I have played this game before.
My accolades adorn the walls.
This pull-push dance is tiring.

This time,
when I see myself
being pulled into the whirlpool—
I let it.

Drown me, baby.
Show me how love works.

I’ll wait for the little things:
the stolen glances,
the awkward silence.

I hope you are the other end,
your arms stretched out.
I want to run to you
and tell our daughter:

This is what love is.

I will tell her—
someday, a man will come.
And when you set out
to write about sorrow,
you will smile,
thinking of his warmth.

As you entered the room
stirring air with suppleness of walk
waking up the stillness with jingles of cymbals
making curtains dance to the sound of bangles
aroma wafted into air from canvas and copybooks
my paintbrush grew restless
and pen became enraptured
my eyes, hands and other parts
became electrified.

My heart spread rainbow in the room
like colours of youth and
lilts of life's melodies.

You who are sitting before me
have the power to
change my consciousness
into painting, poem, melody
or anything else!

I know you'll speak no truth at this time.
I've to be guided
solely by your silence, your eyes and
the inaudible appeals of your heart.

I've to settle before I lose the presence of mind-
whether I should use brush or pen
or my eyes, hands or something else
and create a unique
composition
all in you.

-०-

Dear ******* the groyne,
Forgive the forgeries upon my memory.
Forgive the feebleness of my firsthand.
Forgive the feeding of my frenzy.
Forgive the freneticism of my prose.
Take truth from the diction of my lens.

I trust you will grant me a fair hearing,
And offer me the clemency of purpose—
To once more capture or conquer
The presence of Iris herself in your greens.

Grant me a jury of judicious witness,
The pounding of the gavel as grace
For the crime of picturing the presence.
I bid the remainder of my fruitless fall.

Dear ******* the groyne,
Has your blacksmith forgotten you?
Left to entice waves at shutter speed,
Forged in flame,
Chiselled and tamed on Vulcan high.

Through his neglect has the time arrived
To render and share for all or none—
As Pandora, of beauty, of curiosity,
Doomed to open the box
For me and my eye.

Dear the man on the beach,
Do you have any sense of shame?
As if the still frame holds the truest face
The gods of our minds do not claim to fame,
But cower and quiver with a shout of shrill.

I beam bounty in the rays of the sun,
Watching the groyne creak and stutter
As the waves breach and mutter—
A voice of too great dread to utter.

I sense your presence, your song,
The siren’s call to prayer.
The screech of the zoom and focus,
Lulling and drawing a sailor of despair.

But it cannot be enough
To return the green to my grey.
It is but a mirror of Death,
For the true beauty lies beneath the skin.

As the waves crash,
And the wind howls,
And the flash—

Our moment in time, you and I—
A fleeting visit in a luminal light,
Between silence and soul,
Of a tune forgotten in the sands of us.

Yet for the sea, a distant whisper
Of a moment—
The opening of a story.

Was it a moment of theft?
A moment of true witness?
Good enough to frame?
Was I truly seen?
Or just a clutch for transcendence?

And still,
The tide remakes the shore.
The groyne groans.
The flash fades.

You carry the image.
I carry the knowing.

We both were framed.
We both were fire.

I kiss your gaze
While your sweet gaze
Kisses Evening stars

Reynaldo Casison

I wanted to write a poem about you.
but what can my words describe.
such a beauty in blue.
i wanted to start with the beauty, the eyes, the love that grew.
i wanted to continue with your laugh blending with your gaze in hue.
but what can words describe.
such a beauty in blue.
when all i can see is a miracle, when all i can see is you.
My weak stanzas struggle, and my pen faints.
when i try and imagine your powerful haze.
when i try to look into your playful gaze.
when i try to imagine you.
such a beauty in blue.

Gaze on me now,
I'm not well known,
With my pen taps and frown.

Well the truth is,
I'm real well known,
This just ain't my town.

I frolic among ruins, my own creation
I dance with enemies long dead
Their ghosts still whisper condemnation,
I laugh at words unsaid.

A crown of thorns, a throne of dust,
I rule the wreckage with delight.
Let them curse me if they must—
Their shattered bones are quite the sight.

I tip the scales, I rig the game,
I drink the venom, wear the blame.
What fun is virtue, meek and hollow,
When sin is sweeter to swallow?

I set the fire, I stoked the blaze,
Watched it burn with a gilded gaze.
Regret’s a game for fools to play—
I’d raze it all again today.

What joy it is to know damnation
And still refuse to change or stand,
To greet the flames with exultation,
A willing fate at my own hand.