Hot
Like a summer rain
Which sizzles
When it strikes
Heated pavement
Dripping wet
We step out
Of the water
Honeydew
And watermelon
Dribbling
Down our mouths
Going down
An orange sun
Hangs briefly
Then dips
Beneath
The horizon
Heat is quivering
Across the grass
You brush aside
The damp clump
Of hair stuck
To my cheek
And it is mouth
On mouth, again

As the sun colors flowers with an
Outward gold on leaves and petals
Bright and pastel like hand-painted blooms
With inward greening, they stand on delicate legs.
Time holds us in their exquisiteness.  As they
Gather us into the security of their beauty
We are warm and safe within this moment.

It takes time, little elephant, so try
It takes time, tiny baby, you'll crawl
It takes time to build a relationship
It takes time for one to dissipate

It takes time, my heart, so break
It takes time, You broken heart, now heal
It takes time, so dream, realize and feel
It all takes time

She lay there writhing
Having used her last few seconds
Of life in sacrifice.

She did not stop the honey-rob.
She did not protect the offspring.
Only fleeting thoughts had slowed

The thief briefly after the sharp sting;
That sting with so few consequences for a thief.
For the strong or the stupid brush pain away.

Then pretend.

Give me one rose hour by hour
To build for me loves glorious tower
And turn this pain into a smile
Give of yourself un-beguiled

That I might trust love once again
Thus accept you more than mere friend
And make me know that all is truth
Having given the effort and the proof

Then this heart of mine you can rule

2nd version:
The Efforts
Give me one rose hour by hour
To build for me loves glorious tower
And turn this pain into a smile
Give of yourself un-beguiled

That I might trust love once again
Thus accept you more than mere friend
And make me know that all is truth
Having given the effort and the proof

Then this heart of mine you can rule
Show me your love will never decrease
For love became an unruly beast
O, diminish love not in the least

The foolish say, "It is far better
To make friends with the beast
Than to be eaten by it."

They never realize until it's too late
That the beast will eat them anyway.
In the end, they were kept alive

As food to devour in lean times.
Lean times come to all beasts
Because they consume everything, until

They must turn to the fool in reserve.

For beth fwoah dream Boleyn

The pale moon, shrunken
And as faint as a pencil sketch

Shines down with sly smile
Looking over the forest below.

She is ill in her waning phase, but
Is comforted knowing she will wax.

Wild nettles of the night rise up
Wrapping her burden in mist.

The tides listen as she commands
Their rhythms and they distils their vapor.

Her victories are unfurled of wrappings
As they stretch out like ribbons of roads.

We are all puppets and go as directed.

Through lessons learning, at times hard,
The young man makes note within his personality,
Files it away for later days to work on.
And he continues with life with only a flicker of recall.

Sometime during his 60s he flips through the files
Seeking to amend some deficiency there in
And finds the file on his lack of patience, his lack
Of understanding, his deep-seated prejudices.

Thus, he sets to work.  By the end of his lifespan
He is at long last a decent enough human being.
So late.  But too late?  Those who come to know this man
Think only of the loving, patient, and open-minded man
Which they see before them.  Redemption is sweeter than pride.

Under a canopy of dense and heavy clouds
She gazes out onto the familiar.

Gathered within a tiny sheaf
She carried dried flower and leaf
Gathered from their special place.

The wounds of a heart with glittering clarity
Contemplated with complacent resign, she

Looks inward hoping to know or to find
Whether her heart could find a space,
The space where happy memories can live.

Even amidst a hard-scrabble unfair life
Joy finds its way into hearts, onto faces
Within the laughter of families, and children.

They are the loved.  

Joy embraces love of others,
It is rocked and cradled and nurtured.  And,
It is reflected in the love of the loved,

And resides with those loved.

I can smell the rain coming
As the Texas heat and humidity
That had me held like plastic wrap
Around my face and body loosens;
And the cooler air sinks down to fold us.
I can breathe, feel exhilarated, want life!
Then the downburst!  Like a cow relieving itself
On a flat rock, large drops scatter, loudly, until
The tin on the roof tinkles a melodious song.
In a Texas summer, we live for days like these.

Yes, I would come
And take it away with me.
But I know that you need it
To live and feel and breathe.
So, I'll leave it for now
As long as you remain
Next to me.

The heart of the matter?
The heart matters,
The heart of matter.
Plays on words, these.
Yes, I call your name,
Remain, remain, remain!
For your heart matters.

Flow water eddies
Glide on oily surfaces
Blossom you will die

Rare and unusual even among the ill,
Neurosis and psychosis wrap around him
Like a warm, protective blanket.

