I love the way he looks at me
every time his heart feels
the night's embrace.
And my body desires to dance for him
until morning falls
upon his face

I watch him drink each hour
from a cup of moonlight ecstasy.
While my hands touch his skin
as a breeze...........
that whispers me.

The morning finds me holding on
to a cup
of memories.
My heart drinks them in
as Dawn.....
kisses me.

Copyright @2014  - Neva Flores Smith

I went for a run today
to test out my lungs, my back,
my once-strong core
Here, miles from home
the streets offer no reference point
So I run not knowing what to expect

Every foot-strike
echoes back the memory
of several falls--each,
with their own, signature pain

One year

One year
Nestled deep in these muscles,
these bones
I dig in, hug my spine
and keep running

I continue through
a cemetery trail
It's quiet, pretty
There is nothing to know
of the lives
beneath the stones I pass
But they are my markers--
Increment by increment

At the centre of the cemetery
A path, lined with Texan flags
slopes up towards the exit
Above it stands a great
Lone Star

I fix on it,
As the billowing, spectator-flags
wave me out

I wave back
and leave the graveyard

With a blistered heart
From unnumbered breaks,
A cloud of unshed tears
From untold betrayals,
I reenter the world
After an eternity or more
Of self imposed asylum
From a world of superficial bliss.

A world unchanged!
A cruel untended garden
Of deceptive beauty
And unkind thorny roses.
Lovelorn shadows,
Masquerading venomous claws
With beauteous flamboyance
And undesirable attraction.

Lethargic feelings,
Dousing my desires
With drowsing memoirs
Of countless emotional abuse,
Causing momentary spasms
In cerebral regions
Parading nocuous images
In the plenitude of projected beauty.

Scarred beyond immediate cure,
I recede from said world-
Too adverse for tender hearts
Back to hibernating moods
To nurse evergreen cuts
Cuts so deep, so lethal
Only the indolent strides of time
Can attempt to stitch!

Awaiting prophetic moments
Moments with mirage qualities
When in-love I can fall again
When a damsel I can trust again
When my heart can beat again
For one with pure intentions
Not putrefied by Hollywood mentors
But virtuous in biblical ways...


© Raphael Uzor

writhe and
gape of tortured

   perspective
   rasp and graze of splintered

normality
               crackle and
               sag
   of planes          clamors of
   collision
   collapse         As

peacefully,
lifted
into the awful beauty
                                  of sunset

                                  the young city
putting off dimension with a blush
enters
the becoming garden of her agony