What is in the structure of her lips,

That allows for such a delicate form?

Cupid’s bow never did so gently bend,

Nor blush as red

As did my lover’s lips.

What rare mineral

Allows for color

That makes the cherry shrink

And the fall rose wither

In hot jealousy?

And oh, what must I do

To exact from them

Those love-tipped arrows?

Those words that will strike my heart

And fill its hunger

For love and company?

Instead of the poisoned dart

That always flies from those lips

Whenever I am near

Commanding the worst of me.

A peach clothed in the gaud of life and spring

Its downy skin glistened with beads of dew.

What better image for the fleeting zing

Of youth, and its pressed hope for life anew?

A peach which holds within itself the tree

And hundred more like peaches too. Alas,

Within its flesh and seed does death tarry.

For sacrifice is want for life to pass

From one to one and keep the scales aright.

This I know and contemplate it often.

Whilst searching fruits or viewing birds in flight

This I know and say with soul unsoftened

To our precious child that you left me

With eyes like yours and skin bright and downy.

“What do we mean to Zeus and Hades both?

Like flies to boys we are used for their sport.

What honor do I hold with them? What troth?

When I am used unasked to seed and wart?”

Thus Life asked to his partner Death, who said:

“Aye, this a question I have long since left

For we are just the means to human’s end.

T’is sad but we are common tools; bereft

Of honor, consent, dignity. No way

Have we of rebelling. One cannot fight

What gives him being. I envy man his stay

So brief. His choice; his changing face so trite.

But do not fret my dearest friend for we

Are one and one and evermore shall be.”

#poetry #sonnet #life #death #challenge

As I walk down the shadowed path I think

That you were like to me Saussure’s poor tree

That bore a’thousand names so quietly

But to give name to one will cause it shrink

And death for what was it before the link

Was made twixt sound and sight? And can it be

That each new name gives new identity?

And if this true did I ever so brink

The names that strove to hide the nameless you?

The doe that hides within a for’st of names

That I weak hunter chase with hopes to tame

To own to have to love to see to know.

From me you kept the name used for the doe

And so I left in sadness and in woe.

The laugh from her spoke

To the happiness in him

And brought it to flame.

#poetry #haiku #challenge #laughter

I like to imagine that you are delicate

When you’ve scaled my wall,

Your yellow hair dripping down,

That pale skin

Like yolk flowing on powdered shell.

Look at me.

How do I look from that great height?

It was I who broke you in,

Laid you down, Nested you with me,

Back when you were fragile.

Can you feel how I am yoked to you?

I sense you teetering on the edge.

Don’t fear the fall, don’t fear the end.

I’ll be here to put you together again.

#poetry #lovepoem #eggs #challenge

The morning herald cried at early dawn.

It woke you though I thought you fast asleep,

And reached my ears as life from me moved on.

But not before I heard the heavy sweep,

Of your muffled feet on the sounding floors.

The fly’s odious buzz I would have picked,

Over that sweep that trailed right past the door.

Could you not sense that my life-thread was snipped?

Not hear the patter from the faucet’s eye,

As it dripp'd tears onto the ruddy bed

That I had colored with my precious dye

And there did lie without a blink or sigh

Great cost to learn the way you’d always be

So deaf to all my pleas so blind to me

#poetry #sonnet #verse #sadpoem