Thwack! upside the head, "Hello!"
Reality is calling on deaf ears.
The knock never loosens nor
dislodged the blockage in them. He is
Building his life, if only in his own mind,
Second by second, wake to sleep, day after day;
Serving to preserve this foggy unreal thinking.

A magical sort of twilight within continually twinkles.
And a crafty, but ill and calculating brain remains
Though truth slaps him in the face, again and again,
Even as he lives in his own cocooned mind.
The reality within the reality which he continues to create
Is so much work on the part of his many lifetime enablers
But it is all too little effort by him for anything but himself.

SkyWlkR88, I only asked a question about your use of "red."  I didn't feel that you should have deleted it so completely.  Never let anyone intimidate you.  Poetry can bend the rules.  You can use any word in any way you wish.  I was just curious and not being critical.

Poor, stupid, and
Preferably Dead

Squashed like bugs
You’re no longer a drain

Their pockets bulge
While you become a husk

Problem solved

O, these remaining echoes of you
My distant Bell, calling me to worship.

All things turn golden at sunset.  It is
The nature of daylight at day's dawning

That the start & end should be mellowed.
Yet, that distant bell reverberates

And echoes on through time
As I kneel at your alter,
Straining to hear echoes of you.

That scent which rises up into my nostrils  
From the soil:

Iron, sand, leaf litter, first memories;
Black gumbo soil rich with organic decay

The scent that invades my nostrils
From the heavy rains:

Pine, pecan orchards, river, lake, fishy-ocean salt;
Awash in the field of drying grasses

It is an unwanted scent entering my nostrils
From the lack of a dusting cloth:

Aged, layered, rancid, oily, brittle pages, decay;
Things coming to their end.

This chapter is now closed.
Relegated to the last vestiges,
Foggy scenes through time's mist.
Memories can become happier,

Now faded and worn.
Time's safe place, fuzzy and warm
Is like a sweater that you only pull out
For a season then pack away until next time.

I would come
And take it away with me.
But I know that you need it
To live and feel and breathe.
So, I'll leave it for now
As long as you remain
Next to me.

No poet is dead
If the poet is read.
Between life and death
There is a reality
Beyond reality, it seems.
Poets live on
If only in a reader's dreams.

Words mean what they mean, I ask?
But, ah, they can be nuanced or veiled.
They can be soft as cotton, feather-light,
Or hit like the proverbial ton of bricks
Dead on the nail head hammering
Their impact home.  That's the power
Of the weight of words.  Weigh them carefully.

I have limits
For I am only human,
Imperfect in body
And with a feeble mind.
I reach for the stars
Anyway.

Just as the moon shines
Alone the bright emanates
Within your deep tomb

I feel the heat of the morning sun on my skin.
A new day has begun.
A new day to begin again.  We are all renewed.
The day, me, you.  So, start again.

I have laughed
- With you
- At you
- For you
- Because of you

I have laughed
- Out of love for you
- Under you
- Over you
- Despite of you

Oh my love, our love was no joke.

Sitting on the steps
Downtown Lyric building
Near my bus stop

Artsy sculpture
Behind where I sit
Fabulous place

Exciting to watch people
Passing by in business attire
Fresh air sweeping through

My Metro life now past
Wanting to re-capture
The excitement of the time

I let myself drift back
Get the feel of nostalgia, then
Resurface into the present life

If we pick something apart
Can we really love it?
Do we throw out
That part which is picked apart?
Can we really claim love complete
from the start?
If we love, truly love,
The substance of a thing or being
We must love
The ins and outs, the very fabric,
The whole of the thing,
the who of the person.

Different moments throughout our lives,
The passing of time, who we are changing
Throughout the years, evolving, letting go 
Are not unlike the participating self-evolvement
Over the course of living. Yet, disease takes away
These basic anchors of reality, time, and place,
And all the coordinates that we rely on
In every moment of our lives are suddenly lost.

Heart tissue in space
After just one month
Shows signs of aging.

Perhaps, this indicates
That we humans should
Keep our feet on the ground.

At least metaphorically.

His words wrapped around my very bones
Their underpinning became fragile
And began to crack and crumble

Just as the empty shell of an egg brakes apart
With a sudden thwack

His words stabbed deep into my heart and back
Like some black worm gnawing at the roots
The plant we grew together withers and dies

(Formerly When Love Goes)

The night is a silver cage
Containing the dry bones of love.

But my heart bleeds for you for
I wish I had been able to flesh you out.

Yet here we both are
Barely human, anymore.

