if you love somebody let your lovelight show
look into there eyes let the lovelight flow
hold them in your arms with a love so true
whisper out the words darling i love you

let them know you love them with a warm embrace
they will see the love that is written on your face
keep them safe forever and love them everyday
then the love you have will never fade away

Lonely and cold,
I wait for love
beside the frosted window
while dreams of fireflies
sparkle in the snow.
I sip black coffee
from my mug, quietly,
so I don't wake them...

Because I know when summer comes
I’ll have found someone
and I want to make sure they're all well rested
so they can swirl around my lover and me
when our soft lips spark
for the first time
like flint,
so I can watch them drown out
in that new lovelight
that'll glow furiously when dusk
cinders into darkness.

But for now
I'll have to deal with the darkest months
alone
while they lay on the lawn
asleep under the moon
with beautiful dreams.

I love you
dow
       w
           n
to your jagged,
         dark edges
culling smoke
               and twisting tides
                  your steaming heart
              that pulses, in my hands
          as you give it-
and the pungent tears
when they fall
         from your eyes
I lick up your pain
to soothe it smooth
its rawness catching
       velvet ripples of skin
I pull a blanket
of mahogany wine
over your soul
          lacerations
that seep out
              from the layers within

and in that tender of
nightfall's darkest foliage
I long to calm
your monsters' clawing
as they gnaw at you from
                  the inside out

I crave to fill
the hollowed-out longing
my own hungers writhing
      in obscene
                      devout

For I am all that is sacred and wild
the spark has been lit
from my innermost rooms
I dance to the drums of
the woman as child
her mystical ways chanting
rhythms in runes

Demons might dance
as you gaze in reflection
in the mirror of time,
of unfiltered space
      but I adore all your sides,
          your imperfections
discern the divine
in the planes of your face
You are my galaxy
              of dark matter
bringing out my
           own looking glass
                         of vantablack
in a feral crown of obsidian
                             and onyx
as you reach me deep,
there's no going back

For when you love me like that,
plant your tameless,
                            hot seed
it blossoms within me
a tightly-wrapped tourniquet
               for when I bleed
and if my guts
should spill upon
               the  floor
you will remind me,
in glowing of pores
           of who I am
and how I am whole
a lovelight lit in the
storm of my soul
I will push down deeper
until I feel those roots
that connect me to
my center
  to my
succulent fruit
So slice me open.
     Pull me apart.
Let the juice run down
to heal
     your
jagged-edged
               heart

what
make our
hearts collide
the
faith
that
we
have inside
when
we feel the lovelight

The store had been closed for a month or more,
The Receivers opened the door,
To auction off all the fittings there,
Whatever stood on the floor,
There were counters, mirrors, plenty of stock,
The tills and the ******* bins,
It was all going under the hammer,
Even a line of mannequins.

When John McRogers happened to pass
He heard the clamour inside,
He peered on in through the window glass
And he watched the human tide,
The bids were coming from everywhere
From phones, and spread through the store,
So he wandered into the human mass
And made his way from the door.

He wandered along the vacant aisles
Saw everything piled in heaps,
There wasn’t much of a bidding war
So everything went quite cheap,
He wondered if he should make a bid
Was there anything there for him?
His eyes then came to rest on a girl,
A fabulous mannequin.

She stood in a line of eight or nine
But caught his eye from the start,
He thought that she had the bluest eyes
Of all, and she stood apart!
She must have been all of six foot six
With a tapering line to the waist,
And ******* of promise and silken legs
A woman of style and taste.

He put in a nervous bid when she
Was auctioned along the line,
But nobody put in a counter bid,
And he thought to himself, ‘She’s mine!’
He had a courier pick her up
And take her straight to his home,
Then stood her up in his office, where
He could savour her there, alone.

She hadn’t a scrap of clothing on
They’d taken it off when she went,
He tried to avert his eyes, she showed
No sign of embarrassment,
Her hands hung limply down at her side
No effort to cover up,
But her eyes had followed him round the room,
Whenever he’d start, or stop.

