The L Word

Love you to death
Love you too
Love you til it hurts
Love you madly
Love will conquer all
Love will come to you
Love walks in
Love to be loved
Love thing
Love theme
Love that conquers
Love that burns
Love stinks
Love song for my mom
Love song
Love sneakin' up on you
Love sick
Love shoulda brought you home
Love should
Love shines
Love shack
Love sets you free
Love runs deeper
Love ridden
Love rescue me
Love removal machine
Love reign o'er me
Love potion # 9
Love pledge and the arena
Love out me
Love on your side
Love on the rocks
Love on the air
Love of my life
Love needs a heart
Love nation sugarhead
Love my way
Love me two times
Love me tender
Love me like music, I'll be your song
Love me like a man
Love me just leave me alone
Love me do
Love me
Love machine, part one
Love lovely love
Love like we do
Love like rockets
Love like a bomb
Love letters
Love it or leave it alone
Love is the seventh wave
Love is the drug
Love is stronger than justice
Love is strange
Love is not enough
Love is like a river
Love is here to stay
Love is dangerous
Love is blindness
Love is a rose
Love is a deserter
Love is a blind ambition
Love is a battlefield
Love is
Love in vein
Love in store
Love in an elevator
Love in a vacuum
Love, I don't need it anymore
Love hurts
Love her madly
Love her
Love has no pride
Love hangover
Love gets me every time
Love from here, love from there
Love for sale
Love dump
Love comes tumbling
Love child
Love changes
Love buzz
Love bug
Love bites
Love and sharks
Love and peace ... or else
Love and happiness
Love and anger
Love
Love
Love
Love
Love
Love
Love
Love
Love

All That is Gold

I woke up with the sun
Only to find no beauty in it's rising.
Instead I feel its fire
Burning in my chest
Reminding me
There is no beauty
Greater than the rise and fall of your chest beside me
Rhythmically meditative
Calming a beast caged inside my heart

I put pen to paper
Only to find no words in the writing
Instead I speak the words
Letting them pass through me
Reminding me
There is no declaration
Greater than the act of touching your lips with mine
Passionately conjoining
Filling a hole inside me that I never knew existed

I swallowed a pill
Only to find no healing in its medicine
Instead I feel its robbery
Twisting and changing my very essence
Reminding me
There is no healing
Greater than your embrace
Lovingly protecting
Saving me from the demons of my own soul

I built a house
Only to find no shelter under its roof
Instead I feel caged in its walls
Leaving nothing but captivity in perpetuity
Reminding me
There is no home
Greater than the place in your heart where I live
Pleasantly enclosing
Reminding me I am never alone

I Belong

The sun shines
The weather is clement
Yet nature's beauty is separate
Hidden behind walls that
Hold captive an animal
How I long for the taste of honey wine
Passed to me from sweet lips
How I long to lounge in the shade of a tree
A meditation on my belonging
Here as a part of your nature
There as a part of His energy
Everywhere and nowhere at once
I belong.

Music plays
A joyful tune to mellow
A savage beast
Falls upon mine ears
Deafened by cannon blasts from
Wars long fought and hard won
How I long for the sound of the pipes
Shared from the breath of Gods and Kings
How I long to dance
A movement of my perfection
Here as a part of your melody
Everywhere and nowhere at once
I belong.

Fire burns
An inferno worthy of Dante
Yet cold in my belly
Embers dampened in
Tears shed long ago and far away
How I long for the burning passion
Shared when reverent lips touch mine
How I long to knot together body, mind and soul
Becoming one perfect, holy gift
An offering of sensual salaciousness
Here joined together, One!
Everywhere and nowhere at once
I belong.

Gardens grow
Reaping the seeds that were sown
A bountiful feast
To quell the hunger inside
Which cannot fill this stomach
That has no taste for such ceremony
How I long for the thrill of the hunt
Baptized in freshly spilt blood
How I long for the smell of the fire
Musky in its seduction
Here wrapped in its warmth
Everywhere and nowhere at once
I belong.

Offering

I've come here to sing your praises
To lay prostrate at your feet
The newest disciple of a dogma
Long since turned to dust.

I've come here to offer myself
Once again on the blank page
Piously offering words and verse
Ignoble is my reverence.

The words are all I have.
The words are all I am.
And I offer them to you.

I've come here basking in your beauty
To offer faith in perpetuity
Professing a love I've not felt
For what love can a mortal offer a God?

I've come here to feel again,
The sanctuary of your embrace
The solace offered by your smile
The pleasure of your penetration


The words are all I have.
The words are all I am.
And I offer them to you.

