If we may speak one word, we might be heard.

A picture’s worth a letter. Leave no doubt.

“Hello,” she said. It only takes a word,

one furtive glance, to see what we’re about.

Your soul cannot fit cleanly in a frame!

Your love is not a peep-hole through a sheet!

To overflow the box is not a shame!

You staunch with what’s at hand—it isn’t neat!

You rend the fabric—paper, branches—dirt!

Each person here is bleeding—plug the wound!

Is not the greater part of birth, to hurt?

Forgive my haste. You care; I just assumed.

It only takes a word, a tag, a pout,

one furtive glance, to wring our essence out.

My love is artless, obvious, and bland,

and seeks its image mirrored ‘cross the sea.

It has ample supply and no demand.

Your dynamo of want, it cannot be.

The whole that I can offer is a chance.

I will not gird the bud with carnal lips

that purse around a song to match a dance

presuming likeness to great Shiva’s hips

revolving ’round a fragile, desp’rate seed

when He dances for All, and they for tips,

when they destroy for fun, and He for need.

A hanging man lets go; a newborn grips.

There’s one chance for this nascent son of man:

Take ownership as parents—form a plan.

These fourteen lilting lines are an excuse,
a word bouquet arranged around a prod,
to tokenize my effort to deduce
a pretty woman, only, or a god?
I’m sure I know the answer, so don’t smirk.
I’m earnest, always; therein rubs the gag.
I ’round the temples with my handiwork.
Though most don’t speak, the idols wear my flag.
This one is yours–I’ll weave it in a wreath
that fits your crown and lay it with a prayer.
Its place is high; I leave it underneath.
Yours is unique. It’s true–I would not dare.
I’ll craft another, if the gods approve,
but first the stony idol has to move.

I do not know your phases from the moon

but from some time and place upon the earth

I stopped to write a poem late, and soon

the summer ended. Merry solar birth

does not outshine the momentary flash

when tides within me hasten to your shores

and roll across your beaches with a crash

so carelessly, careening aft to fore,

and thunder shouts aloud that lightning came.

It rings about the axis of the flare

in which you stand. “Diana” be thy name

for some All-Knowing Love-It-All could care.

The monkey’s name was “Monkey.” She was “God.”

The lesser one would shake, and She would nod.

Like gravity, like pole-aligning force,

like proton seeks electron for a bond,

we follow the potential, in our course,

attract to high degrees, but then abscond.

Like fermions in space too small for two,

we might explode or else degenerate

in classrooms without windows on a view

of something real, for “Teach” to denigrate

besides the “lowly” scribe and engineer.

At least they take the abstract thought to task!

One swirls a wand, and concrete words appear.

One builds a tap, so you might drain his cask.

These graduates are bosons, but deranged,

identical, but scornful, when exchanged.

He’ll save two months of sweat in waste, (exact,)

organic matter, smothered out of life,

a stone from which, a promise, to extract,

to gird the quiv’ring digit of his wife

to be or not. The question is the same,

but not the lovers’ thrust—the parry-point.

Mercutio and Tybalt are to blame.

I’d sooner show devotion with a joint,

rolled by my hand, on paper from a book,

writ’ by my hand, to meter out our length

in rhyme and time that stuttered, cried, and shook

to ring your ears and prove your diamond strength.

A halo is much better than a ring,

a paean, not the same old psalm to sing.

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You might not even want this leaden verse,

to tie your hands and chain you to your bed.

My poem seeks its subject like a curse

plays on the ear; it’s only in my head.

So make a paper airplane from the writ’.

The right to rite of passage passes right.

If hard syllables slip, then make them fit.

The daybreak plots sweet deserts for the night.

I could say, “If you’d leave, this tree would die,”

and serve to you a mismatched petit four

that makes no sense, without the urge to cry.

Why don’t I cry? Why won’t it hurt me more?

I have no heart to feign, or beat my breast.

I have a hundred more; I’ll save the rest.

There is no magic word or rabbit trick

to tempt, to coax, the cat back in the bag.

“What’s left to say to the old lunatic?”

you’d rightly joke. (I did induce the gag.)

“So here’s a flower; love it and get lost.”

“Your love is for a concept!” you could shout.

“…like God, or pi, or winter’s second frost.”

“Give Bast the poems; kindly leave me out.”

“You’ll hold your court of angels in the reeds—

accept my blessing, I see daemons, too—

but beings made of flesh have tastes and needs,”

you might not say, but I could think for you.

My love’s not for the memory of a kiss;

your conscience set a bar too high to miss.

The hardest thing to say to Her is “Hi,”

but, if you blink, She might not take offense.

With grace, She’ll wink. (She often gives the by.)

Don’t do it twice; She’ll leave you in suspense.

I take my bread and water in a cell,

and, when I feel the knell, I won’t presume

the meaning or the object of the bell.

But once, it tells me, “Bury;” once, “Exhume.”

It is some holy trick I cannot match

that you could have the innocence to reach

inside a tabernacle—break the catch—

and have the Body thank you for the breach.

I only heard the prophet talk about

true beauty; what’s within is what’s without.