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A Show of Hands


Sonnet 1: The Moderates' Plea

There can't be peace between the wolf and flock;
There can't be ease between the hawk and hare.
There can't be better fit than key and lock;
There can't be better match than ma and care.

So told them, arrant—we who stand in ruin—
That bargain can't be struck for lash and back,
Or settle not the scores on blood so soon,
Nor hunt the hare and bitten piece-meal sack.

Again we ask—is key and lock our way,
Shall we be hand in hand, within lockstep?
Again we ask—is spear and boar our lay,
Forever, end to end, on side and wept?

So, call for show of hands for shallow deaths,
Or call for show of hands for easy breaths.




Sonnet 2: The Radicals' Response

Or call for show of hands for easy breaths?
This way, the kings have fed on us so long.
Our grains of blood were woven into wreaths;
Our silent pain became disdainful song.

Like bed bugs, they have dried and ****** our blood;
A greedy vermin makes no truce with food.
And, pushed in ground—for we are only mud—
So, call for pyres to burn, and fetch the wood.

So, melt the lock, for key is broken, stuck.
The spear must drain the boar, for winter comes.
So, march in lockstep, as we need to pluck
The monster heads for whom this song we hum.

So, call for show of hands for strangled breath.
The call for show of hands for estate death.




Sonnet 3: Regret at the Revolution’s End (Robespierre's death)

The call for show of hands for estate death!
And now we end the path of blood we took.
As skulls became the cobblestones we tread;
In name of drop, how rivers bled from rook.

The crown we broke in two now grins at graves,
As liberty devours her fairest son,
With ******, jagged teeth and smiles of knaves;
Reminds of fight where only blade has won.

So many boars were drained, that spear-head broke,
And monster heads now drop in prayers, quite,
To add the last of drops to rills we woke.
The chains we forged from melted words we smite.

Deceived as wolf and flock by freedom's lock,
There can't be peace between the wolf and flock.
I will take the imperfect you, my sweet
If you will take the imperfect me too
I can take the imperfect incomplete
If you can take all I can hand to you
Accepting all the imperfect in me
Accepting all the imperfect in you
Completing hearts, is it asking for we?
Completing two hearts, love could be our hue
Why did we choose this, how long will it last?
Chances are risky, accept the challenge
Creation before us, give it a chance
Know that we love each, we find our balance
Let's chance it together, may we not fall
But if we do fall, we gave it our all
Sonnet.  First try.
A naturist, I shed the day’s tight notes—  
My flesh unbinds as cello strings softly sway
The bath exhales a vapor-softened throat,  
Its liquid song dissolves the stress of day.

You breach my silence while my fingers play—
No words, just layers pooled where footsteps passed.  
The water hums a frequency unchained,  
Your back rests softly, knows my ******* are cast.

Your fingers trace my folds, our tones slowly grow—
A throbbing drone our mingled pores now greet.  
The soundscape swells where flesh begins to know
The crush of solitude our heat completes.  

The water cools, yet still our bodies own  
Two silences embraced by undertow.
I take the stand to make this bold decree:
In you has beauty fully taken form.
Were I created but to witness thee,
The judgement would be made were I unborn.
Yet I would give up all that heaven gave
And take a lesser charge from far below,
To hang among the twelve, if that could save
A peer the jury dared not claim to know.

A single mote of dust may tip the scales,
But every drop disturbs the deepest pool.
For who in lieu of gold with dust regales,
While all that thirst and drink have found renewal?
If you alone are all that I have swayed,
A seraph of an angel have I made.
A sonnet
She lies unclothed, asleep at dawn’s first light,  
Her skin aglow, a summer’s warm embrace.  
Between two hills, a sparrow’s fleeting flight,  
A whispered secret, hidden in that space.  

A garden lush, untamed, where beauty grows,  
Its solitude, a treasure softly kept.  
Her inner thighs, where velvet’s gentleness flows,  
Like grooves on records where her movements slept.  

The curve of her, a dancer’s arm in air,  
A peach’s sweetness, yielding, lush, and deep.  
Her petals bloom, a rose beyond compare,  
Within, the heart of the bloom it keeps.  

The inguinal fold, a butterfly’s plume,  
A feather’s mark on clay, a fragile trace.  

And yet, too beautiful for me, she’ll drift away,  
Yet in my heart, her beauty’s here to stay.  
Her splendor burns, a flame I fail to hold,  
In dreams, her folds forever I behold.
Like an unbuttoned blouse, she hangs in sky,
Her shifting phases tease with lust’s delay.
Her light, a lover’s touch, brushes my thigh,
Her tides rise, fall, and leave me cold, astray.
Her light finds my door with unknown intent,
As night fades, dawn’s horizon drinks her deep.
Secrets, stolen, through her rapture sent,
A warm liqueur spills where earth lies asleep.
She pulls like tides that steal the shore’s embrace,
My secrets, stolen, fuel her sweet release.
Her hunger takes, yet leaves no hiding place,
As earth drinks deep her moonlit, stolen peace.
Oh, moon, a temptress, caught in your thread,
You weave the night, leave me naked in your bed.
Your stormy tides erase my sandcastle pride,  
A jazz **** breaks where the silence once lied.  
Your moist earth cradles my seed, our heart’s noontide,  
Improv wails as the reverb collides.  

Our love, once shadowed, glows with dawn’s new light,  
Within, a thousand tiny flames aspire.  
Once storm-dark night, now shines with rainbow’s delight,  
Our love’s tide swells, a choir of soft fire.  

Yet still I wonder, does love’s hope burn bright?  
Was it the sacrifice or love’s own starlight?
We stand unrobed where daylight splits the air,
Her thighs a bramble, mine are smooth and spare.
The mirror's glare reveals what we both share:
One breast a plum, its twin a rounder pear.

Time’s cursive scrawls on skin we’ve learned to bare—
Her stretchmarks ripple, tides, my palms embrace.
No clues hide the faint silver in her hair—
My thumb traces the laugh-lines on her face. 

Past phantoms fade—two clocks now beat as one.
Her skin, once chilled, now thaws beneath my sighs;
My stony silence ripens into sun;
Time-frozen hearts melt in each other's eyes.

Your mouth—a fig split ripe—now drinks my moan:
We fuse to one fierce sun, no dusk, no dawn.
larry mintz Feb 7
And Skadi had her way much snow today
Imparted volunteer job hopes soar high.
Each Thor’s day , a shining star in a black sky
Orange in my throat and gob smacked, what to  say?
And never let the blighters beat you down
And the sawbones mention you cannot heal .
And show them I work with plenty of  zeal
I am cook too at the depot uptown.
The doctors state see you are strong ,
We think you are weak ,die in a care home.
My star is dimming do I fight or take flight?
My job like an void vessel I felt dead
This must be the rehabs typical syndrome
Hard to feud with sawbones reason-they’re right
My mood tastes like bad lime pulled down by dread.
Her hair spills starlight, raw as unbaked bread— 
Each strand a comet’s trail my lips pursue.
No thread divides our skin, risen on breath;  
Hips hide her crescent moon, eclipse the blue.  

The mirror drinks us whole—no blind, no hidden clues— 
our doubled forms a psalm of breath and flame.  
Sound of skin on skin, a tide, laps where desires subdue;
Your fingers chart the pulse-light, vane by vane.  

No shadow lives where tongues chase the day—  
her wetness, a prism, splits what dark ignites.  
The air grows thick, our love scent we can’t unsay—  
Each gasp refracts to hues where her desires lie, night.

Your eyes—black pools where all my shadows drown—  
we fuse to one eclipse, no dusk, no dawn.
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