Dear Sister

(for T & C)

O sestra -
self with a different face
- I love you more
than I love myself.

I wish I could live for you
and make sweeter
each bitter day
with the knowledge
of this love reciprocated
total
and eternal.

I would make it so
(were I Queen of All)
that I had never caused you:
pain, discomfort,
unhappiness, illness,
or any deprivation.

And yet:
I have been leaving you
ever since I got here
and I cannot
bring myself to stay
for your sake alone
because this pain
is overwhelming.

I've known since I was
very young - - -
eight, or seven - - -
that suicide
comes to us by blood
and by madness,
and none of us
anywhere
is immune.

Whether I leave you
by my hand
or another's
know how I longed for death.

I seek an end and a beginning:
a new life
where I stand
a better chance
of happiness.

Silly Cat Poem Multipost

(Trying out a variety of other forms: lanterne, haiku, thanbauk, and monostich).

"Feline Folly"

Cats

fuzz buzz

wrap around

both my ankles

Trip

"Neko"
Sharp claw in my leg -
Will you please lay or sit down?
Velvet your paw, love.

"Cat"
My cat she purrs
Find her furs warm
My purse emptied

"Feline"
You are so cute - hey, stop that!

Temperance

(I don't think this is a formal poetic form, but could be called a tetrina.)

Prefer moderation to temptation,
high virtue to profane sin.
Indulge infrequently in loud singing,
so in heaven to find your star.

But if moderation guides as a star,
sometimes give in to temptation,
and sometimes revel in roaring singing,
and forgive yourself rare sin.

Because abstinence always is a sin:
no resistance earns you no star.
Especially if your pride is singing,
for self-love is too temptation.

So be moderate too in temptation.
Experience your share of sin.
Give your senses time for joyous singing.
Light eyes with the shine of a star.

The highest star up has known temptation.
The angels singing have known sin.

Peace

(This is a pentina, a form which is newer to me.)

They say liberty must sleep on a bed that's bloody
for she only ever awakes from violence,
born out of the bellicose urge
for whom we must continually fight,
lest the state of war be our chosen nature.

They say we humans have an unsettled nature
and nature herself has claws all bloody.
The strong have might and the weak must fight
against the slings and arrows of violence
but still also the antisocial urge.

We understand the self-protective urge.
After all, it is only human nature.
It is harder to make sense of plain violence
or one man's glee in the malicious and bloody.
These are psychopaths we must fight.

Peace is not merely the end of the fight:
it is freedom to indulge the harmless urge.
Sometimes medicine can make us bloody
and we do find suffering in nature.
But peace tends to the absence of violence.

Yet broken bones are not the only sign of violence
and seeking peace means fighting a just fight,
not vengeful descent into grimmer nature
or the incautious leeway granted to the urge,
but trying to end oppression - mental or bloody.

Both bloody body and broken mind suffer violence.
Reciprocation is an urge we must fight in our nature.

Silence

(This sestina was prompted by Neil Gaiman's The Sandman Volume 3)

You feel you are alone in the dark.
Your heart beats in your chest so ragged.
The last time you felt such despair was never.
The quiet around you in your ear is screaming.
You swear to me your mind is on fire.
I lay here in longing of that angel's kiss.

You cannot remember the feel of a kiss.
Memories of kindness are swallowed in dark.
No light reaches your heart from the fire.
No reason lights your madness, so ragged.
Your voice impacts no one, even when screaming.
I wish I had never met you, never.

Silence is replete with nothing and never
and nobody and no one to give you a kiss.
Your countenance sends all suitors screaming.
Your soul becomes home to the dark.
Your heart and your psyche, quietly ragged.
My eyes become empty and without fire.

Silence inverts the temperature of fire.
Silence reverts time to never.
Silently eroding the smooth into ragged.
Silently scouring a statue's kiss.
Silently killing me in the dark.
Silently keening, silently screaming.

You open your lips breathless - no screaming.
You hold out your arms freezing - no fire.
You blink eyes for light, but only dark.
You wait for a friend, but she comes never.
You lift your face for love, but no kiss.
My coat and my security are ragged.

You hear a song worn out until ragged.
You see yourself die alone screaming.
You taste the tang of solitude's kiss.
You feel the burn of the dying fire.
You smell the odor: hope won never.
I balance on precipices alone in the dark.

No one hears your screaming alone in the dark.
No one brings fire to warm your home, never.
No one accepts ragged brush of my kiss.

Average

Don't be pretty
You might get raped
Don't be ugly
Or you'll never get laid
Don't be skinny
Your tits'll be too small
Don't be fatty
They won't see you at all
Don't be shorty
On you they'll look down
Don't be tall
They'll knock you to the ground
Don't be smart
They'll hate you for one
Don't be dumb
Or they'll all have their fun
Don't be funny
They'll all run in fear
Don't be dull
They'll make your eyes tear
Don't be happy
You'll never get home
Don't be sad
Or you'll be all alone

Considerations on a Cold Morning

Icy silence shouldered in the cold
bleak of winter mourning
solitary and confined by my own
inability to overcome fear
To reach out despite past knowledge
of that reaching meaning pain
always pain
Sometimes my reaching is inartful
too rough
and I injure the other
But more often it seems
I am swatted away violently
or held and burned
by the grip
or worse
trusting in a stair that isn't there
I fall flat on my face
and bruise nose and dignity
on the cold, unyielding ground

Still Mourning

The consummation I devoutly wished
Consumed me all up with its hungry flame.
I was so full of passion and daring,
But you were only playing a child's game.
I believed that you were burning for me
The way I was smouldering hot for you.
You certainly burnt me repeatedly,
But it was ice and not flame in your view.
Now all that is left is cooling ashes,
Dark coals, and low embers just a-dying;
A safe hearth is impossible to keep
With those who can smile but keep on lying.
So don't play with fire, my friends, fair warning:
I am twice wed, never loved, and still mourning.

A Dark Air

Dark sorrows range wide and far
Because they are so myopic from tears
They can only see what is close by
Blinded as they are from their fears

Sorrow deep
Morrow weep
I'll be alone again
in the morning

Suffering in silence makes no friends
But neither does a loud keening
You can't get close when you're a wound
And life has lost all its meaning

Sorrow deep
Morrow weep
I'll be alone again
in the evening

So journey forward seeking peace
Do not others' troubles a-borrow
Put off putting an end to today
You can always do it tomorrow

Sorrow deep
Morrow weep
I'll be alone again
in the dying