Wondrous Love

Our love is as solid as the ancient rocks Stonehenge
Strong and as long as the Golden Gate Bridge Extends
Romantic as the sparkling Aurora Borealis lights
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, held tight like stalactites

Our love can move Everest, make the Pisa tower lean
Spiritual and earnest, as Jerusalem's serene
Occasionally a fight in Rome's Colosseum
Woeful regrets laid bare in Tutankhamen's museum

Our love is impenetrable like the Great Wall of China
Shiny like the Pyramids, there is nothing finer
Deserving of a shrine at the foot of Temple Artemus
Polar Ice caps could never melt our ambient musk

Our love is higher than the Empire State can tower
A jewel within the crown of the Taj Mahal's power
Colourful as the Barrier Reef, the love we feel inside
Grander than the Canyon and deeper than it is wide

Born under Artemus
To the mother, Nemesis
Born to fight against
The hounds of hell

Has earned his company
In the temple of villainy
Has earned his place
Among the lore

For the lore be written
To include the villians
For the lore be not a judge
To cast shame on him

His actions have bound
His fate with the hounds
His actions will decide
Which road to chase

Which sends his soul
To a heart once his own
Which sends his mind
Into insanity

His state on the plane,
A strange domain
His state on the dais
A pawn to the fates

Who allow him to rectify
His mistakes in life
Who allow the hounds
To snap their jaws

At the gates of hell
With a familiar swell
At the gates of Hades
With a heart of hatred

With a beautiful prize
Held up with pride
With a beautiful emptiness
Caused by vengeance

The hounds snap their jaws
And click their claws
The hounds move aside
To grant his passage

Into the forever abyss
That is born from hate
Into the forever
His name, Eucledes.

I am from clothespins,
from Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride.
I am from the dirt under the back porch.
(Black, glistening it tasted like beets.)
I am from the forsythia bush,
the Dutch elm whose long-gone limbs

I remember as if they were my own.
I am from fudge and eyeglasses,
from Imogene and Alafair.
I'm from the know-it-alls and the pass -it -on,
from perking up and pipe down.

I'm from He restoreth my soul with cotton ball lamb
and ten verses I can say myself.
I'm from Artemus and Billie's Branch,
fried corn, and strong coffee.

From the finger, my grandfather lost to the auger
the eye my father shut to keep his sight.
Under my bed was a dress box spilling old pictures.
a sift of lost faces to drift beneath my dreams.

I am from those moments -- snapped before I budded -- leaf-fall from the family tree.