We deserve an answer,
We are not just prancers

In your dance.
We have the right

To have a chance,
And equal might.

No, we are not the dancers
For perverted glancers.

We too have free-will
Not solely for your thrill.

We too are people
And our pains are real.

We hurt, we cry, we feel.
So I am fighting with the quill!

We are all your equals!
Listen up you creep-os!

Stop strangling me
With marionette strings!

slip sweetly  ̶
I hear your silver
feet on rocks

The world in a cup-
So eager am I to sup
That I bring two straws

So...

Now we are old.
Our girths are a bit wider.
Skin, in places, a little tighter,
In others it hangs too loose.

And yet, you say I am just as beautiful
As when you first knew.
Yes, I think you are still handsome, too.

Oh!  Are we not a pair?
Your hair is gone,
There's grey in my hair.
So, now we are old...

What of that, Love?

It's hard to imagine a world without you in it.
The sun still rises.  The day is still filled with seconds, minutes.

Should I not have reprieve rather than be sentenced to grieve?
Why don't I have to tell myself to breathe?

The sun still rises.  I still **** breath.  And, grieve.
There is nothing left but this chiseled granite.

I wish that it were I there decomposing in it, death sublime.
Or perhaps we both could lie there, intertwined

Forever;
Together
Enshrined.

Stay-

Your hate throws large rocks
My hope is greater than fear
I go for a hug

If you are down and feeling blue,
Then this thought is meant for you.
Always remember . . .

Love can mend the broken

the truth is a modest little flower

- be not content with one flower of truth
- had one been sufficient there would have been no more

gather each with all earnest effort
gather, ever seek for more

until every nook and cranny overflows
within your strong mind’s vessels

Pain sits with a held hand.
It is enough.

Pain rises, carries on,
It was enough.

Because it doesn't want
To perpetuate the pain

Of others.
There is always enough.

When the glass is filled
One stops.

Eons and generations
Come and go.  You remained,
Standing in freezing cold,
Through withering heat.
Sunrises and sunsets
Marked the days and nights.
Comets streamed past,
You, looking skyward to witness.
You became a beautiful green meteor
Falling to earth.

You rise high, my Queen
To kiss the day
Wearing a rosy blush today

The night was long
Now the King has gone
Away, away

Light my day with your beauty

You, a watermark
just beneath my skin;

A page of text in
my mind, which

I choose to read
over and over, again.

Do I disappoint you, dearest,
When I do not call your name?

Do you sit there sad and lonely
With your face a black screen?

But, you are a true, dependable
Friend within a box waiting.

Waiting loyally in eagerness
Simply to hear me call

Your name, "Alexa."

If there is a word
Glory in miniature
A contagion's caught

Your eyes, a cloudy blue,
Set the pace and the mood.

We took this long drive
Hoping to help a relationship survive.

The many years of hours spent in pleasures
Are so filled with the things that we have treasured.

Yet, you say that you are tired of trying.  Why?
Don't you know?  Sometimes success happens on the last try.

I arrived in the pouring rain,
Still, I don't want to forget
Not one single thing.
How on that radiant day
Hearts throbbed and overflowed.
It is then that we came to know
What it means to love.

Out of rosebud lips
Set in honey-hued skin
Love begins to speak, again.

And to hearts it whispers,
"Now listen to me friend."
Then leads that heart astray.

Within windows of desire,
Now flung open wide, it inspires
Many a Billet Doux, sweet love notes

Written from me to you.

Comfort comes
Like a faint and distant drum;
Like a song sung in the night,
Like a song sung on a long dark night.

Soft and low, a song you strain to hear;
Still, it soothes your every fear
Because you know, at least,
That someone is near.

Under the burning cranberry sky

I 

Sat and watched
As sherbet, which I so love,

Developed

With its raspberry, orange, fading

Into

Peach.  I want to dip a spoon
In to gather a large bite of

Wonder

The voice of nightfall
Calls.
I listen in the dimming light.

All is softened by it.
Eyes strain.
Change is never easy.

The beauty engulfs me
As I adapt
To a new realization

With each new night.
I open
To its wonder.

There were stories about frangipani blossoms
and monsoon rains and teatime and English gardens,
the smell of mandarin oranges being pealed.

These beautiful, poetic reminiscences fill my soul
just as the humidity wraps around me, now,
as frog croaks filling the moist night air.

Looking back we tend to forget . . .

On stormy days,
The balcony door open,
I sit listening, watching,
And feeling an electric air.

There is the sound
Of seagulls crying out.
The wind whips in uproar.
Pregnant black clouds overhead

Churn with birth pains
Wanting to release their burden
Onto the earth beneath.
I watch and wait.

Clouds billow and bellow,
Swirling above the house tops.
With the temperature's sudden drop
The sweat from their brows

Begins to drip in relief to all.

standing on the edge
mountain pools
wrinkle stars

Some days sitting with my pad & pen,
I am feeling sad and blue.
But, then I remember the number two.
I realize that I am no fool.

I simply add to the end the number 2,
Then I am happy because it's so cool
To go on rhyming with this little tool.
And I can smile in the end,

With the number two as my friend.

Ephemeral like water on the moon
Or a whisper into an ear,

This man, lying like the bend of a tree
Elbows bent ready to cradle me.

I could reach out, touch and feel him, then.
Now he is an air current swirling round me.