Awakened from your love
Forever changed by your touch
Cast down from Olympus
With a piece of heaven to share

Alive in your shadow

Fertility as divine copulation
Born of an ancient one's seed
What have I to give in return?

The words are all I have.
The words are all I am.
And I offer them to you.

Poles Apart

All I see is beauty
Within me and without
In your warm embrace and
Passionate kiss
In your hardness so unyielding and
Softness so inviting
In your taking of what is given and
Giving freely of yourself

All I am is love
Laid out for you, my lover
Please come inside
On display for you, my lover
Please take what is yours
Joining with you, my lover
Inside or out
Becoming more than existed before

Joy is beauty; Beauty is love
Balanced on the biggest wave
We make ourselves
Loving in our own image
Taking it in and
Breathing it out
One cannot exist without the other, and
I am so filled with joy that I should have both

The Champion, The Prince and The Adonis

The lowly poet.
Locked in contest with a Dark God, A Shadow Prince and the Potential of What's to Come. Each vying for the heart of a muse; a God of fiery conviction who's eyes pierce the soul.
"The heart is infinite," says he, "With waters warm and calm. Come inside my loves, be safe and feel loved."
His promise, a bold commitment, befitting his bold gladiators. Locked in combat with one another and themselves, he addresses one and all.
"My Shadowy Prince, come inside." he says, with arms open.
The Shadow Prince vanishes; enveloped, merged with another darkness until his unique beauty is diluted and he can hear the God no more.
"My Dark Adonis, come to me and rule with love, by my side always."
The Adonis turns away, unable to see through his own dark visions to the light of the love he's being offered.
His Conviction still fiery, yet his eyes now masked with the sadness of loss, he turns next to the poet.
"What of you, my lowly poet?" he asks, "I can see your heart and it is empty and broken. Will you come to me and accept this gift I have offered?"
"My God, I am humbled by your offer. Such is your beauty that I could write a million verses speaking its value and not yet be worthy of it. What place have I, amongst Dark Adonises and Shadow Princes?" says he, eyes cast to the dirt.
"Come to me then, my love," he beckons him, "Come and be my champion of the Broken Hearted. A Champion must surely deserve the same as Dark Adonises and Shadow Princes."
"My God, I bow before your generosity, but I fear that I am but a plaything to one as beautiful as you. A contrived distraction to be enjoyed until you grow weary of my artist's heart." came the soft reply.
"My Champion," she says, "Your words hurt me. The heart is infinite. As you can create a million verses, so can I find a million ways to love you, a dark God and a Shadow Prince; all equally, each never replacing the other."
"God, I am humbled to be at your side and I feel safe and complete with my artist's heart inside yours."
Joining with the God, as Champion, this Lowly Poet looks down on a Dark Adonis blinded by the night and a Shadow Prince lost to the dark. In the milieau of pain and loss, what can be seen now, is the potential of What's to Come for the Champion and the God.
"What of that?" the Champion says, pointing toward new Potential.
The God only smiles.
"Come to me," he beckons it, "The heart is infinite"

I Wonder if You Know

There's an ache in my arms
And it only goes away when you touch me, and
There's a moment where I catch my breath and I hold it
Until you kiss me
Because I've never flet as special as I do in those moments when your lips press against mine.
And I wonder if you know
I've sat before the page
Spinning tales and penning soliloquy after soliloquy
Carefully ensuring that a love I didn't understand would always win out
Because I never knew love as a true and viable reality until
I heard the words in your voice
Feeding me what once was sin
Touching the edge of my soul
And I wonder if you know
I've laid awake at night
Wondering how to return the sentiment
Contemplating the feeling, like a dream
I don't want to wake up from for fear of forgetting what it meant
Love ... seems a paltry word applied to the gift you've given
Shall I instead create a planet
With ten suns shining brightly in the sky for you to understand your own brightness?
Shall I label you "Dark God" so you may see the sway you hold on my heart?
Maybe, to call you My Sun and Stars in order to offer dominion over the Universe as I understand it?
I wonder if you know
You are all of them ad more
That no pedestal could lift you so high
Because you fit best
Here
By my side.
Prince, Dark God
My sun and stars
I wonder if you know
How long I wandered
Only to finally have found home
In your eyes.

