I see you wrote me
    And I will try to reply
    Please... take a number

2. Love me NOW, ******!
    I can only wait so long
    Another beckons.

Say my love is easy had,
Say I'm bitten raw with pride,
Say I am too often sad--
Still behold me at your side.

Say I'm neither brave nor young,
Say I woo and coddle care.
Say the devil touched my tongue--

Still you have my heart to wear.

But say my verses do not scan,
And I get me another man!

I do not like my state of mind;
I'm bitter, querulous, unkind.
I hate my legs, I hate my hands,
I do not yearn for lovelier lands.
I dread the dawn's recurrent light;
I hate to go to bed at night.
I snoot at earnest, simple folk.
I cannot take the gentlest joke.

I find no peace in paint or type.
My world is but a lot of tripe.
I'm disillusioned, empty-breasted.
For what I think, I'd be arrested.
I am not sick, I am not well.
My quondam dreams are shot to hell.
My soul is crushed, my spirit sore;
I do not like me anymore.

I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse.
I ponder on the narrow house.
I shudder at the thought of men--
I'm due to fall in love again.

If I had a shiny gun
I could have a world of fun
Speeding bullets through the brains
Of the folk who give me pains

Or had I some poison gas
I could make the moments pass
Bumping off a number of
People whom I do not love.

But I have no legal weapon--
Thus does Fate our pleasure step on!
So they still are quick and well
Who should be, by rights, in hell.

( July 16th 01:10am)

Dear boy! The love that dare not speak it's name
which caused you suffering, expounds these days;
no golden sphynxes fold their wings in shame,
there's pride in gaiety and all it's ways.

To think that tiny window on the sky
was all you had, to show the world was real!
For bigotry and hate will always try
to break a butterfly upon a wheel.

Bereft and broken, still by love possessed,
you were vanquished by prejudicial law;
and yet, with trusting candour, you confessed
to all the passion you were fighting for.

From Paradise to gutter, behind bars,
Oscar was always looking at the stars.

Sara L Russell 5/12/2015*
-----------------------------------------------------------­-------

How can birds sing, if taken from the meadow?
Cloistered away in silent fear
envious of the boundless skies
Even her wings are held earthbound
defenceless is she, and silent as the grave.

✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿

What sun may rise for she who walks in shadow,
the blackness that makes her disappear
hidden away from prying eyes
Too fearful to make the smallest sound
accepting of pain, and living as a slave.

✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