A drunken god has
spoke you into existence
A stolen diary that told you,
it’s a sin to return this body
even if its weak bones
couldn’t carry the weight
of your heavy heart

I know I can speak myself out of it
With a blade in my hand
standing on the edge of the stage,
I’ll wait for the Almighty to sober up
and watch me steal his role

After twenty years of rehearsal
I’ll play god,
lights will go off,
and curtains will close

Your followers will clap in awe
at my convincing performance

As I bow before them
As I fall before you

“Are you okay?”,
my wife asks
when I cough.

“No. I’m fine.
Yes. I’m not”,
I respond,

stumping her
in the poetic irony
of words that

encompass the
yes and no
and the in between.

She flips the finger
at me and I return
the bird to the nest.

We go back to our life
and our tablets,
the drip, drip of my chemo
and I wonder about okay.

“No.  You’re fine.
Yes. You’re not.”,
the bag stares in response.

In her gauzy garments
Above the bowing trees
The moon has many lovers
In the sighing breeze.

They all take her dancing
In exotic lands
They give her sparkling diamonds
They kiss her milk-white hands.

She is round & fullsome
Or slender as a waif
When she is then waning
Her flowers are kept safe.

Silken skeins of darkness
When she's waxing full
Are parted by her brightness
She is NEVER dull!

Her beaux are all so courtly
But she eschews them all
Her only love can make her pale
She burns at his call...

She lets out her moonbeams
Through her eyes they weep
She loves the one eclipsing her
They can NEVER meet!

She, so strong within her court
Will curtsey when he comes
The moon has many lovers

But she's taken by the SUN.


Catherine Jarvis
(C) 12/14/2019

My periods turn to semicolons
My suicide notes to poetry
My goodbyes became hellos
The blades turn to sunflowers
And the bullets, a rose
My heart still is broken
But the pieces have been found
Death isn’t for me anymore
What is, in the here and now
I still don’t feel enough
But I am alive
And that’s enough to say
Today is not the day I die.

My essence written down on paper
Ever so eloquently described,
Feelings I can always read later,
Written there forever this time.

A constant reminder of the love you once felt,
I can always go back and feel it,
Rereading them continues to make my heart melt,
But my soul knows this isn't realistic.

Ever so deeply that you were in love
But now you cannot feel the same,
I felt it, I'm READING it, I'll take all the blame!
Please,
             Come back to me again