Little Star
White diamond among black coal,
the star amidst the dark night,
a grain of salt in an onyx bowl
or a pin-prick of pinched light.
Bereft Before Abloom
Child among the stones and mosses,
born beneath the crooked crosses,
futile hopes snipped fresh in the bud,
unblossomed in the blood-red mud
while parents prayed through stinging tears
to He who held the heedless sheers.
Do not ask me my thoughts on Choice
if you sing choir with the same voice.
Do not preach to me about Life
while He whets His unfeeling scythe.
Countless gardens have never bloomed
because the Groundskeeper presumed
to prune and pluck at paradise
with no thought of virtue or vice.
Stoic
The lightning split the night sky
from the slumbering mountain;
just a flash to a sleepy eye
and then down came the fountain,
yet the mountain did not stir,
but slept on in the deluge;
in lightning, rain, and the blur
of a night without refuge.
The mountain shouldered the rain
as a titan of great strength,
and though hail fell, showed no pain,
nor flinched from thunder, at length.
The storm bloomed full in its rage
atop the tall crag-crowned brow,
but was as words on a page:
it felt none, nor ever, now.
Standing afar, all alone,
I wished to not flinch at such,
but though I felt cold as stone
I could not bear half so much.
The Pitcher Plant
So open with your heart
and offering to slake thirst
while your dewy lips part,
but your love is coyly cursed.
So many fools fall prey
while praying at your deep well,
try however they may
to flee from your floral bell
the knell sounds in silence
as they struggle in vain awhile
they drain of defiance,
added at last to the pile.
Drifting, dissolving, dead,
they begin to quickly fade,
by your false love misled,
by your moist embrace unmade.
You suggestive wanton!
You receive all who so dare
to accept your taunt on
good faith in the balmy air.
What cruel sort of love
deigned you should love cruel?
Was it a god above
or Nature who hates a fool?
Tangleroot And Tressknot 