Once Upon a Time

You looked into the mirror of my soul
A reflection I no longer recognized
Once upon a time to
Happily ever after
Now your face that of a stranger
The deed is done
And you well know
No good deed goes unpunished
Time slips away into
Dreams that can't come true
Pennies dropped in a well
The potential wishes made
On the backs of prayers to Gods unnamed
I don't know you.
Maybe I never did
But, through prestidigitorial skill
The wool came down
Covering the eyes that no longer saw
Clearly the spell being woven
Take this
Take me
Take it all
It's all the same
Gifts of words and verse
The remainder of  the best
Offered from the blind
Until the sky splits open
With a roar of thunder to send you running
A cleansing rain, to
Wash it all away
I watch you gaze into a puddle
Imperfect, filled with mud and dirty
And I see your reflection
Clearly, for the first time
There you are!
Once upon a time
All that ever mattered
So sing the minstrels
Players only love you
When they're playing
An Analogy for a fool
And none exist more foolish than me
When looking into the mirror of my soul.

The Dance of Men

your arms
Is the place I want to be
your smile
Is the place that reflects happiness
your kiss
Is the place that love grows

My eyes
Have seen this before
Never like this,
Beauty and love
With a soft strength
And a knowing truth in your embrace

My heart
Has felt this before
Swelling with hope at each beat
Breaking in pain at each pump of blood
For beginnings and endings
Crest and crash in time with the rise and fall of your chest

My lips
Have tasted this before
The ripened fruit of desire
Waiting to be pulled from your tongue
A unique sweetness
Full of passion and promise

My body
Has ached for this before
Out of breath as a fire on my skin
Ignites under your fingertips
Sharing the most private parts of myself
Beneath your skin

In your arms
My eyes see
In your smile
My heart beats
In your kiss
My body aches

Such is the dance of men.

Falling

Have you ever heard a soul cry out in the night?
Falling through the dark into the unknown
Did I fall?
Did I jump, or
Was I pushed?
Always remember
The best laid plans of mice and men
Pave the path to hell
Where saints and sinners wear the same robes
And the rosebushes have thorns
While the thornbushes have roses
The urge to jump in
Where angels fear to tread
Shall surely be the death of man
Exploring the unknown with
Fight or flight's knowing guidance
We run into the night, embracing forever's possibility
With just a nudge
As light as a breeze
The course of entire lives change
For better or worse
Through thick and thin
It always comes there and back again
Time is the thief of memory
Did I fall?
Did I jump, or
Was I pushed?
Falling through the dark, into the unknown

Blue

She speaks to me softly
The stuff of dreams
Wrapped around me
Squeezing me tightly
She tells me she'll never leave me
She tells me she loves me
She tells me I can be free . . .
As long as I'm with her
She crawls inside my veins
And she pumps her love through me
Until I bleed her out
Creating verses of devotion
And paintings of her beauty
Until I'm an exhausted and beaten shell
She takes me in her arms

"When will I be okay?" I ask her
She answers with her body
Pushing me down
She climbs on top of me
"You'll be okay inside me" she whispers
Taking me again and again
Until I have nothing left to give
She humbly asks for more of my love
Offering butterfly kisses
and Promises of forever
She'll never leave me
As long as I give her everything
When will I be okay?
When? Will I be okay?
I'll be okay if I live for her
I'll be okay if I bleed for her
I'll be okay if I sing to her
I'll be okay if I believe in her
Never that I'll be okay
Never that I'm enough
Never that I'm okay on my own
Miss Blue
The stuff of nightmares
Taking never giving
But I have found my voice
And when I leave, For what will be the last time
She asks
Could you stay . . .
Long enough for me to say goodbye

She speaks to me softly
The stuff of dreams
Wrapped around me
Squeezing tightly

The Audience I've Never Met

Lost!
On the road forever
     (or at least it feels like it)
Not arriving; False starts and detours
Roadblocks in the way
Like so many crumpled papers in a wastebasket
The problem is, I'm not writing for me
I'm writing for an audience I've never met
And what I want to say is so much more personal and
Not at all appropriate for polite conversation
immediately after introduction
I was inspired by the muse in the ether
Giving me the words when I've got nothing remotely interesting to say
Telling me to share my pain
Like a dirty needle in a back alley
Encouraging me to lay bare my angst
Like a catholic in a confessional
Demanding I convey what its like
To see the shame of every memory I never wanted
Reflected in your eyes
How much it hurts when your favorite poems
     (the ones that make you cry)
and the songs you sing the loudest are all echoing your pain
With the words you could never find on your own,
Bouncing off the walls of my soul
Shouting your hatred and loss
Until it becomes my own and
I live with my shame and your hatred as my neighbors
And then the words come
Hot and stinging
Painting an ugly picture that seems
Somehow hauntingly beautiful
I am equal parts excitement and fear
When I come to the Audience I've never met
As a supplicant
Begging for empathy
Pleading for understanding
From someone
Anyone who can say
You are not alone in this
Because I wonder
What would that be like?
So I relate my story through verse
Waiting for something, anything
And then I understand
I'm writing for myself  
Sharing with an audience I've never met
And if art, like beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder
Then it is my honor to share mine with
The Audience I've Never met