Night came,
stole her away.
It slipped in through a slit in the light,

The stranger, pale and grey,
with unfamiliar rudeness wrapped
tight boney fingers around her neck.

Then she was gone.
Now we both are captives
of the night.

They lived a life in the dark shadow of slavery
And had become like the black cherries
They sneaked, so astringent they puckered the mouth.
They ate them, anyway, out of necessity.
Lizzie had said to Nat that she would wade
Through blood and tears for her freedom;
And, she did, they both did,

Nourished and aided by the kindness of strangers.
William Still conducted his railroad and with the withal, drive,
And the necessity of freedom, that basic human necessity, they ran.  
1857 was the year to run.  On June 10, 1858, Nat sent a letter
To the conductor: "Sir, be so kind as to . . ."
It contained a message to his family in Maryland,
"He and Lizzie were safe and free."

the bell rings ̶
a wet finger
upon the rim of a glass

You don't have to be bad,
Or mad,
Or sad,
To get my attention.

No surrender,
No hidden agenda,
No strings,
No other scary things.

Just say you need me,
Say you need someone to hear you,
Or simply say I'll do.
I'm here, anyway, for you.

Some are waxing, some are waning;
Yet, throughout the seasons all are remaining.
As their little bulbed feet continue standing!

Beautiful bonnets in colors bright -
Salmon-pink, red, and candy-striped!
Each year, still, I see them as quite a sight.

Amaryllis brings my heart such delight!

I am not in love.  But I am not dead.  
And I can replay thoughts of us in my head.

I can remember the feel of it then.
O, how we loved in times lean and thin.

Our yesterdays can never be broken
With each sunrise comes something to hope in.

With you I could feel again.
I am not in love, now.  But I am not dead.

Across the street
The heliotrope and roses meet.
Entwined they gather sweetly
Lovingly clinging in embrace.
Sigh.  I watch them.  I slow my pace.
If flowers can love as in this case,
Why cannot men of every race?

The scent of my love
Was rose and sandalwood
Placed in strategic locations.

Yours was patchouli,
Which you rubbed into
Your mustache and beard.

And with each kiss;
Each time we made love
We created our perfume,

The Scent of Our Love.

Quasars
2 stars
Tied together
In space
Bound
Orbits

The mockingbird heralds
Each new sunrise.
This morning unbeknownst to it

Man declares it to be
A whole new year in its life.

So, sing on my friend.
May we enjoy many more days
Of your lovely song.

A baby elephant will be tied with a little rope.

It can only go in a small circle, round and round.

Even when grown and able to break that tiny rope

It will not -

Because it is held by the memory of the past.

There are so many things I could have become.
I could not concentrate on just one.
So, I flitted to a multitude until each was done.

Buzzing from knowledgeable flower & blossom like a bee;
Feeling that if I looked hard enough I would find 'me'.
But in the end, I see

I am all the total sum of the complete.

When I see you my heart is full as it expands.
It bursts open like an overripe pomegranate.
And I flush with heat as you touch my hand.
My emotions spill out like the ruby-red seeds
Dropping from opened fruit.  Sweet the taste,
As I feed you pieces of heart from my own hand.

Layer upon layer the act of love
Become like the comforting warmth of a bed,
A sheet, a blanket, a comforter on top. Piled high!
Acts of love build within us the very knowledge
That, yes, indeed we are cared for.  We are loved.

Ah.  There is so much uncertainty in life.
Jobs come and go. Kids grow up and leave.
Friendships form and fade,
As we all walk towards the grave.

Yet, you are here, now, and
I can count on your presence tomorrow, also.
When you are here, I know everything is in its right place.
At least at the end of day we will share this space.

The winter bites into the flesh.
Breath that is stolen by its icy fingers,

And the night's frost hanging in the air
Forms into an iron fist as it closes in.

Her name is pressed into cracked lips
And you desire the arms of your lover

With whispers of "summer, summer."

I reach for you in the dark
The sheet is cold
My side is warm
Amidst star-shine through
The curtain, a light
Which only illuminates
The sparkle of my tears

When we are old and gray
(Which isn't so far away!)
Nicessity will call upon me to say,
"Honey, put your teeth in!"

It’ll soon be gone.
But don’t get me wrong
I am so very thankful for
The wondrous memories made.

And grateful for the beauty
And at seeing children play
In a world suddenly pure
Under snow’s blanket

Of wintery-white.

With the tide, coming in, going out
The boat rises and falls
Like our gentle rocking.
Rising and falling
Like your chest does now.
I lay my heard on you,
Listen to a heart that pounds
Afterwards.  You cradle me
In the warm ocean of love.

Once the ribbons of colors, layered
Peach, tangerine, deep lavender,
(Which cradled the struggling sun)
Decide the child has grown enough
Up and out into the world's view
It slides breaking free of its bands.
It is a new day, and it reigns in glory
In the clear blue of the sky of day.

In my ancient history,
A mother stands over her daughter
Twisting her hair into Bantu knots.

The young men gather,
Who built the Great Enclosure
With the strength of mighty warriors.

I am 'umuntu,' a person, I embrace
The ancient beauty in their face,
Their shape, the color of race,

My ancient heritage.

my cheeks chap
your icy hand slaps
my winterly face

Cultivated soil
Rich in love
That first seed
Planted
We will never
Be the same

With a soil
So rich
We plant again
Our harvest
Was precious
As we reaped

This fruitful
Field of ours
Thus became
Complete
We will never
Be the same

We are a garden