Once upon a time, there lived a cocky young noble,
Who'd committed no crime yet hid many a foible.

Wherever he rode he'd arrive in the dandiest style,
Charmingly he strode and imagined the ladies beguiled.

He traveled the land in search of high adventure,
Codpiece in hand he was besotted nigh treasure.

Never were any dragons slain nor demons defeated,
Only empty flagons remained where our hero retreated.

He found love unsought, as fools tend to do,
Spellbound by the thought that she loved him too.

Their storied romance grew as the long seasons passed,
However, soon they both knew their song would not last.

Trouble stormed their keep, drawn steel in the night,
And she was stabbed deep by her beloved in his fright.

The princess did strive though she eventually succame,
Spirited away for her life whilst he cried out her name.

Days became months and months became years, yet no word arrived,
Whilst our young hero drowned sour tears and feared that she'd died.

Dour doldrums spurred our knight to stand a little braver,
And so with long-suffering sighs, he sauntered forth to save her.

Briars and bogs he did cross and the dark forest he did pass,
Battling the dread of her loss our desperate knight espied her at last.

With beleaguered head ringing, he'd worried she was mistreated,
Yet he found her laughing and singing, did she not feel as he did?

Crestfallen he reached out to his love in his woe and his fear,
Firmly she gave him a shove and looked away with a sneer.

She claimed her contentment, and bade him leave without quarrel,
So with shame and resentment, he was gone come the morrow.

He sorrowfully still sings and mournfully pines, our hero apparent,
He thanks you for sparing us these wee lines, for one lonely knight-errant.

~ A Nursery Rhyme ~

By night the lamplights bloom in blue,
and Squinty Bat comes lurking through.
A flicker, a whisper,
a crooked spin,
she twirls in the hush where dreams begin.

She nibbles moths that orbit the glow,
grim as the gossip graveyards know.
Around the lamp
she loops and slides,
a velvet ribbon on moonlit tides.

At morning sun - dreadful, bright! -
Miss Clara Parrot claims the light.
She squawks and scolds,
so green, so loud,
a herald of day to the mortal crowd.

She tattles from trees with her feathered choir,
spilling the secrets that night conspired.
Their laughter clatters
like shattered glass,
naming each sin the shadows let pass.

Neighbors groan and pull their sheets
as Clara reigns over waking streets.
While Squinty swings
in her secret nook,
dangling like crime in a dusty book.

By day, it’s Clara, gossip and glare,  
by night, it’s Squinty, a ghost in the air.  
And before you ask:
Which one is blessed?
the sun and the moon will refuse that test.

I can't recall what this place was like
before the renovations.
There were difficulties--
bombings, whatnot,
and the removal to the madhouse of the construction foreman.

Blueprints are lovely, don't you think?
Smooth and blue as calm seas.
Birth, though, that's a ****** messy business--
the screaming gobsmacked arrival
held up in the hands of the midwife who never cuts her nails.

It's not so much that I love this place as that I was presented with it.
I woke in these rooms
with the hammering already in progress.
I long for waterfalls and love,
but have skin like bricks, and hair like shingles.

People say, make it beautiful, you can do it!
Be your own fetch, a siren of the flooded basement,
luring yourself with your own song.
Make it your home away from home as drowning sailors do,
find the bright side of blistering paint and warped floors like heavy seas.

All right then. I have tattooed the name Rán
on my arm, see it when I hold you.
We are limited only by burst plumbing, crumbling rebar,
and our own imaginations.
We are castaways keeping our heads above water
in our Rubik's Cube Winchester House
of gorgeous possibility.

"The Empire‐Skeptic and History Class"

Your Aeneas builds an empire
on exile and sorrow—what of the cities
he conquers, the peoples displaced?

Transformation has a cost.
By glorifying his ‘spark,’
we risk overlooking the suffering
ignited in his wake.

"first bruise"

Streetlamps flicker,  
echoing their silence.  
The chill—  
not just in the air,  
but between glances  

that once burned.  

Footsteps dissolve  
into memory's fog,  
while love  
learns its first  
bruise.

Her parted lips frozen in time,
Wet, in fiery red, sublime.
Dripping with passion, a sensual hue,
A masterpiece, both bold and true.

Painted , a vibrant, crimson stream,
Flows with desire, a burning dream.
Her lips, a whispered promise sweet,
A taste of passion, a surrendering heartbeat.

The brushstrokes, bold and free,
Dance with color, wild and carefree.
A painted vision, a work of art,
A celebration, of her passionate heart.