In a restaurant
he was studying the menu:

~ Raw emotion with blood
~ Medium-rare emotion
~ Stir-fried emotion
~ Deep-fried emotion

Emotions, refined with thought,
had to be preordered
years in advance

in a separate annex.

Crossing the Baltic
Young sons sung
     Trappist 1!

In the Greatest Game
We rise and fall like a wave
But swim on we must

#575
(C) Copyright John Duffy

Where poetry is and smiles
there's vibrant life
the best of the heart
is expressed despite whatever strife

every moment we'll celebrate
all sorrows and regrets we'll set aside
embraced by beauty, love and truth
in such endless  bliss we'll all abide

Could not see tomorrows
Could not hear past
Could not say present

They are stripped by tomorrows
They are struck by past
They are arrested by present

Time's all gifts stay beyond the Time
With weeping tunnel
Without lights and lines...

You have the waves of the sea writ on your skin—stretch marks.