I wake up
with you on my lips,
but it's only your name
and not your kiss.

I dreamt of you,
and I can’t get back
to our unconscious innocence.
I wish we had not woken.

The crack lets the light in.
Pitiless beams expose my lies,
and reveal your absence.
Regret is making coffee in the kitchen.

The birds and the bees
Morning electric
Afternoon zzzz’s
Temptation is the greatest treason
I’m trying to do the all the right things for the wrong reasons
Because you and me
We were epistolary
All the poems you wrote me
Hollow letters with no ink.
You say it was fun
I know it was fate
This is the last letter
I won’t sign it with hate
But if I never see you again,
It’ll be too soon
To get close to my heart
You’ll have to rip it from the ******* moon

wrote you love letters for 8 years and on the 8th I said I was done. I know one day someone will fall in love with you, but never with all of you.
I did that.
One day it'll be someone else's turn to rub their fingers across your forehead while you dip in and out of sleep. You'll sigh,
You'll say " Iove you" but you'll be caught off guard when it's not my voice that doesn't say " I love you too" I am lost love, for all my lovers.

I would find the rainbow's end
To reclaim lost treasures
That went missing over my many years.

Some, mere sparkle a crow might crave;
Others, minor shadows in Plato's cave.
In some kind of after life,
Will I find my gold penknife?

I lost it on Easter Sunday:
Jake flashed it on John's jacket;
From nape to back bottom *****,
He sliced the new dress coat in half.
My penknife vanished,
Like the invisible mend.

I miss my pubescent chums,
When imagination was all the fun.
But really, we would look askance,
Not actually sure of a come-by-chance.

Youth got lost, slipped off my face;
I got distracted, it got replaced.

Friends and family have gone,
And with them took
Their share of treasures.

Should you, my dears,
Be lost, I will find you,
Everywhere.
In albums, jewelry boxes,
Closets and cushions.
I'll search the last place first.

Me my true love did decry
Cry

She on whom I did rely
Lie

Now I see her walk on by
Bye

A bitter adieu—
Bid her adieu




© 2020 by Mark Toney.  All rights reserved.

There he was
With his black velvet heart
Smooth to touch, to feel, to love
Drawing me into that luxuriousness of this man
Something so soft, but so dark, so dark.

So I continued to be drawn by the softness, the richness
The dark eyes, dark hair, oh the lair
Once captured there was no escape
My heart forever was bound by his sultry all
No escape for whom we fall.

I shall never leave my cell
Of love that is lost and at great cost
Was my love was for him.
In my dreams he does come
But only with pain
To hurt me, break me over again
Oh the love that was lost at such a great cost.

I lost my heart to him and to him alone
My sweet innocent heart placed at his throne
Till death do us part was so very wrong
It simply did not last that long
But for him my mind does still roam.

To love again I will never impart
Because of his black velvet heart.

The End