Angel of my dreams,
We will meet again,
Where flows the clear stream,
And where falls the rain.
I looked down from my window,
In amazement I held my breath;
There I saw walking below,
Was you in your attire best.

I saw you last night,
Walking as in a dream,
In the bright moonlight,
Beautiful to the brim.
Your dress I could recognise
Even amongst a thousand.
My life would I sacrifice,
For your love in return.

What a blessing - to see you,
Your graceful figure,
Glistening like morning dew,
Blends in with nature.
I can recognise you,
Amongst a thousand,
No one is like you,
None has your fragrance!

the gods debate and then concede:
"His punishment is empathy!"

they could have excused the self-assurance,
the love of an entity built in their holy image;
the conclusion that You are the only one good enough for You.
they could not condone Your vicious deeds --
they would not condone the blood.

the gods debate and then concede
Your punishment is empathy
(though never enough to spare a thought
for my voice within the cavern walls
or the spattered blood of Ameinias
or the righteousness of Nemesis)

**** You, bless You, Your Holy Reflection
condemning the flowers and mountains to dirt;
the suitors (silent in Your wake) reduced to peripheral blurs,
forgoing all the world for the sake of Your one true love --
still steadfastly playing martyr,
not the fool with His fingertips hovering inches from the water,
doting on His Image! loving like gods love irony and a brute-force punchline!

the gods' one choice was to concede
Your punishment was empathy
while the verbal paradise in my mind smoulders into ash.

if You spared just a thought for me (love was never a necessity)
Your words would then be mine:
instead i speak through nobody with thoughts that barely rhyme.
i am small, a silent letter in an 'echo';
arms linked, moving in rhythm, with my siblings --
Your story rhymes, each chapter weaving into a chorus

the gods reprise when they concede:
"His punishment is empathy!"

[NOTHING]: seven letters long, pronounced like [SILENCE]:
not a nuance to unravel, nor utterance un/spoken to linger in the air.
these rewards i reap for loving too loudly:
blooming, bountiful  _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ;
self-flagellating  _ _ _ _ _ _ _ .
i choke upon this  _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ,
still clinging to Your _ _ _ _ _ _ _ .

the water's silent ennui:
Your punishment, Your empathy.

in a nicer world, my fury burns the love away
-- but still, it simmers. still, it stays.
You wilt like heaven's roses, exquisite in (and after) death
whilst i spoil into _ _ _ _ _ _ _  and watch the world forget.

From ice to fire
To land from sea
The deepest desire
Stands carefree
Before the endless
Rides of night and day
Two siblings happy to say
They see him, sorrowful raven, mess
Not a haven in his mind
To appease the lost divine
Yet a stirred soul lies behind
This truth bound by a whine

In chase still alive
A little they smile
No haste given
No sadness forgiven
Left now with the empty sky
Of fully woven worlds
"With our dull ****** swords
We fight to try and lose high
But what of a stray ****
In a forest of boreal trees
Funeral only awaits my plead
To forever cease"

A chill of Styx water runs through my heart,
Arrows cannot reach it, I will not let them.

To do so is to die,
Please understand.

Shots of Phlegethon stopped reaching my tears,
Too many times have I gone mad from it's flames.

I would rather forget,
All that icy pain.

When I die from this curse of long-lost touch,
Send me to corrode on the banks of the Lethe.

