Darkness and shadow
Is just life without the Lord
Light and a purpose
Is now my life with the Lord
He comforts me day-to-day

Lonely I write you
Feelings you always express
My dearest haiku

Are you feeling caterpillars in your stomach?
Will you give me a wedge of religion to chew on?
Is it possible, two weeks after moving in
to a third-floor apartment on the outskirts of town
I’ll discover hairs in the sink
like skinny black maggots,
wounds on the couch from a spilt glass of red?
Are you going to comment on my skin,
am I going to do the same to you?
Will we share baths together,
watch our fingers wrinkle
as we volley stories to each other
like we did when we met?
Or maybe you’ll thwack me with a pillow
if I begin to snore or drool,
maybe I’ll crank my voice up a notch
if you whine about work
and we’ll sit in different seats
with the TV turned down.
Will I be just too boring? Is that it?
The whiff of my aftershave,
the shriek of my knife against
the plates we’ll buy from IKEA,
all those things will bring about a moan.
Am I going to have to dine on politics?
Would you hate it if I checked the scores on my phone?
The *** might be so disappointing
we won’t even bother to undress anymore.
We are thinking the same thoughts here,
we must be.
Are we doing the right thing, darling?
Will it ever be time for the right thing?

Last night I read your poem
in bed instead of writing
like I'd said I would.  I
had to start over twice
because my eyes aren't
as good as my heart
when it comes to stopping
and starting at pauses
heavy with losses.  Lost
causes and me seem to be
your specialties. Especially me.

I have seen lonely places
But where do broken hearts go?
Do they look for home?
But where do broken hearts go
If home is where they just came from?

So where do broken hearts go?
Do they find somewhere new out there?
Or are they too broke to even care?

Where do broken hearts go?
Do they wait to meet another broken heart
So together they could make a start?

Oh where do broken hearts go?
I wish I do know
Where I'm going.

Since I am coming to that holy room,
         Where, with thy choir of saints for evermore,
     I shall be made thy music; as I come
         I tune the instrument here at the door,
         And what I must do then, think here before.

     Whilst my physicians by their love are grown
         Cosmographers, and I their map, who lie
     Flat on this bed, that by them may be shown
         That this is my south-west discovery,
       [lang l]Per fretum febris[lang e], by these straits to die,

pmdv3 n="33-11">   I joy, that in these straits I see my west;
       For, though their currents yield return to none,
   What shall my west hurt me? As west and east
       In all flat maps (and I am one) are one,
       So death doth touch the resurrection.

   Is the Pacific Sea my home? Or are
       The eastern riches? Is Jerusalem?
   Anyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltar,
       All straits, and none but straits, are ways to them,
       Whether where Japhet dwelt, or Cham, or Shem.

   We think that Paradise and Calvary,
       Christ's cross, and Adam's tree, stood in one place;
   Look, Lord, and find both Adams met in me;
       As the first Adam's sweat surrounds my face,
       May the last Adam's blood my soul embrace.

   So, in his purple wrapp'd, receive me, Lord;
       By these his thorns, give me his other crown;
   And as to others' souls I preach'd thy word,
       Be this my text, my sermon to mine own:
   "Therefore that he may raise, the Lord throws down."

Your words, resonating throughout.

Destroying what was left, an aberration.

Thank you.

An ash blooms, resulting

In the most beautiful form, feeding

From your lesson. Surprised, I am not,

For I was safeguarded.

Recalled, that memory is,

A chocolate cosmos ever so bliss.

I am the queen of what ifs
Sitting on a throne of could've beens

My fears are my loyal subjects
Escorting my dreams to the gallows

My ambitions are now prisoners
To my court of procrastination

I, the queen
Reign over all of this regret