The winter bites into the flesh.
Breath that is stolen by its icy fingers,

And the night's frost hanging in the air
Forms into an iron fist as it closes in.

Her name is pressed into cracked lips
And you desire the arms of your lover

With whispers of "summer, summer."

Love can be like watching clouds.
You spot one that makes you smile, and
You feel a little excited at the same time.
You know that it can and will transform
Becoming something more than it is.
And so you watch and wait for something,
You never know what "something" might be.
As you look at changes as it grows and morphs.
But clouds also can and do swiftly fade away.
What was one thing simply becomes nothing or
Changed to something no longer recognizable,
Nor try as you might can you come to understand.
And slowly you remember this truth about clouds:
Clouds are made of water droplets or ice crystals
That floats in the sky; and love is at times mere vapor.

We strut up and down the page.
Our poems are all the rage.
Our advice is more than sage
As we prance on poetry's stage.

Everyone reads our words, now.
Parades are given in city and town
To make our offspring proud.
Such a thing could happen.  How?

Yet, everybody surely knows
For neither fancy poems nor proses
Was such glory never shown!
When with a **** I am shaken.  Woe,

For I suddenly am awakened.

Dreams are the substance
As shadows move
But the darkness
Seems never to lift

Until suddenly
With the start of clarity
It becomes beautiful poetry
And flows across the page

You are left wondering
At its ability
To gather itself
And become reality

We strut up and down the page.
Our poems are all the rage.
Our advice is more than sage
As we prance on poetry's stage.

Everyone reads our words, now.
Parades are given in city and town
To make our offspring proud.
Such a thing could happen.  How?

Yet, everybody surely knows
For neither fancy poems nor proses
Was such glory never shown!
When with a **** I am shaken.  O, woe,

For I suddenly am awakened.

We pranced about when
The world was that of men.
As ones who cannot behave,
As ones unbridled on keyboards.

We were meandering in music.
She said, "Follow my notes
As I now place them  
In the piano's throat."

We pranced within the notes.
The world was not for girls
But I could not behave as such,
A master of the musical work.

They hid my female touch,
That soft and light touch when
Only men could embrace the pen.
Yet, we feel your import, now.

He had said, "You put it down as me.
Until my heyday is all but gone,
As they desire to identify mine
Yours they will begin to find."

One night I was swimming in my bed
At least I was swimming in my head
When a great bird flapping, suddenly
Flies off the screen of my theater-eyes
Its flit was quite swift, and it was fleet
As I run after it on bright shiny streets
I realize that I am in a hospital dying
Running after the bird was me trying
To stay alive

Alt. ending:  To stay alive, kept me from dying