If my Valentine you won't be,
I'll hang myself on your Christmas tree.

The Mirror

“Are you afraid of dying?”
She says to the mirror.

One tear becomes two
As both sets of eyes seek redemption within the other.

Why fear dying
When living couldn’t be worse?

“How bad could it be?”
Perhaps the lesser of two evils…

No answer from her doppelganger

Just the same question…
Asked of the same heart.

Both pleading…
Both breaking…

Both dying for want of salvation.
Dying for want of escape.

Feelings fade and people change
choices are just taken chances
and love has it flaws
lines blur and memories fade
all that’s left is the pain
and pain is as common as grass.

Do not stand at my grave and weep..
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awake in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft star-shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry..
I am not there. I did not die.

All things conspire to hold me from you–
even my love,
since that would mask you and unname you
till merely woman and man we live.
All men wear arms against the rebel –
and they are wise,
since the sound world they know and stable
is eaten away by lovers’ eyes.
All things conspire to stand between us –
even you and I,
who still command us, still unjoin us,
and drive us forward till we die.
Not till those fiery ghosts are laid
shall we be one.
Till then, they whet our double blade
and use the turning world for stone.

I cannot drive
a stick
but I can drive
a nail
into the heart of
a poem.