‘I’m going to call you Jennifer,’
He said to himself, out loud,
Then sensed she shuddered and straightened up
In a movement that seemed quite proud,
His wife had left him the year before
For a keeper, down at the zoo,
So now he said, and in fact he swore,
‘I only have eyes for you!’

‘I only have eyes for you, my dear,
My Jennifer from Le Trée,
I’ll always cherish you near me here
When I work out here, all day,
We’ll spend our evenings here in the warm
With a single desk-top light,
And in the gloom of this little room
You might even come to life!’

He left her naked, stood by his desk,
She had an ****** air,
The wig she wore flowed over her back
Brunette, but the lights were fair,
He worked each night at his desk in gloom
Lit only by one small stand,
And every now and again he’d rouse,
Reach over and touch her hand.

The hand was cold, plastic and hard
And it couldn’t return a thing,
Until one night, he opened a box
And slipped on a wedding ring,
He worked away for an hour or so
Til he’d filled out a batch of forms,
Then reached unconsciously out for her hand
To find it was soft and warm.

He looked up into her shining face
And noticed, to his surprise,
Her cheeks had softened, her lips were red
And a lovelight shone from her eyes,
He stood and reached for her willing form
And she did what he wanted to,
But an urgent message tugged at his brain,
‘I only have eyes for you!’

‘I only have eyes for you,’ she thought
And beamed that into his head,
He never would leave that office again,
His friends soon thought he was dead.
They came in force, broke into his house
And found that he’d really gone,
‘There’s only a couple of mannequins here,
But one of them looks like John!’

David Lewis Paget

He lay awake in his narrow bed
And opened his bedside drawer,
Then fumbled around until he’d found
The thing he was looking for,
A faded folder, covered in dust
It must have been there for years,
‘I want you to take this folder, son,
And give it to Mildred Pierce!’

His grandson blinked away a tear
And uttered a silent sigh,
Then dropped his gaze, he found it hard
To look in the old man’s eye,
He knew he wouldn’t be there for long
Though his steely brow was fierce,
He said, ‘Sure Gramps, I’ll pass it along
When I find your Mildred Pierce.’

‘You’ll find her back where I left her, when
The way of the world was wide,
Up on the banks of the Darling, she’ll
Be there on the Wentworth side,
She used to teach when the town was young
In a little timber school,
I should have stayed, but the girl had clung
And I guess I was just a fool.’

‘She looked so prim in her teacher dress
And her hair was up in a bun,
We used to walk by the river banks
When her teaching day was done,
Down in the shade of the eucalypts
I kissed her there one day,
With her hair let down on her shoulders
She said, ‘Please don’t go away.’’

‘I only stayed for the shearing, then
I followed the shearing tracks,
I had to keep on the move as long
As the wool grew on their backs,
We said goodbye at the junction where
The mighty rivers join,
I should have stayed for the love she gave
But my only love was coin.’

The old man, he was exhausted then,
Lay back, and then he sighed,
His grandson waited a moment, but
He saw that his gramps had died,
He took a look in the folder when
He settled in back at home,
And found a number of pages there
And each one was a poem.

One called ‘Sorry!’ and one called ‘Why?’
And one that he’d drowned in tears,
One that was just a stark lament
‘For the Love of Mildred Pierce’.
The boy had blushed at the poem meant
To eulogise her thighs,
While others sought for her tender lips
And the lovelight in her eyes.

He waited until the summer break
When the funeral was done,
Loaded the car and headed out
To where the rivers run,
He thought that she would be dead by this
It was just an exercise,
But when he had asked for Mildred Pierce
They had caught him by surprise.

‘She’s out on the banks of the Darling
You can’t miss her little shack,
She keeps herself to herself, prefers
To wander the outback.’
He stopped the car at her garden gate
And he called out by her door,
‘I’m looking for Mildred Pierce!’ Then heard
Her footsteps on the floor.

He half expected an ancient dame
With half a foot in the hearse,
But what he saw was a lovely girl
And still in her tender years,
‘They named me after my mother
Who was named for her mother too,
But Gran’s been gone for ever so long
So what did you want to do?’

