the game - a poem

it is a game we play,
my beloved and i,
just when the air is coldest,
we snatch the cover from the other
the victorious sleeps in warmth
the vanquished in the chill of night
the cold one always pines away
'let me in' seeking the warmth
of body and cover,
and as wicked as we are
we deny the other such comfort
but when morning comes
the victorious prepares the breakfast
and covers the vanquished in blankets
a small reversal of warmth and chill
like the warm air frosts on the window sill.

the drowning - a poem

the seatide, pulled by moon,
rips at my ribs, pulling me further
into the ocean, beyond the wave
and to the deep calm

arrived, i am at the gentle pull
and swell of water,
pushing me further
to the dark-winged depths

where light filters through perturbance
dappling all it touches till everything sparkles

it is not frightful, this drowning
i don't ache for air
i want to be swallowed up
and denied the terrible expanse of skies

peace, peace, as i sink through this earthen mystery
'the last frontier' once that it was,
now mine, forever understood.

the photo - a poem

is the beauty the curve of breast,
the line of neck, the toussled hair of head?
is the vision of you caught in some poet's words,
the slight terror of your form captured in picasso's brush?

the memory, that memory is all i possess,
where before i held you, i grasp at images, phantasms,
of your half-forgotten face, the white of the shoulder,
the point of your knee,

these are the details i seek to hold in my mind,
the perfectly flawed face shimmers like moonlight
on some perfect midsummer's eve,
yet at times, comes clear at the unlikeliest moments...

for i knew you then, i thought, but didn't really
otherwise the vision would be complete,
and my heart could be full of the polaroid i hold,
yet it's just a snapshot of you on a Spring day
and the embers on it's edges are you melting away...

words - a poem

i know they are just words

but they have the power in them

to raise me to the highest peaks

and crash me to the lowest hells

i know you take them as literal

and i certainly did when young

but with the onset of a little age

the words began to melt into truth

the truth that we must face the week

the people in it and all the events

that obliterate the words into monatony

of repetition and ever present misery

i know they are just words

but the impressions they've made,

the currents they have activated

are rushing courses through my mind...

who gave you these words?

or even the right to repeat them?

have you no clue their power?

on a young and impressionable mind?

so i offer dull silence

i make no promise other than the heartache

that won't blossom into full deppression

as long as it's ever felt in the chest

at the hunger of the world, the poverty of the rich

the poor who will always be with us

the yet to be born child

the stray in the alleyway

this is the law i have observed,

that words eat words,

and the saddest song is the sweetest

the one that rings most true

and if there be a ray of hope

on a cloud-filled day,

it's that in honest temperance the prize is won

though true happiness be denied....