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the weight of seven
hummingbirds -- 21 grams --
is what leaves the body
after death

on that hummingbird breath
the soul leaves
a wispering whisper
of seven tiny, winged cavatinas

being sung back
and singing themselves
forward
into the chorus

to enter again
a melody -- in
the Eye Of God

shimmering
iridescent
wings beating
the rhythm of Love



c. 2018 Roberta Compton Rainwater
Damaged people love you like a crime scene
Before any crime had been committed
They kept their running shoes right next to their souls every night
One eye opened in case something changed whilst they were asleep

Damaged people love in the most broken way
Damaged people love in the most gentle way
Damaged people do not love
Damaged people love too much

Their backs are always too tense, too tight
Made this way from carrying too many broken things
Because we all know broken things are the heaviest
Just look the weight of a broken heart

Damaged people will love that too
Damaged people love broken things
Because they remind them of themselves

Damaged people take broken things
And love them to the end
Trying to find that one broken thing
That will fit their cracks.

Damaged people love so well

They love like this because they have already seen Hell
And they know that every evil demon
Was once an angel before they fell.
my cuneiform heart
marks me indecipherable
to all but you

I am the superheroine
in Hawthorne’s tale
a transcendent A
marks my heart
pure and Angelic

my Ogham soul leaves messages
readable by none
but you

I am the Wonder Woman
safely hidden
a transcendent A
marks my soul
pure and Amazonian

my hieroglyphic being speaks
to none
but you

I am the kindness
the strength
the protection
a transcendent A
marks my being
pure and Awakened


c. 2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater
Somewhere just to the right
of that second star
in the sky

there's a black hole
******* the joy
out of life

Maybe I'll wave at the moon
as I fly by sometime soon

I'm tired of life's knife
skinning and carving,
notching it's time
on my bones

I'll decide the when
and the how, the hour
of flight

somewhere just to the right
of that second star
in the sky

where morning hides
like a thief in the night
biding her time

slowly waiting for the light
to leave these tired dark eyes

But not tonight, for tomorrow
there's still much to do.
Cold days, dark nights,
yield memories left
like headless corpses
on some ancient field;
seasons and years,
blood, sweat and tears,
the chains and links,
those things that bind;
blinding sharp beak,
black murderous bird,
winging over peaks,
leaving these worldly
lows below behind me;
my dying wish is for
restful bliss in winter's
white sheet stiffly lying.
Imagine we are home
and not lonely, imagine
our love which once cut
through strange waters
like longboats through hearts
not slow and heavy
from the moss of fear
we are here and not here
nights in our land are sad
the risings of the moon
are like sores we have given
our women, and we cannot sleep
for what we dream
the enemy will do, like filling
our children's throats with rocks
and place them in shallow swamps
where they will rise up
to tell us of fish with odd shapes
and men with torches
coming in from the sea
up to the beach on a black night
throwing open the gates
to our dying city.
Moon, blow your light
my way, but don't cut my time

Let me dream just a little longer
while my eyelids shine
in the dark starlight

Let the ceremony end slow
back in my old home,
not in a cold forest near the sea

I want to see again
those three rivers that flow
together and listen to a woman
singing to a child
in her mild mannered way

But in spite of the night
and my wishes
something keeps creeping
past me in my sleep
like numbers of smoke

It was you, dark woman,
walking across the room bare
footed turning on the air conditioner
in the winter, a pair of scissors
in the folds of your robe.
the sea sang out
to the crazy stars,
dust beneath her feet,
flowers in her hair,

ivy pinned to a
black cave,
where the waves swept
past with their
engines of steel,

the clouds threw
their heads
back,
pretty swing
boats of
the whitest paint,

pressed against  a
surreal sky, above the
dust and the flowers,
the ghosts of the
moon.
my poem spring tide has been published in Equinox Zine in its spring issue which can be purchased at website Issuu. my book, and then i returned to you, you my poet of the water is available as a nook book at barnes and noble
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