Let your craving make you my Eros,
And let it make me your indulging Aphrodite,
In the mountains of the paradise, let sensuality electrify.

Let me submerge into your spell,
And let your toxic fingers trail through my swells,
And in the dawn, let all my secrets tell.

Let me bathe in your sunshine
Let your temptation hang on my lips when I smile.
And in the morning, let the flush on my cheeks stay a while.

Let me braid my body into your touch,
Let your addiction curl me and get me undone
And in those thirsty afternoons, let the sheets cover our blush.

Let me long for your touch,
And let your aroma infatuate my pores
And in those lavish nights, let my frail body render to yours.

Let your gaze rip through my skin,
And in my fantasies you will be my Olympus king
Let me be a shameless prisoner of your lips.

Let your gentle taste ignite my hips
And make my blood shiver when we move to the pulse of your kiss
And in the moonlight, let me bathe in your sins.

Let your insatiable desire make you my Adam,
And let it make me your poisonous Eve,
Let’s stay in the Gardens of Eden, in an eternity intertwined.

**AM

Thursday night is game night but Hasbro
has never had this one right. Operation is not
a game for ages four and up–maybe four,
multiplied by four, add four, and up.
Surgical mask on, Cavity Sam prepped,
and tweezers waiting to the right of the operating table:

I like to start with the Adam's apple–
carve away any trace of my origins
and they will never figure out who I am
because, like my mother used to say to me,
who is Eve without a blameless man.

Then I move on to the butterflies in the stomach
flittering and fluttering for a home that feels far more familiar
but they cannot be caught, only drowned.

Naturally, the broken heart follows
but the problem with pulling that out is
the never-ending-silence,
white-noise-science, black-hole-giant,
You know, the absence that predates writer's block–

writer's cramp, sliding a pencil up your wrist like it's the
(best kept) secret IV of an author.
Is that the price of filling up your bread basket,
going  to bed full on recognition and reward
and maybe even a Pulitzer Prize?
Be careful not to trip up on your own ego
or you just might end up with a wrenched ankle
and water on the knee.

I still have to deal with the wishbone,
the split-in-two-gravestone,
the only-one-of-us-is-leaving-here-happy zone.

And finally, I have the spare ribs
but I just might leave those there
because we see what happened when God
bothered to remove those the last time.

When Adam ate the forbidden fruit what did it taste like?  
All the good things life has to offer?
All the bad?
Did it taste like sunbeams?
Like a childs rithmic gigles?
Like The sick, upside-down, im-going-to-***-myself rolicoster feeling?
Like tight hugs?
Did it taste as good as fields of flowers feel?
Like rain?
Like farness?
Like the saltyness of sweat-or tears?
Like silence?
Like long open nights?
Like unanswered texts?
Like lunches alone?
Like the sting of liquor?  
Like raisors
Or did it taste like blood?

Before Eve turned into...

‘Evil’

...or evil tempted Eve.

She and Adam,

innocent,

played amongst its leaves?

A sage could say they were the same,
parts of some degree,

Say so as they will about the double-tree?
For life and knowledge go

'hand-in-hand,'

..which wife and husband weave.

Her, watching you silently. You, doing the same.

Stealthy like a cat.
Innocent glances that are not so innocent.
Forbidden, like the apple. But so sweet--
never mind the toothache or
the possible heartbreak.

Your name rolling on her tongue
so smoothly, so holy
makes you want to sin again and again.
You ask,
How do I stop?
She grins, bares it all.
You do not want to stop.
Skin burning hot, careful not to touch but
not touching feels like hell.

Hell, she sings songs like an angel in pleasure
and in pain
so you sing with her an immaculate duet.

Your warm mouth on hers,
bodies gracefully moving together.
A perfect synchronization;
one thousand over ten.

Bliss.

T'was the night before Christmas, And at the back of the bar

Sat a man all alone, Lighting up a cigar

The waitress ran over and waving her hand

You can't do that here, Smoking is banned.

If you must smoke that thing, you can go to the street

And stay away from the building, by at least fifty feet

The man took a puff and with a voice like a croak

He said, "You're kidding, right miss? You're making a joke"

I'm sorry, but sir..I'm afraid that it's true

But the law is the law, and it's not only for you

That we must say **** out, please extinguish your smoke

So our place can be filled with other fine folk

For ninety two years I have walked on this earth,

I have broken no laws and you know what it's worth?

Bupkiss, no nada it's not worth a thing

Would that law still apply if I was a King?

I've been coming in here for 60 odd years

And I think I've consumed a truckload of beers

I've smoked in this corner on many a night

Now you say **** out, I don't think that's right.

I fought for this country at the end of the war

I came home with a war wound, and you know dear...what's more

I came to this bar to have drinks with my friends

Who all weren't so lucky and met terrible ends

They died on the beach, heart as big as a house

Taking on the unknown for their country, their spouse

They battled for honor, the right to be free

And they all weren't as lucky, to come home like me.

I was here in the sixities when Camelot died

I was here with my son, and we both sat and cried

It was that night in November, I remember it well

That my son said he'd joined up and was heading to hell

He had joined the marines and was all set to fight

For freedom and honor and he knew it was right

Because I'd gone before and stood with others like him

And I said just be safe, and come home son...my Jim

In the years he was gone, I came down here to think

Of why he was there and I shared smokes and drinks

With friends, all now gone from this world of distrust

Now they all lie beneath us, decomposed back to dust.

My son made it back and we came right down here

To spend time with our friends, both from far and from near.

The years passed us by and my grandson joined too

And we sat and we prayed in this bar, for we knew

He was fighting for freedom and the rights we hold dear

Like having some fun, over smokes and some beer.

He never came home from his war, don't you see

That's why we're sitting alone here, just you and me

Tonight is the night that his letter arrived

Saying "We regret to inform you...that no one survived"

So, each Christmas Eve I come back to this bar

To savor my memories and to drink from this jar

And I finish each year thinking of what now is gone,

Of my battle scarred boy and his now deceased son

Now, you come and tell me that I must go outside

To continue my smoking and so I'll abide

'cause for 92 years that I've been on this earth

I've broken no laws and you know what that's worth

Then the waitress reached back and she pulled out a match

From a box on the bar with a rusty old catch

She said Sir, I am sorry I didn't mean to offend

For this one night each year, the law I can bend

So please light one for me on this Christmas Eve Night

And Thank you from all who continue the fight.

Merry Christmas and HAPPY NEW YEAR 2019

I always pass the blame
but, really, it was eve
to eat the fruit, not me.
I do not lead into
temptation, you find it
and say it was my fault
for not keeping you safe.
It's kind of nice to know
that evil is somewhere
and you can find it
but you don't have to look!
So think, there was freedom
east of eden, so thank
eve not me, she freed you.

it took me an hour just to take a bath
thinking that traces of your touch would leave my skin
if i only scrub hard enough

they don't

Shall I explain why women are divine
When God made man he had no companion
While Adam slept, God took from his side
To share a love no one could imagine

So when Adam awoke to his surprise
There stood Eve in God’s perfect creation
With sparks in there eyes, love was realized
Short a rib no need for explanation

He said bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh
Not created from mind to rule over
Nor from his feet to step on or to thresh
From near Adams heart he pulls her closer

Created by God’s design from heaven
Now taken from man, he called her woman

- Jared Escoto