The Horticulturist

One by one the days fall beside us like yellow leaves
We have no conscience, oh, what we’re becoming
Month by month the rings on our tree trunks
Like old wise eyes grow wider
And winter lends them a dead disguise…

~*~

all the times

that my pretence

falls away to reveal

a dissecting evil

crashing against the

enamouring dopamine

of your crystal eyes

and whenever the bats

residing in my belfry

bite in rabid shreds

as i told you the reasons

why i don’t need the sun

to watch over my lies…

i didn’t know it hurt.

and even when your mouth

moved to speak of the

florid diamonds leaving your

bones with every suspended

breath i took, still i ignored

it, and culled the butterfly wings

you were only beginning to grow

crushing them for my own fool’s

grey stained glass interpretation.

i see my sorry mistake now

what an envious tongue i was

to impede and torture change

and wring them dry in deception

shivving the lunacy fringe deep

in my virulent, violent strain

perhaps the sense was never mine

to keep in mine caustic waste.

you merely wanted roses to

bloom in your pulsating thorax,

but my scissors never gave

you the chance to do so

and a different shade of scarlet

touched your skin that day.

but despite the endless famine

that haunts my soul, there’s

still thistles to be removed,

fertile soil to be revived, and

you handed me the trowel even

when i already lost sourly to you.

it’s another chance to repair all

the misfortune, to mitigate all the

repercussions, and to plant a

thornless blossom in this stygian

garden of choked weeds and demolition.

i won’t count my stars before

they paint the sky with yellow fire

but i can always count on the

misbegotten heart, sparing

another courtesy for the misguided.

no more plucking petals from

shivering deoxygenated lungs,

no matter how temptingly pretty

they may be to my twitchy fingers;

may the poisonous chemicals

no longer adhere to sprouting foliage

and murder them in cold blood,

may the flora in ingenue poetry not

be mendacious and remain untainted,

and pray let this withering, barren

desert of a garden be resplendently

efflorescent and verdant with life once more.

~*~

Now time, like an ocean, knows tide, like a notion
To toss about the house and lose inside the couch
Piles of our thoughts run miles in the dark
Just trying to get home, age by age
We rime with our seasons’ rehearsed routines
Still turning and returning…

The Soldier In The Desert

Well, after all the blood that you still owe
Another dollar’s just another blow
So fix your eyes and get up
Better get up while you can…

~*~

so tell me, what have i done

to deserve these icy shivers

you dripped down my spine

and halted my temperature?

.

i only wished to take respites

and thaw this spastic relation

i never thought you’re weary

fathomed into a sunken inure

.

but grudges develop into gall

and interpretations turn awry

communications break down

and scars leave defaced marks

.

though was this my sin or yours

praying to the deities of hearsay

and believe gossip from tongues

refusing thus to light the sparks?

.

so tell me, just what have i done

to deserve your crashing bullets?

dismayed gunpowder sending me

straight down into an early grave

.

i only wished to defuse the placid hate

and cease this ineffectual, aeonian war

but perhaps both of the perpetrators are

enjoying such pain too much to be saved.