A life long lived is a life filled with nothing but emptiness,
A life well lived is a life filled with exotic wilderness.
A life complete is a life well nourished,
A life with love is a life filled with fresh water.
A life with joy s a life filled with intoxicating perfumes of fresh flowers,
A life filled with expeditions is a life filled with hope.
A life filled with hope is a life well lived,
A life filled with graciousness is a life filled with extravagances.
A life filled with mercy is a life filled with joy.
A life filled with extravagances is a life filled with expeditions.
A life filled with fresh water is a life filled with graciousness.
A life lived in an exotic wilderness is a life that is complete.
A life that is well nourished is a long life that is filled with fulfilment.

Love, now, is considered 'cute'.
That's all there is to it.

It's not looking up at the stars and
wishing for that same blazing fire
inside yourself.

It isn't those long, after-dark
conversations we had when
the constellations sang us melodies
in Ursa Major and Ursa Minor until
we remembered that I could play the piano
and you were alright on the recorder
and we joined in.

Sometimes, you'd stroke your fingers
through my hair, and my tears would
stroke the piano keys at the beautiful
audacity of your perfection.

Our shadows would intertwine,
flecked with tiny shards of the moonlight
and its spittle,
and it would seem to us that all
the great expanses and extravagances
of our universe had aligned to give us
this moment.

I'm told that wasn't love either.
No. Love is cute.

Love, according to the here and now,
is not what Shakespeare promised me
it would be.

It is not speaking the sort of words
that have stretched from the dawn of
the dawn of time and have tangled and
coiled and wrapped us together
like words are ribbons and we're
a human maypole.

It isn't seeing the sun and thinking
of the way your eyes lit up when
you first read my poetry.

After, you'd rise from where you sat
to the right of me, the east
and whisper to me how
lucky you were, how lucky we were
to be here, in this world, together.

Our hands would clasp, my small fingers
warmed by the inexplicably intrinsic
sense of togetherness.
Of you. Of me.

The two words blended like
we were only colours and this
world our painted grey palette.

None of it mattered.
None of it mattered, because none of it was love.
'Love', according to the modern mind, is simply
Cute.

We were boiled down,
like we'd been pushed into a pan and
they couldn't understand why we wouldn't fit
even once they'd chopped us up.

Everything - because wasn't love everything? -
was just plagiarised love letters scribbled on the
dog-eared corners of textbooks.

And though to us we were Nut and Geb,
Gaia and Ouranos,
Romeo and Juliet, if Romeo had
had your freckles and Juliet had
had my temper and they'd had
love built on the transcendence
of time instead of party crashing.

Except, to everyone else in the here and now,
we weren't. We weren't *******
Nut and Geb.
We were cute.

Somehow, love seems to equate to
you carrying my books around for me
like you don't  have enough of your own to drag.

Love is suits and cravats and
prom dresses with stick on sparkles
because the night sky is no longer enough.

Love is kisses on the end of text messages
to replace the kisses in real life,
and pink and red heart emoticons to
pretend that we all still have hearts that are capable of
anything more than 'cute'.

And when I close my eyes and try to remember that it was real,
what we had, remember that it was the kind of untarnished love that
I could look in and see our reflection,
it's not your voice that I hear, but the words of 'love' in the here and now.

'You two are so cute together!'
'I wish I could have a relationship like yours. It's adorable.'
Quaint. Charming. Darling.
Cute.

Love, now, is considered 'cute'.
Even when it's not.

More than a myth than Nut and Geb ever were.

Even when it's real.
Especially when it's real.

That's all there is to it.

In a Bluebird toffee tin
Are a hundred letters –
Most of them doodle-stamped and
Delivered by hand.
Unlike the letters I sent to you
They do not smell of spritzed cologne,
(A trick that I learned from Grease)
They are not messy
Or tea stained,
But perfect powder blue
And allowing for small extravagances –
The Cursive of the Obsessive,
Cursed by neatness and perfect hearts.

I pick one out at random,
A casually cruel one sent from Rome –
I imagine you blinking on a balcony
With dazzles on your collarbone,
A teeny tiny sugarless coffee
At your side,
And a pen tapping your knee.

