings that don't belong to you. I can't talk about you: you always interfere. My tongue tumbles ineloquently over your name; I've lost control. You are, again, tapping, rapping on my motor controls. Get out of my head, or come back home to my heart.

I am bitter, and I am turning, and I am not sure whose fault it is. In the end I'm sure it's mine, but it's much easier to blame you, and I do. I blame you. Why did I have to love you; why did I have to leave you? What made this all happen, was it the stars, or the moon forcing a change in the tides? Was it some other cliché, or was it just my idiotic decision?

I have lost you again.

like a scarlet rose
flames for ever lost
heart of ice
dancing moonlight
lies to a gypsy's heart

****** darkness
eternally cold
deadly rage

curse burning young
****** black stream
fiery hell

loneliness enthralled
alluring danger
tears present like a gentle power
deep crimson eyes

by scarlet rose

Sometimes the poem
doesn't want to come;
it hides from the poet
like a playful cat
who has run
under the house
& lurks among slugs,
roots, spiders' eyes,
ledge so long out of the sun
that it is dank
with the breath of the Troll King.

Sometimes the poem
darts away
like a coy lover
who is afraid of being possessed,
of feeling too much,
of losing his essential
loneliness-which he calls
freedom.

Sometimes the poem
can't requite
the poet's passion.

The poem is a dance
between poet & poem,
but sometimes the poem
just won't dance
and lurks on the sidelines
tapping its feet-
iambs, trochees-
out of step with the music
of your mariachi band.

If the poem won't come,
I say: sneak up on it.
Pretend you don't care.
Sit in your chair
reading Shakespeare, Neruda,
immortal Emily
and let yourself flow
into their music.

Go to the kitchen
and start peeling onions
for homemade sugo.

Before you know it,
the poem will be crying
as your ripe tomatoes
bubble away
with inspiration.

When the whole house is filled
with the tender tomato aroma,
start kneading the pasta.

As you rock
over the damp sensuous dough,
making it bend to your will,
as you make love to this manna
of flour and water,
the poem will get hungry
and come
just like a cat
coming home
when you least
expect her.