They sat on her small verandah, and
He showed her the folder then,
‘My gramps wrote these for your grandmother,
Some time in the way back when.’
She slowly read through the pile of verse
And her eyes had filled with tears,
‘I’d heard all about this shearer from
My grandma, Mildred Pierce.’

‘He couldn’t have known they had a child,
My mother arrived in the spring,
And she was told who her father was
But they never heard a thing.
My Grannie died as a spinster, still
A teacher at the school.
How sad that he couldn’t reach her then
To say that his heart was full.’

They went to walk by the river where
Some fifty years before,
A teacher walked with a shearer for
A magic moment more,
They stopped, stood under the eucalypts
With them both reduced to tears,
And that was the moment he kissed her,
For the love of Mildred Pierce.

David Lewis Paget

moonrock, lovelight;
dim, silent, mindbreath-
interleaving sunspace;
dark, narrow, corridor of doubt--
   far below this moment lurks
         an otherwisely ancient growing sense:
              of worldliness i haven't asked again
                  (yet you are this world-to-be);
              the smile-harvest nearing,
         your touch reasserts its ever-meaning
   of dancing in the starlight i ask
my yearning future self,
of playful rolls of joy
spinning off our lichen finger tracings~
of healthiness and utter-smooth response
    to sharpness i think with full bodied thought--
        (it throbs deep into the wellspring of our self-teaching);
    of healing i ask with songs beneath the feet,
toes vibrate dream-colored peace
       like the windblown comfort of forestal goddess tresses,
             i fall upward into you even as we descend through shadowovercastings,
               even while the earth-tremble breaks our calm,
                        even though the bees fade,
                                another nectar drips from all around
                                            your inner-golden, flowered canopy of lives
                                                            (i effulge this world-to-be you are!)

Our eyes are near
and my heart is hot
but your stare is cold —
a thousand miles away

Your words are clear
and time has stopped
there's nowhere to go
my thoughts are broken and blurred

Sweet lips, your sweet lips
Carry such a bitter sound...

I'm floating in place with
no lover to face

trembling, trembling
trembling heart space

I'm spinning in circles
looking for miracles

and it's proving to be
horribly difficult

Trying to fly
with no wings to spread

I crumble and cry
a song for what's dead

the sound of alarms
ring in my head

the sound of alarms
ring in my head...

I'm trying so hard
I don't know what to do

My heart is aching
thinking of you

A small square of paper
sits on my tongue

With razor sharp edges
and tasting of dung

It takes me to spaces
deep in my mind

Where there's too many places
and not enough time

I've been drowned in guilt
and I'm suspended in shame

Repeatedly killed
like in a video game

Written upon
the sharp paper square
are words for destruction
and guilt and despair

It's a trip like no other
you won't even feel high
you'll feel like a bother
and just want to cry

Drifting in place
dead in deep space

You left me here with
tears on my face

Crystalline droplets
scintillating pearls

spinning in circles,
spirals, and swirls

Why did you think
to leave me alone

at the cold ugly brink
a frost to the bone

the cold hard shoulder
feels far colder
than a lifeless boulder
I'm cold, I'm
cold

I speak with my music
and these notes are my words
My harp is my voice
and these strings are the cords

I try hard to play
But you've cut them all off
My harp is left bare
naked, unstrung

I'll move all the pedals
But unto what end?
I can't speak my heart
I can no longer pretend

It's time to stand up
and take a great bow
Walk off the stage
The end is —
.....

and
There is a silence
in the mist, hidden
between the little
droplets, whispering
rivers of soft words from
past lovers evaporated~
.....

together
we held hands
and in our palms
we held time

and we ran away
from the rising sun
so we could see it
rise forever

but we grew tired
and we slowed down
and the sun sped up
and time was slipping
between our fingers
dripping
from our knuckles

and together we ran
we ran away toward
the setting sun
as fast as we could
but we were too tired...

and
you showered me in
silky sheets of glowing lovelight
you embraced me with
warm rays of shimmering soulshine

you pushed and pulled my ocean's tides
in and out like a lilting melody
making love to a perfect harmony

but slowly you
drifted away
into space
to shine on new rocks
leaving me cold my
ocean waves
still...

and
For the longest time
I wanted to thank you, thief
for stealing my heart.