“I’m not a **** at all –“ you wrote,
"It’s only that you are gregarious
In the most DISGUSTING way.
That’s your problem not mine -
Your optimism won’t catch you.
(Cynicism won’t catch you either,
But it has the courtesy not to throw you.)
I’m stopping now,
By the time you get this
I’ll be back home.
What pointlessness we endure for one other.
I miss you, as you say,
‘ever so’ –
Bedtime here is a source of misery.”

And then you signed your name,
Tiny,
Small,
Impossibly graceful,
Just like yourself.

You were always nasty
When you missed me.

In a Bluebird toffee tin
Are a hundred letters –
Most of them doodle-stamped and
Delivered by hand.
Unlike the letters I sent to you
They do not smell of spritzed cologne,
(A trick that I learned from Grease)
They are not messy
Or tea stained,
But perfect powder blue
And allowing for small extravagances –
The Cursive of the Obsessive,
Cursed by neatness and perfect hearts.

I pick one out at random,
A casually cruel one sent from Rome –
I imagine you blinking on a balcony
With dazzles on your collarbone,
A teeny tiny sugarless coffee
At your side,
And a pen tapping your knee.

“I’m not a **** at all –“ you wrote,
It’s only that you are gregarious
In the most DISGUSTING way.
That’s your problem not mine -
Your optimism won’t catch you.
Cynicism won’t catch you either,
But it has the courtesy not to throw you.
I’m stopping now,
By the time you get this
I’ll be back home.
What pointlessness we endure for one other.
I miss you, as you say,
‘ever so’ –
Bedtime here is a source of misery.”

And then you signed your name,
Tiny,
Small,
Impossibly graceful,
Just like yourself.

You were always nasty
When you missed me.

Last year my family and I traveled
to New York, the bursting bright
dreams in our light, the big apple
rooted inside our souls, the van
packed with immense suitcases
and heavy exhilaration.  

We were on the long road to a
new beginning of our life.  The
world we used to live in was filled
with endless moments of dragging days,
sweat stained fields riding our backs,
as we worked long breathless hours in
the scorching heat, feeling our flesh
burn to a smoldering defeat.  

And as we topped and suckered the
tobacco through the day, blistered
hands buried in blazing depths,
our swollen feet cramping and
struggling, waiting patiently for
a sweet escape.  

We thought it would always be
this way, every morning waking
up to the sounds of rattling tractors
and smoky engines, long draining
walks and dripping sweat rolling
down our cheeks, while we took
in the consistent cries of our lives,
letting the journey seep inside of us,
letting this world be our forever home.

Now as we stand on the grounds of
New York, the many fascinating people
passing by us in extreme excitement,
exquisite extravagances and designs,
towering buildings built of massive
strength and diligence, the Brooklyn
bridge standing majestically in the
distance overlooking the shimmering
scene, the Statue of Liberty rising
high in the sky like the tremendous
trees, like a distinguished nation.
And as we walk down the city
streets of Times Square and
breathe in the wonderful attractions,
golden glory and brightness, a
show-stopping entertainment racing
through our bodies, we welcome
our new home of various adventures,
a phenomenal place full of excellence
and taste.

A storm and the stars
Everywhere it would
Echo the song
Of sheltering silence

The dream of
What's ahead
The dawns, how
They turn into days
Fate, the blissful chase

Enduring crosses
Completely, These
Extravagances
Of the heart
Even the nearest
Moment is far

a man stands stern as 86,400 condolences
in front of a Grandfather Clock.
he resembles Lloyd the Barber from:
"The Shining"--except for mustachio &
monocle, a leather whip in his right hand.
dressed up to the nines for his
sadomasochistic relationship with Kairos.
the pent-up tension of its purposeful
waste, excited him to no end with its
insightful extravagances.
the heightened state of foregoing all
possibility, rides the penultimate crack of
a whip.
oceanically wrought drops of milk &
honey--pelvic ache in-between no two
points.
the adrenaline dump of worlding an
infinitely broken silence--over & over &
over.
surviving deferments of dust in an edenic matchbox, quavering to hear--holy make the round of holies.
until sweat shines his shoes & the whip's
floored by undulance.
as his fire belly newt: Gozer, singles out from a camouflaged environ to be fed.