she awakes.
her ballerina toes are poised, her nose is scrunched -
she is – what’s the word – alive.
her powder fingertips crease mechanically like a hydraulic press.
she has a beating chest with the calibration of cast iron.
her feet can climb Mount Olympus and higher.
she is limber.
she is – what’s the word – living.
her name is –
her skin has the swirl of a gleaming cantilever.
her head teeters.
she is speechless.
her lips are soft, her hands touch her face like it is a monument,
like she is a strawman.
is she a –
her spine has a curve, she can bend into geometric shapes, her arms are straight
but they encircle her.
galatea.
he whispers her name to her.
or maybe he names her.  
she can choose a name herself, maybe.
she is – what’s the word – a woman.
her hair can swim through the air, her curls have strands that brush her cheeks
and her cheeks can color in the blank space left behind
by words.
galatea, she whispers.
her tongue clambers in her mouth, for some purchase,
for some worthy noise.
she searches herself for a – what’s the word – idea.
you are mine, galatea, he says. i made you.
do not be afraid. i will bathe you, dress you, anoint you.
i will worship you, and i will save you.
he caresses her hand.
her palms are dry as sandpaper.
she is – what’s the word –
her eyes have the shutter frequency of a lens.
she bends.
she is awake.
she does not remember a before.
she does not remember a maker.
she hasn’t yet made any mistakes.
her name is galatea
but she is no longer milk-white.
he says, you are my wife.
she says, i am alive.
he says, i gave you life.
she says, yes, you are right.
you gave me life,
and i won’t return it
because you gave it,
because it’s mine.

You wanted a love story, sweetheart—
    well, I’m an unwritten tragedy;
  hand me a skull and I’ll monologue
while Rome burns.
      We’re two acts in and falling fast,
         we’re half a city down and soon
            there’ll be nothing but ashes.

          You wanted a love song, baby—
        I’ll sing to you in a minor key,
harmonies in the rain under neon stars,
            screaming in tune with flowers in your lungs
      and blood in your hair
and city lights and city lights and
                                               city lights.

You wanted a love letter, honey—
“Dear Heartbreak,
   I’ve got purple bruises on my chest
     where my prose hits me. I’ve got
       a mess of clichés and a dark and stormy night
         and a pinch of melodrama,
           no talent but I’m trying, honest.
             I don’t suppose you could maybe
              unravel me a little?
               Cut me open like a knife through butter?
                Maybe then I’ll bleed words;
                 maybe then the poems will spill out of me,
                  entrails unravelling.”

You wanted a love poem, darling—
                meet me in your aspect and your eyes
               at ten o’clock tonight. Rome’s burning, baby,
              and all our lions are loose. No time for
    sonnets; we’ll climb the Colosseum with
    our flowers and our songs and
                             we’ll deny the gaudiness
                                                     of the day.

You wanted love, sweetheart—
I’ll give you everything I am:
           a burnt-out city,
           a soliloquy in G minor.
               I’ll play til my fingers bleed,
                     sing til my voice gives out and
                                                             ­            maybe—
maybe
it’ll do.

This is the story of a box
and a girl.
And this box –
and this box
was like no other box – No,
like no other box that owned its existence.
Eons of history lived on its walls – I mean, moved on its walls,
I mean, carvings of history played out on the walls
Waves smashed their own heads onto ocean floor dunes,
The lightning swung fierce on the clouds into squalls,
The engravings – the caves shook with war, the volcanoes,
They spat and they hissed, and the nymphs in their watery mists
Danced with haloes on graves of the fallen.
The lifeblood, it pulsed through the veins of this box,
Through the veins of my palm as I held it, the carvings,
They danced with their raw, starving ardors, their bloods and their stardust
And lifeblood, it seeped, lotus droplets, it leaped onto grooves of my skin
Splashed as sparks on my skin and spilled into my palms,
Till my body was filled with the life of this box, with the thrums of this box, with the force of this box
Till the sweet little voice called my name through this box
Whispered, “Open the lid and release me. This box
Is my prison. I’ve risen through hellfire and sunlight and war-blood,
And isn’t it time for the earth to revere me? I am Hope,
I am weary; I am tired of Death and Despair huddled near me
I yearn for the taste of the earth and the Furies
Release me, my vassal, unchain me, release me.”
This is the story of a box
and a girl,
and a thrum, and a voice, and a palm, and a life -
and a war, and a choice, and a hope, and a price,
and a voice that implored me to open the lid
through the trembling, quivering walls,
and I did.