The spark from your touch
Was enough to ignite
My dusty old heart
To finally shine bright

But I was afraid
Of the heat inside
When you asked my legs
To spread open wide

I was always told
Never to play with fire
So I pushed you away
And ignored my desire

Now I’m left with nothing
But this empty bed
Your scent on my pillow
And words left unsaid

Your tears burn into my soul
And cleanse it of
The darkness it holds

Your smile sets in my eyes
And puts out the fire
There disguised

Your words ring in my ears
And I know I'm truly happy
For the first time in years

On no work of words now for three lean months in the
     ******
Belly of the rich year and the big purse of my body
I bitterly take to task my poverty and craft:

To take to give is all, return what is hungrily given
Puffing the pounds of manna up through the dew to heaven,
The lovely gift of the gab bangs back on a blind shaft.

To lift to leave from treasures of man is pleasing death
That will rake at last all currencies of the marked breath
And count the taken, forsaken mysteries in a bad dark.

To surrender now is to pay the expensive ogre twice.
Ancient woods of my blood, dash down to the nut of the seas
If I take to burn or return this world which is each man's
     work.

272

I breathed enough to take the Trick—
And now, removed from Air—
I simulate the Breath, so well—
That One, to be quite sure—

The Lungs are stirless—must descend
Among the Cunning Cells—
And touch the Pantomine—Himself,
How numb, the Bellows feels!

Hanging around
isn't against the law
I was never found
to have caused someone any sore