Both can ****
        The only difference is
                      Cigarettes shatter lungs
         She shatters everything

            I remembered the first moment
my lips pressed the filter
     as I lit it up breathed it all
                savored every smoke
       as if we covered up painful lies
        in a container of painkillers

The same way  
we used to pressed our lips
     sparked something between us
           savored every moment we had
    as if our love was a rose
               in a valley of tulips

Two tulips, two tulips.
The two tulips love each other. And they both love tulips.
The two tulips hold hands. People cry, people scream.
The Two are split up.
2 tulips become 1 tulip, and another tulip.
A tulip, forced to marry a rose. The rose didn’t have a tulip.
The rose only had a Rose.
“A tulip and a rose is the way to go.” People shouted through out the streets.
Tulips and Roses. Women and Men.

Her thoughts
grow like weeds
through swaying reeds.

In her head
exists a garden
as bright and as varied
as the tulips of Amsterdam.
Each canal lined with bikes,
the water flowing from one to the next.

If not careful, though,
that mind will overflow,
overgrow with the seeds
of past ill deeds.

She sits still now,
thumbing through her prayer beads,
pleading for the protection
of some modern-day Diomedes.

her
tulips bloomed in the night,
       softer
than the paling
moon/       beams

darker silhouettes
—hers—lined the u’s
and i’s of turning. the headlights
skimmed the road, petalled
like ice.

...by sheer droves in erm, Hawaii.



(sonnet #MMMMMMMIII)


Frost's hoary whiteness in the valley, pale
Blue heavns 'non warming as pink blushes thence
Fade softly, and how twilight's greyish sense
I canna 'scribe haunts sweetly, til the veil
Is pierced, that golden eye in sheer betrayl
With yellow fingers twixt the trees, and hence
How shadows draw up silent figures, dense
Yet lacy on dead lawns sans dew t'avail.
Ya, dew.  May shall own silver droplets' tour
Upon green carpets as I know frost's cue
Would be if twas not frore at dawn as twere,
And how the light is ghastly on the crew
Of naked trees, yet prettier thus.  Flowrs stir
As daffodils and tulips search for...dew.

10Mar18b

Last night, I dreamed
Of dozens and dozens
of red tulips, so many
that their petals
almost melted
Together, forming a
Raging river, red
Like the Nile, after
The first plague

Their bloom, and beauty
Evoked a frenzy, a wave
Of joy, that nearly drowned
Me

a yellow fabric just
as vibrant and brilliant as the
golden tulips that grow in
the banks of the fields
in which innocence and
laughter roams.

A young woman cloaked in
such material searched for that
of her hearts content,
a romance that would file suit
in the realm of the books she
would read.


She was hopeful, and the
springtime was her catalyst.
The earth was replenishing,
coming back to life, the
tulips springing to life
and the days were longer,
the sun brighter and the clouds
less dreary and forlorn.

He skin was soft, untouched by that of
another, but she wanted to change that.
Her sheltered mind ached for the
touch of a lover, a prince of sorts,
and she'd wait for him,
no matter the length of time,
no matter the cost,  
no matter the physical
or emotional
transgressions.
She'd wait alongside the tulips,
alongside the budding of spring,
the scorching of summer,
the closing of fall, and the
harboring of winter.

She'd wait in her gown of yellow,
just as vibrant as the
tulips around her.

From the soul backed to the precipice of a life never changing,
Through the crest of an almond shape and cascading over an apple fullness,
Fall the tiny tributes of hopelessness;
Until she is offered
Tulips for her tears.

Look back at tulips
On mountain tops in mauve sky
Tense blue rings of smoke