The Natural Consequence of Love

No matter what

Changes Change
And Pain is Pain

Summed up by strike and bruise

Not all scars are seen

Not all pain is clean

The brightest day

Becomes

The Blackest night

Which is

Darkest before the dawn

Life is metaphor

Simile and rhyme

No reason?

Beauty is reason

Love is treason

Accept is all with

Poise dignity and

Strength of birth

Right in the end

Wrong in the middle

Time’s arrow kills Cupid’s love

Discordant entropy is reality

The end of time’s beginning

Mystery

Solved the problem

Build the wall

Protect yourself

Protect your love

No

One gets in

All becomes one

Becomes none

The natural consequence

Of

Love.

One Last Fight

"I came, just like I promised." the voice was soft and trembling, though not from fear.  She knelt down, placing her palms on the tops of her thighs in a gesture she thought might look regal and hoped it didn't look supplicating.  She smiled at this.  What a thing it would be to submit to the dead!  Her smile turned to a muffled sob as she realized he would have found it funny too. 

The tears fell as she looked up, away from where he lay, and remarked that this was a holdover from the past. She'd been unable to look at him when she was crying for years.  She always hated that and a surge of anger flooded through her at this realization that she was still unable to look at him.

"Damn you!" she said, loudly causing several birds to take flight and this made her laugh again.

"You're such a jerk." she said, looking back at his resting place.  All she saw was the cold unyielding stone that was all that was left to mark the presence of a man she felt so dynamic, so much larger than life.  She stroked the top of the stone and felt a fresh, raw surge of sadness at it's cold, unyielding surface scraping against her skin.  There was none of the warmth, softness or hidden strength that she'd felt in his arms as they'd wrapped around her, making her feel safer than she'd ever been.

"Not a jerk. You're an asshole!" her anger rose again.

"You left me. You left us! How could you do that you selfish prick?  Did you know they ask about you every day?  Did you know we all cry ourselves to sleep with-"

"They really ask about me?" came a voice making her jump up so fast that she bumped her head on a tree branch.  She whirled around ready to give this intruder, this stalker a piece of her mind---how dare he interrupt her grieving---but the sight she beheld caused her knees to buckle.  It was him. 
Defying all logic and all reason, he stood before her.  She felt her knees go weak and she clenched her fists vowing not to faint, if for no other reason than she hated women who fainted at shocking situations.  Though there was an honest fear that if she fainted he would be gone when she came to.

"Brian?" she asked in the same soft and trembling voice she'd used when she'd arrived.

"In the flesh." he said, flashing a lopsided grin that had always made her melt in life, but now his flippant tone did nothing for her.

"You can't be here." she said, her tone incredulous.

"But I am." he replied, his tone light.  He came closer, a literal spring in his step and he enfolded her in his arms.  He felt her melt into him for just a moment and then her coldness took over and she shoved him away.

"WHO ARE YOU!?" she screamed, giving into the shock.  His face fell, the happiness dripping away to fear.

"I'm Brian." he said,

"Babe it's okay."

"Don't you 'babe' me!" she spat.

"How dare you!  How dare you do this to me!" she sobbed, and did, at last fall to her knees, though to her credit she didn't faint.  He touched her shoulder gently trying to reassure her in that infuriating way he'd had in life.

"You're dead.  You died.  We buried you.  There isn't any resurrection.  You can't be here."  Her voice was now desperate.  Her need for this to be true was equal only to her need for it to be untrue.

"All the more reason you should be happy to see me." he said gently.  His voice shook, but it wasn't fear or sadness, it was . . . effort.  He was straining.

"Well I'm not." she said with finality.

"I understand." he said simply, but his eyes pleaded with her for understanding for acceptance.

"Why should I be?  If you're here then there are a handful of reasons why," she ticked the points off on her left hand.

