Butterflies dissolve like honey-colored lacquer
as I wander the insides of this bright amber moon.

I look for Mother behind a shaded glow-tree.
It is there that I find her folding clouds while bluebirds
dance in the hollow of her heart…

She’s redolent like star-oil from a night-blooming cereus,
With hair never-ending like shadows
sealed from the palest of light.
Her eyes are like tanzanite orbs set ablaze.
She wears robes made of koi scales, and silk from the sea.

As I gathered pearls for her from the mouth of lapis lazuli
shores, my feet touch the chilled sands as shells scurried
from my foot-falls.

As I fetched gossamer from a crystal spider
hiding in a nearby constellation, gold web danced through
my cramoisy hair.

With all of these things, I sat beneath a niveous dune,
out of sight from Mother as I made her a necklace that
resembled the remnants of a galaxy that she once lost.

When I presented my gift, she smiled, then gently
whispered:
"The bright galaxy standing before me is more than enough."

The sea is all flow with no ebb
As the moon hangs full in the sky
He pulls her to him on a breeze
Salty, heavenly, mesmerizing
She comes as he softly beckons
The magnet draws her in close
She inches toward his cool gaze
With the warm water he yearns to drink
For he is parched
And she is giving
Flowing in gentle waves
He calls and she slinks to him in shadows
Locked in the gaze of desire
A gaze broken only by the pleasure
of the deluge of their union
And in that union there is tranquility
His peace releases her
She ebbs, quietly lapping the shore
She turns to see him smile upon her
As she sparkles in the warmth of his glow

Sing me a song, o’ muse Calliope,
that in the summer solstice music
does release, wave upon wave of glory,
joy, and harmony, that with smooth lyric
this uneven heart might embrace
the golden summers dawn, that kisses
the newborn day, and nothing shall deface
this my radiant summers bloom.

Standing resplendent in a baroque topiary,
Under a florid arbour as an arched canopy,
Her pulchritude in moonlight, is the plenary
Picture of, the muse, the Goddess Calliope.

My heart’s reminiscence of our first encounter,
Like a fragrance in my mind wafts around,
Whose Pareidolia in every-thing sketches her
Face, to which it is entirely spellbound.

Were the Fates to keep us apart,
As the sculptor Pygmalion I would be.
But Aphrodite won’t breathe life into my art,
For not my Galatea, I love my Calliope.

In the last year of Trujillo’s reign, the Dictator decided
to eliminate three sisters and then plausibly deny it.
Patria, Maria and Minerva were the victims of the plot.
Once the three were dead and gone, He‘d make sure folks forgot.
On a lonely country road, they were ambushed by his men.
They forced the sisters off the road. That’s how it began.
The girls must not seem martyrs; Trujillo had made it plain-
nothing quick and merciful, like a bullet to the brain.
The men used bats to knock them down and smashed their faces in
so they could not be recognized by their own next of kin.
They placed the bodies in the car and pushed it off the road.
“The butterflies are free!” they mocked; “Those girls reaped what they sowed.”
In the Dominican Republic, the wheel, if slowly, turned.
Trujillo met a ****** end and freedom was regained.
The truth was slowly brought to light, the murderers were named.
The Maribels were honored and their martyrdom proclaimed.





   h

He sings
And she loves him more deeply
He croons
And lulls her in peace
A bard
Who sings for his Goddess
His voice
Keeps her heart skipping beats

He speaks
In hushed tones of a lover
He watches
With love in his heart
He sees
The joy that he brings Her
He knows
That they'll never part

He can't
Understand how he moves her
He'll sing
'Til she tells him to cease
His voice
Like a choir of angels
She swoons
Inhibitions release

He sings
And she loves him more deeply
He watches
With love in his heart
A bard
Who sings for his Goddess
He knows
That they'll never part

Is the moon tired? she looks so pale
Within her misty veil:
She scales the sky from east to west,
And takes no rest.

Before the coming of the night
The moon shows papery white;
Before the dawning of the day
She fades away.

In the ethereal gloaming
Of glowing flowers and dusky haze,
A lone figure was roaming
Under the sweet moon’s pale rays;
A lullaby sang the breeze
With its melody the rustling trees,
That in the night looked not so sere
And without moon’s glow did disappear;
A lost lake lay along the way
Ringed by cedar and willows weeping,
A water-lily cupped a lone moon ray
Ripe for plucking and for drinking;
Stars spangled the infinite sky,
Which is where she flew –
Up and away, further than high.

She is neither pink nor pale,
  And she never will be all mine;
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
  And her mouth on a valentine.

She has more hair than she needs;
  In the sun ’tis a woe to me!
And her voice is a string of colored beads,
Or steps leading into the sea.

She loves me all that she can,
  And her ways to my ways resign;
But she was not made for any man,
  And she never will be all mine.

Eyes, orb as exploding stars,
Weighted light of hair rushing,
Held extremities, nimbus limbs,
Eons' spring, singularity crushing.