little-girl time

time is a girl with light, whispy fingers —

a scent clinging to everywhere she lingers

like a hushed whisper uttered in thought,

or some old notion uttered for naught

a fair & flighty breeze

fleeing through the hiding trees

time is a girl who wakes up alone

uncertain who cast that first stone

little-girl time hides from her high, mighty throne

she's searching for the way to atone

cold & alone inside a torn, hollow home

time fled through a void, away from her home

time lost her way in the bramble & bone,

pebble & crumb swept up & away inside a cyclone

because she was torn & hollow all alone

she lost her way back to the place where hope shone

to e.t.

i slumbered with your poems on my breast
spread open as i dropped them half-read through

like dove wings on a figure on a tomb
to see, if in a dream they brought of you,

i might not have the chance i missed in life
through some delay, & call you to your face
first soldier, & then poet, & then both,
who died a soldier-poet of your race.

i meant, you meant, that nothing should remain
unsaid between us, brother, & this remained--
& one thing more that was not then to say:
the victory for what it lost & gained.

you went to meet the shell's embrace of fire
on vimy ridge; & when you fell that day

the war seemed over more for you than me,
but now for me than you--the other way.

how over, though, for even me who knew
the foe thrust back unsafe beyond the rhine,
if i was not to speak of it to you
& see you pleased once more with words of mine?

robert frost

veteran of loss

a lesson mourned & kept tight:
lady love is a foe one ought not provoke
& no heart is built to be iron or trite

she can taste of a fierce, great loss
even to those rare, champion folk
lady love is a force no one ought cross

harsh is a bed she has lain with consent
her names are like wind knowing every bent
her nature is whimsy, a fidgety child never content
no painter can hold her to capture her tragic torment

a scent heard in the air, then a sprite or a whore
her names & her passions are famous lust-lore
her heart has seen every shame-paved floor
love lingers where she was known: in widow & emptied drawer
she beats inside of every soul, she's a silent, familiar rapport

love is all kinds, a soldier & veteran of loss
be she a flame of passion or plastic, exterior gloss
love has toed every floor & known every dark door

monster of mine

there's a breathing in here
a raucous breath of smoldering fear
a monster in here
looking to prey on my fear

monster, i know your name
monster, i know your game

you're a crowded roar of fear
you're leaving filthy footprints here
a monster built with phantom fear
you're feeding on my soul in here

monster, you're always the same
monster, i know you breed my shame

in here, that's you i hear
caged in a closet feasting on my fear
you're not all that you appear
you manipulate me with my fear

monster, you're a phantom here
monster, i built you, i'll make you disappear

fire and ice

some say the world will end in fire,
some say in ice.
from what i've tasted of desire

i hold with those who favor fire.
but if it had to perish twice,

i think i know enough of hate
to say that for destruction ice

is also great

& would suffice. 

robert frost

pandemonium

it's a crowded roar in here
i can't see & i can't hear
the voices & noises
of lost moments & choices

she is all lips, emotion & laughter,
but all i know is noise
that moment gone, now it's after
my imitation heart is all but naked of her put-on poise

where the world is material & real
is where i fake an even keel
within it's still chaos, all motley wrong
i'm underfoot of some stampeding, witless throng

all the things that i am not
& all the petty poison i contrive
bathe me in a filthy, fetid rot
nothing breathes here where chaos thrives

there's a thousand screaming sounds inside
i can't hear a one, they're jealous, hate & pride
leaning on denial like a crutch; she's both whore & bride
all these thousand screaming sounds
wringing, ringing in furious, rising fashions
all gnashing at my soul like blood-lusty hounds
the pitch of the screaming hounds finally yielding all-vile passions

neon-painted, pasty dolls parading 'round
going 'round inside some turning scope
colliding inside a kaleidoscope
in this horror picture show, all the lost things here are found

conception

if i could open my eyes all the way, bright & wide
i imagine things simple: void of inner-contention, dissension, & divide

conception/misconception taunt every sight in my eyes
she's ever reaching for a foothold on too-fragile foundations
her warring perceptions topple cultures & nations when else they would rise
like gangrene in a wound, lady misconception stains generations

faces familiar & not so soiled by warped, false conception
she's choking me down 'til i'm naught but self-deception
she pollutes my vision & dims my perception

misconception damns me a citizen in her warring worldwide
& reality is that slippery word that morphs under scrutinized pride
what we all hide is the foothold she clings to, my mistress begging bride

in the regions where we hide our dark is where she plants her poison prayers
it's in those shadowy recesses that she sells her fiend-breeding wares

i wonder:
if i gave up my dark & tore assumption out of my heart
would my lady self-deception also fall apart?