They are supposed to be Supreme in the land.
Yet have become like vulture gathering
Over the Constitutional carcass to pick at its bones.
They give free reign to a man, a human to rule
Above his fellow humans.  It is a lair of jackals.

"Man’s way does not belong to him.  It does not
Belong to man who is walking even to direct his step."

And just like that…
Here in my space
I write you into
Existence

The scent of new snow
To Inhale exquisite
Hints of other worlds

Of trees
Of blades

Of green
Of gold

Of life
Of change

Of letting go
These are the things I know

Of leaves

It touches my heart deeply
When I think back to her

Wiping eyes and waving
As we drove away after each visit

I adored my Granny
And see her sitting in church

Hat and gloves on, elegant in age
A Southern paper fan in hand

Treasured Bible and hymnal on the pew
So worn with use from her very hands

And I hear the old-timey style of singing
As she slides into each of the notes

All that is what is the best within me
Had its beginning with her instruction

Her desire to walk in her Master's steps
And have me follow

If I had not known better
I would have thought she came down

From heaven

When I hear that piece I will think of you.
The fading memory will start anew.
Recessed within a heart and mind
I soon will find,
You.

Dream about it,
Then pray for forgiveness,
Why shouldn't you?  I do.

Just a bite of the forbidden fruit
And the poison would rush in
Throughout our veins

This is a study in futility
For neither of us will bite
Even to die in one another's arms

A woodlouse strolling
The spider watches from strands
Vibrations are gone

Plump un-pecked cherries,
Strawberries and raspberries,
Picked to pop into mouths

Of reddened lips.
A glance of eyes
And hopes of romance

Within the secret of a garden.
Standing close I search
For your hand in shaded wonder.

Whatever the wounds of heart
Regardless of the pains
Whatever heart-wound felt
Whether bruised and purple
Again, and again

Though it can be likened to
Walking a mile
With a pebble in our shoe
And a burden on our backs
We are assured we can rely on you

True love does not vary
Nor change like shifting shadows
True love remains ever in the light
For all to see its honesty

A love that maintains its vow
To love, respect, and cherish
It does not alter or "bend
With the remover to remove"

Love is everlasting and true
Real love is yielding to the other
It does not possess, nor smother
It trusts because it gives it to receive

Love is the very soul of equality
It does not reveal but protects intimacy
Love grows with time and with maturity
True love by all is easily seen

Only fools poke out their own eyes
Mistaking true love for hypocrisy
True love is from celestial heights above
And lights the way to unfaltering love

Back to you,
I will come back to you
If you will come back to me.
And we can meet

In-between.

Somewhere in the middle
Of love with no regret,
And promise to forgive
And to forget.

When in life you reach dead ends
Listen carefully to me, friend,

Stop to enjoy the view
Because in life we have too few.

But, here's the message that I send,
Simply turn around and start again.

The journey need not end.
To start again, turn around my friend.

The dairy devil
Has cold hands
Pray it grabs your throat

You by my side
You standing near
You next to me 
You I hold dear
You are a need
Which I fill
As often as possible 
You are sustenance

Large white wings flapping
Carried the creature away
Into the bright mist of morning.

A thousand feelings rush in.
Summer rains have faded
To autumn, then winter.

A thousand feelings
Flung like cards being played
Some hard, some soft.

Was the bird soft or hard?
The mist was soft hanging there.
The morning, like many, was hard.

The weight of things, so like life.

What is beauty?  Personality?  Flash?  Flesh?  
Limbs and legs and mounds, the way one is composed?

A nose, a mouth, hair short or long, none at all?
Is beauty the way you came from the womb and grew?

Purity is beauty to some, but others markup their skin,
And it is their beauty, drawn in lines of ink.

Or, can we be beauty personified?  Perhaps in how we love?
I am told that I am attractive, pretty, some say, "Beautiful."

When I am dead and just so much dust or ash,
I don't want my life summed up by a fleshly container.

Please say, "She was a beautiful person in her love."

At times we are all fragile.
Casual words spoken at the time
Can cut to the bone
Leaving you hurt and feeling alone.

It's not another's responsibility to nurture you.
Only you can keep "you" from feeling like a fool.
Thus, tap deep into the core of who you really are
And all the good you may have wished to do.

Then ask yourself: What part did I play
In making the world the worse or better today?
Could my next actions alter those next casual words
Said with such disregard or even said in mirth?

The only "I" that is within my own control
Is the better "I" that slowly comes to the old.
That which has the hardest time erasing pasts acts
Can bring the knowledge that all things change and pass.

Even self-worth.