Dear A, you are the love of my life.
Darling, my shining light in the darkness.
O hear me, leave me not alone in this.
I plea, beg upon my very knees now.
Life had been unkind to me until you came in.
Please, I am only human, forgive me.
Together we laugh, we smile - we love.
Mi amor, what can I do to fix this?
Tell me; I shall do what you wish of me.
We can overcome this, can we not, Love?
I love you too much to lose you, my love.

- Jay M
February 18th, 2020

Spots of blinding light glance off the river
Reflecting apollo's fiery descent
From the west enrobed in smoky silver
Luna begins to carefully ascend

She whistles violet purple black and blue
To chase her brother's chariot away
Painting the world a sparkling darker hue
She unfolds glist'ning night as if to say:

It is I the giver of the earth's rest
That you with little faith have letted fear
And spurred yourselves with stories un-celeste:
Lies from my brothers mouth and to your ear.
This hour go out and put the truth to test!

In dark alone the soul will find repose
A tune of cosmic peace does black compose.

That all hath fall'n away impure;
That all we thought is now unsure—
This is the final cause of it,
That which we know has gone to ****—
Yet here we stay, throughout the days,
Staring into a foggy maze.

stop apologizing
when you want to say "get bent"
stop worrying
about ruining his career
when he makes your world a living hell

stop confining yourself
to four line stanzas and iambic pentameter
**** writing for anyone else
when it is your soul that needs soothing
may your words overflow the lines that have been drawn for you

stop hanging on
to the person you once though existed
detach yourself from the veiled existence
and run the other way.
you shine too bright to let anyone dim your light

The jogger stops a while to catch his breath,
a sweaty grimace painted on his face.
Perhaps in half-light it appears a grin
to others - actually he feels like death.
With averageness as his only sin,
he thinks, how apt to go in such a place.

Her memory is blank beyond this place.
She draws a rasping, thin and ragged breath,
inhaling scents of forced carnal sin.
The caked make-up is falling off her face
but all her thoughts these nights have been of death;
a cigarette will reapply her grin.

The old man looks around and gives a grin
at all his children gathered in his place.
For months he has been waiting for his death,
his lungs to finally run out of breath.
The ghost of life still lingers on his face,
a long, benign existence free of sin.

Bejewelled silky hands still slick with sin
support, neck-like, a head which wears a grin
that looks like it's been stolen off the face
of mannequins and plastered into place.
Her role in hastening his final breath
still haunts her. So it shall unto her death.

This industry is headed towards death.
They think intelligence is just a sin
and try to cut him off at every breath.
He finally allows himself a grin.
With this he'll put them in their proper place
and wipe that smug expression from their face.

The kiss of malnutrition on her face,
a souvenir from those merengues with death,
lies testament to horrors in this place.
Though poverty may be a fatal sin,
she bears the burden with a toothless grin
and croons her lullaby under her breath.

Behold my face! They all know I am Death.
But truth is, there is sin in any place;
I'll grin the same before I stop your breath.

The Queen revels beyond the realm of summer’s lurid light
Yet scorns the damp recess of shade where moss has laid its lawn.
Her pale and powdered faces flaunt the earth by starry night;
Though falling, faint and faded, by the cawing crow of dawn.
Her slender, waxen limbs are draped upon her chosen sire  
Who cradles her, consumed amid the scent of her perfumes.
Wherever out her branches bend; is loveliness admired
By fleeting bat and beating moth; by men and sailing moons.
Magnificent she flourishes; dry, dappled shade her nest
Where wild and unrestrained, resplendent flowers ever grow
So fair, and verdant framed, and scarlet tipped, and golden tressed;
With flames of bronze and ivory her lighted candles glow.
The chills of night cannot befall: the hallowed earth is blessed
Wherever blooms the Queen of Night; Selenicereus.

Torrential rain turned the river to rage in July,
the bottom a swirling attack of mud and anger.
The water flooding the valley awoke the men.
To be unwashed no more they watch the water.
Destroy destroy destroy the works of men.
As tides drew back behold! Rise again.
To be inspired, insisting to dream
Return to home, yet past cannot be again,
and thus the men employ the ground up high
delay not here, for waters may again arise.
Inscribe the stone, beginning's need nothing
more than... belonging. Summer ahead now soft.
From immortality two roads spring like sleep
tomorrow is not today, arise fair sun.

Better jealous, better hated, better
Dismissed than be allotted false praise and joy.
A man is his own pride, his own defeat
He ought to know his place and worth; his price.
Besmirched with equal fault, with equal blame
Not one may stand pristine nor pure, alike
The worst we deem in those disdained at heart.
I flinch when I recall the days before
I saw in each a flicker of contempt
As if it could no longer be concealed.
An honest life is all I want to lead;
No pittance due, no pity earned, no worth;
To hate myself and be hated by them.

Let not our humble minds admit
That we are better than the rest;
Lest we ourselves our fates forfeit
To those who jeer and **** and jest.
Let not our thinking hearts believe
Love must belong to fools like them;
Such noble strains as hearts must grieve:
Second to none; none to condemn.
Let not our wills be resolute,
Never able to bend or change;
Pity the strength of duller brutes.
So trust in life’s sordid exchange:
Though we will fall and surely die,
We too, one day, shall live to sigh.

Fear standing atop crumbled clifftop.
A fleeting breeze whispers to me "what’s next?"
My Earth corrodes, this tearwater runoff

lifting fertile soil. Memories cropped;
despaired debris remains in frame. Perplexed
fear standing atop crumbled clifftop.

Two arms spread wide, frantic, balance I sought.
"Resist," whispers the breeze, "and breathe, reflect:
my Earth corrodes, this tearwater runoff

you precipitated; my ruin you wrought."
My toes begin to peek: the sea. Obsessed
fear. Standing atop crumbled clifftop

we teeter with unease that love means naught
when trust already sunk below the crest.
My Earth corrodes. This tearwater runoff

shall carve away our ache, and so we fought
against the chance that our love could contest
fear. Standing atop crumbled clifftop,
my Earth corrodes this tearwater runoff.