Not my stop, but
     I take your hand
still the thought of
     pull you with me
leaving makes my
     kiss you fiercely
heart feel hot – to cross
     together
beneath the buzzing light,
     escaping
silently into this crisp night.

Roses are lovely
yet easily torn.
Like sensitive women
they need those sharp thorns.

When the most potent
words are found
within the marble
quarry of the heart,
are chiseled free
from the incoherent
mass, set thoughtfully
in the right places,
the poem becomes
a living being,
its song
echoing long and long
in the deeps of the soul
whence it came.

Sweet my lady, I long to see
Inside the heart and mind of thee.
Were I to look there, what would I find?
Gracious lady, tell me your mind.

Do you fear I do not love thee,
Because my face you have not seen?
Or do you trust my love's unchang'd,
As it has ever been?

Do you care to know my heart,
Or have you tired of me?
My lady sweet, do tell, do tell,
My lady sweet, do tell me.

As lovers will, I feel bereft
In exile from thee, sweet!
My lady I confess to thee,
My fears I lay at thy feet.

Whether you love me yet or no,
I will not my love betray, though
Without you my own light grows dim,
I hardly see the way.

Love struck a spark
when first our eyes
into each others gazed--
once kindled there,
pure passion flared
into a fiery blaze.

Love fiercer burns
each time we meet.
The dead cry, "It is sin!"
these hearts alight,
twin torches bright,
blazing in the wind.

So this then is hell:
to live on in pain
with a heart that won't die
though no love remains.

Deep below the surface
of a sea storm-tossed, frenetic
lies buried an ancient sailing ship
once bold but now pathetic.

Her rigging long since torn away,
her masts and canvas rotten,
naked bones alone remain
of sailors long forgotten.

She bore these brave adventurers
toward a brand new land.
She and they alike were cursed
never to reach a strand.

But if ye look more closely
at her shattered, mouldered deck,
ye'd find the priceless treasure here
hidden in every wreck.