I thought it'd be better off
in someone else's hands anyway,
because I sure as hell
didn't take good care of it.

Can you tell me about the time
you carefully held it close?

because I'm sure
that you can remember that
because that's all you want
to remember.

It was your
little pet.

and I can't tell you
how much it meant to me
that you found it so
intriguing...

but I can't tell you
how much it hurt when
it stopped being something special
and started being
just another animal

Don't you remember
how much fun you
had with it?
Mm..

But you don't remember
watching it struggle
to breathe in
and out?

Because it seems like
despite that

all I can remember now
is your tightening grip
suffocating it
carelessly
and your acidic lip
spouting seemingly
ceaseless
abuse

Tell me about the time
you played with it
until it was broken
and it bored you

Because I can sure
remember that.
but can you?...

Oh!
Batshit crazy,
Batshit soup.
Am I just lazy,
or caught in a loop?

Batshit crazy,
Owl **** soup.
Razor blades,
Razor blades,
Razor blades,
****!

Love is not a competition,
Love is not a game!
You see me as a player,
and it's a downright shame!

Batshit crazy,
Owl **** soup!
I am totally lazy,
and caught in a loop-die-loop?!

Glass houses
Baseball games
Angels wings and tar
SEPTA lines and pine trees
Can take you pretty far

Love is not a competition,
Love is not a war!
and acting like a soldier
is really quite a chore!

Silly souls
Wacky words
Dragonflies and tar
I want to make some art with you
but I don't know how you are!

and
it's
Just another slide
down the razor blade
of life! into a bowl
of sour owl ****...

Batshit crazy,
Owl **** soup!

Am I crazy,
or am I caught
in a loop?

Razor blades
Razor blades
Razor blades
****!

and you are
ribbed, but uncaged, and
you read like a book broken,
with a cracked spine, snapped,
always opening to
the same page

the wrinkles stacked
dendritically, along the
ragged column, show
where you were split,
down the seam,
in a fervent attempt
to be figured out

your leaves are worn,
dog eared, and torn,
with words used, and
defiled

unadorned,
sickly souls

forlorn figures,
sitting silently

wishing and waiting,
no kissing or playing

it seems that you've left me,
and you're all I want to read...

blistering sunsets
burn my skin

I watch the ball of love
get further from me,
falling a w a y

It was always out of reach,
but I could feel it's warmth!
as long as it was in sight,
but, no longer

It forms rivers from dry wells.

In it's absence
it has them brimming,
now overflowing, down
channels of skinclay
wrinkles

they run deeper,
than the roots of
the tallest trees,
falling slower, than
the softest cries,
unheard

rocky river ways
froth from the mouth,
splashing and bubbling
in maniacal sadness —

silent white water rapids...

Tussled and unkempt,
shriveled livers beg for mercy!
hidden behind layers of rotting drywall

a rusty sledgehammer.

—unused

You may want to take me inside
but your mind is a million dripping daggers
perpendicular to the infinite edges
of my circular paradigms.

your cold soul wraps around me
like a chainmail suit.

I want to love it, as
it's supposed to love me, but
it's heavy and pinches every fiber
of my existence

and why should I wear it
when I want to run into love
completely naked?

My name is derived from Tyrant
I would say you should have expected it
but I am not one to take someone's heart
that is the ultimate crime.

Can't you see that you've stolen your own?
Look in the mirror! Unfurl your ****** fists.

Now my fingers are ablaze with hellfire!

and
My unseen tears
condense onto windowpanes
as they're smashed open by codependent assumptions.

Blinding
blunt force flashlights
shatter sharp shards of light
across the darkest crevices
of my soul.

Impatience
and uncertainty
leads to reactionary behavior.

Do not plant flowers
in the gardens of someone
who cannot take care of their
own plants.

Their soil is unsaturated
with nutrients.

How can you expect to enjoy the fruit of their love?

I am a withered plot.
I am the dead of winter.

No one is interested in how it has died.
They are only upset that they can no longer feed themselves.

What you see is what you get.