"One, you're really dead and I've finally lost it, which would mean I was far more dependent on you then either of us wanted; if I've somehow resurrected you in my head to help me cope.  Two, you aren't dead and there's some kind of elaborate reason you faked your death, which would lead to some extraordinary thing like 'Witness Protection' or some other shit like that which would mean you came to say good bye; which means I'm about to lose you all over again and that's just the shittiest thing you could do to a person.  Three." she choked on the word.

"Three, you've been genuinely resurrected which would imply the existence of something that had the power to do that which would mean my entire belief system (or lack thereof) is wrong.  Now, which of these people do you want to be?" she looked squarely at him, challenging him to declare himself as the harbinger of her mental infirmity, and insensitive clod or the proof of divinity which she denied.

"I'm Brian," he said simply, stroking her hair.

"I'm the Brian you know and I came to say goodbye, that's true." and then he laughed, loudly and deeply, a belly laugh that reminded her of watching him play with their children.

"And I'm in awe of you. As usual." he said smiling.

"So, you're real?  And this is what?  It is a witness protection thing?" she said, her eyes icy, but within herself she couldn't deny how happy she was to see him standing before her.

"I'm real.  And I've come to say goodbye my love.  But the rest . . . " he trailed off.

"Oh no!  Don't you do that!" her voice was angry again, and he laughed again and this made her even angrier.

"Why are you laughing at me?" she cried, her anger giving way to tears once again.

"Look at you!" He said,

"So beautiful, so full of fire, so sure of yourself that even given the final goodbye that no one ever gets you're picking a fight with me.  You're a joy to behold." his voice then gave way to sobs and he grabbed her hands.

"And I don't know how I got here or how long I'll be here, but you have to believe me.  I came for you.  I came across time and space and death and reality just for you.  Just to say goodbye.  And you're fighting with me." he gave a little laugh at that last,

"I can't believe you're fighting with me."

"I'm not trying to fight." she said softly.

He stood, his energy crackling with intensity.

"Well of course not.  I mean why would you?  I mean, it's clear you're just trying to cope with something you can't understand because it's inexplicable.  Do you think I wanted to go?"  his voice returned some of her anger now,

"Do you think it was fair?  There's no fairness in the Universe.  This is all there is."  He reached out and touched her breast, over her heart.

"And it was enough to bring me back to you.  To say good bye.  So.  Say it."

"No." she said defiantly.

"No?" he asked, hardly able to comprehend.

"No," she nodded,

"I mean why should I?  I don't know what you are or why you're here or if any of it is real.  What if I don't want closure?  What if I don't want to let you go or say goodbye because I want you here always?" she touched her heart over his hand,

"Besides.  You're not real.  Jerkface.  You can't be."

"Oh I'm real." he said and his hands were on the back of her neck and he pulled her into a kiss.  Long and deep and slow.  She did melt into him this time and though her eyes were closed she was aware that he was glowing and she knew then, without knowing why that it was ending.  She wrapped her arms around him desperately.

"No!" she screamed,

"No don't leave again! I don't even know why you're here."

"Because I am," he said,

"Because the universe is big. It's vast and complicated and ridiculous and sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and we call them miracles... and that's a theory.  But it's something you can believe in that doesn't require faith.  Theories can be proven by science." he winked at her.  The light surrounding him was blinding now.

"Or disproven." she said.

"I'm going to miss fighting with you." he said.

"I'm going to miss fighting with you." she responded, reaching for his hand.  He reached out though there was no longer any solidity to his form and her hand passed through his.

"No!" she cried.

"No, no, no." she repeated it over and over again, mournfully.  Sinking to her knees once more, placing her palms open on the tops of her thighs staring at the headstone that would once again be all that was left of her lover, her partner and her friend. 

"Goodbye my love." she heard him as if from a great distance and she closed her eyes against the tears.

She was still for a long time after that before opening her eyes and standing up.  She glanced at the stone that was all that remained and she whispered his name, giving it a lingering touch.  She knew she'd never know if what happened was real or imagined but she had to acknowledge that whether real or imagined the experience had left her feeling something she hadn't felt since he'd died.  It left her feeling loved.

Happy With You

21 things I want in a lover?
I'd be happy with you.
Imaginary Prince making me feel loved
Illusory lover showering upon me affections
As a feast to the starving
O' to be in your arms!
The very idea intoxicates me
21 things I want in a lover?
Such a paltry number to the man that would make me feel thus:
Made of star stuff
With eyes telling fairy tales and
A head full of dreams
Though tread softly for
This is what it means
To love a dream
And in the dream comes the lesson that
From a dream one must always awake.

21 things I want in a lover?
I'd be happy with you.