For a second the world was silenced and freedom mourned.

The killers deserve no name

let's forget about them,

let's not talk about them,

any more,

let's find them and forget about them.

forget about them, they don't exist.

~

Let's remember the writers,

the people with lives,

with families,

with beauty and grace and elegance

in their minds that allowed them to speak

freely, freedom, free-thinking

ideals that helped us to laugh through the pain

of our sick, evil society.

~

Let's remember Charlie Hebdo,

their ability to help us to laugh at the

ludicrous, ignorant pain of the human condition,

did not deserve,

to end with a bullet,

a massacre,

a cowardly outrage.

Let's remember the writers,

the human beings whose lives represent

the fear, that we simply have to continue to ignore.

In case you all forget, let's remember the

real victims.

At one end of the couch
you sit, mute as a pillow
tossed onto the upholstery.

I watch you sometimes
when you don't know I'm watching
and I see you. Who you are.

You are a self made man.
Hard suffering. You are grey
stone and damp earth.
A long scar on a pale sky.

The television is tuned to CNN.
The world's tragedies flicker
across your face like some
foreign film.

You are expressionless.
Your usual gestures ground to salt.

How do you explain yourself
to people that do not know you?
How do you explain to them,
this is me; that is not me.

However many words you choose
in whatever context with
whichever adjectives you use
could not compare.

Even you describing you
would not be you.
Not totally.

Your hands are folded
together, resting in your lap.
I study those hands until
every groove becomes familiar.

Like a favorite hat,
you wear your silence
comfortably.

I sometimes can not help
but wonder what we will
talk about if we ever
run out of things to say.

You are the curve
I burrow into. The strength
I borrow. You are the red sun
rising over the mountain.
You are the mountain.

We must recognize

this is not our home,

yet, their home is ours as well.

We must realize

our world is inter-connected

their pain lays dead in our street,

We must remind

ourselves that our freedom

was just desecrated by the strong arm

of evil, it lurks, around us, anywhere it chooses.

We are asked

to understand

Charlie Hebdo is satire,

in violent terms their point is made,

yet we cannot laugh,

only mourn,

for those souls that lay dead on the tiles,

are us, are you, are me, are human beings.

Tonight, the sun has set on Paris,

people will not sleep,

people will worry, hold one another, walk in confusion.

Tonight across the globe,

we know again,

the pen wields a powerful angst,

yet,

we must also respect,

human lives could not ever deserve,

their legacy to be defined by a bullet.

Let's pick up our pens and continue

to fight, to maim, to expose

evil.

Let's mute that voice of evil

while we pray,

while we wrap our heads around,

the unnamed victims,

that tomorrow will be identified,

sisters, brothers, mother's fathers, friends, cousins,

people, human beings with a passion for laughter,

with a desire only,

to suggest that life deserves laughter.

Let's drown out evil,

with the memory of sweet humor.

Let's chuckle,

a positive, horrific, peace!

When walking
home from school,
when she let you hold her hand,
that first moment
the sky exploded with the beauty of her,
so scared,
you purposely avoided looking in her eyes,
those first few steps,
until head tucked,
a glance,
and she was smiling
knowing you were looking,
and her hand felt wonderful
with each of your fingertips
touching her, this first time,
walking home.

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her ******* are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks,
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know,
That music hath a far more pleasing sound.
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
    And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
    As any she belied with false compare.

I do imagine you,

soft, serene, an elegant air

of caprice

that plays with the eyes

those moments that are left to my creative mind.

Yet, the oils to arouse my notions

I know always

on hand,

in hand,

in your hands as tease and desire

respond together.

I wonder sometimes how many hours of the day

are left to pure seduction

without provocation,

only the beauty that is you

in that sweet state of mind that carries

my own fantasy far beyond the mundane reality

of my day.

I wonder about you, and wish to know your desire

like an aura of the purest sensuality

travels with you

remains inside of you,

always waiting.