Unrequited Love

Unrequited Love                                               September 22, 2013

In you, my dear, I see the light of my life,

The lone reason I awaken to each day's strife.

Yet, you view nothing within my soul

Despite my bidding sweet tidings to you,

And I wail upon the hearth 

As the floor mat for my burning heart.

What in you have I seen

That is forbidding you from loving me?

Is it me? Need I lavish you with more gifts

And sweet indulgences?

It seems that life has sprung a flat,

That to love is to be wanton of affection reciprocated,

Yet, I protest that day that love never lived,

When all have said I just have not found her.

But what of you, o' sweet nectar to my soul?

Your countenance is as sweet as either syrup or molasses.

Never have I felt that should I die upon this hearth,

That I would emerge as the phoenix

With broken wings, never to fly to Heaven.

An unrequited love is all I have known,

So much so, I fear I may never recognize

A lady's returning of my just flirtations,

And I shall die alone, a widower only in the death of opportunity

Bereft of any affection, spiritual or no.

I often wonder if I truly know what is love,

If I recognize it as more than banal lust?

Mundane my life has been from the day I was born,

And I fear I shall only have wandered from the womb

To the death of my soul at twilight!

To a Precious Young Mother, with Love

To a Precious Young Mother, with Love                          September 17, 2013

O' precious angel, may I inquire of your soul,
Of your heart, of your mind, 

How you would teach that babe so?
Of the humanities which are true

And his future dalliances so obscure,
Of how you shall construct your babe's countenance,
His convictions about God as pure?

I seek the pleasure of ascertaining your knowledge,
Of walking many a mile in your shoes:
Knowing, of course, I am but a man, not a mother;
Ergo, I have not the maternal instinct.
You are the fairest of your sex,
And I, but a fool, watch enamored at you two.

The babe is the covenant between you and Our Father,
A contract upon which you agreed to abide

As the better half who birthed a creature so pure
That he sees the angel Gabriel circling the skies 'round him,
Calling from the rooftops of the world, "God is my strength."

So long as he knows, so shall you, too, deal,
Never shall you fold wings and wither away.
My ardors for you and the young babe, too,
Shall span the sands of the hourglass
Till past the last of the Seven Trumpets' blasts,
And we are called Home at The Lord's behest.

Love with a Young Artist

Love with a Young Artist                                  September 14, 2013 

She paints the stars of my night sky, 

Daring me to dream past the day gone by. 

Sultry and seductive, I am knocking on Heaven's door, 

And she rises fast, arching her back, 

And I, feeding her chocolates, rubbing her lips, 

The Bohemian lover she be of mine, and I have lost my grip. 

She is painting the sweat around my chest, 

Never shall I need to pump iron again. 

Aroused, she rides, the galloping commences. 

I never flew so hard until she rode my saddle this night, 

And never again will I await for the sun to rise. 

The artist she be, Bohemian by decree, 

Her love for her canvas -- me -- she lathers with care. 

I feed her another chocolate as her creative juices flow, 

Her warmth, her splendor, oh so seductive and moist. 

Holding hands we are, thrusting the night away, 

And I cut through her hole like a hot knife through butter, 

Pushing, fighting for every inch that I can 

As I must pound her trench, 'tis warfare and nothing more. 

Our love is a war, never shall we forget, 

Until now the fireworks are bursting, the champagne is overflown.

Calling Jonathan

(This was another poem I authored during the first few months of my lifelong battle with severe bipolar disorder and OCD. As I recall, this, like so many of my other pieces during the first three or four years of my poetry career, was inspired by rock 'n roll. The piece that inspired this one, interestingly, was an old Dire Straits song called "Calling Elvis" that was released in 1991 on the album "On Every Street." The beats and part of the title to that great song inspired this piece.)

Calling Jonathan                                           Spring/Summer 2002

Calling Jonathan. Anybody home? 

I've come to find him. Is he with a gnome? 

Last night, I called. Said he was "OK." 

He predicted a sunny day, 

But today was gray. 

Come to find out, he left his lights on. 

Yet despite no note, I knew he was gone. 

Where to? You asked. I do not know. 

He could be anywhere. Anywhere indeed. 

Things were so tough. Just look around and see. 

The bandwagon ran off and left him. So sad to see. 

He never told me. He kept it a secret. 

Guess he didn't wanna bother me. He shoulda known better. 

I'd've patted his back, given him a hug, all of that. 

How all the lil' kids did pick on him! 

How did he cope with that, with everything so grim? 

The answer is he didn't ever. Not at all. 

He swept it under the rug. It kept piling up. 

The more I keep lookin', the more depressed this all makes me. 

Here's a record of "Heartbreak Hotel." 

That must've been where he checked in at, 

But then he'd've been checked in some time ago. 

Another Encounter with Crimson

(This is a poem I authored during the first few months of my battle with both severe bipolar disorder as well as OCD that will take me unto the sunset of my life. The reference to "crimson armaments" is to the color of my sheets on my bed at all times. Note that while so many people have referred to my work as "beautiful" and "intense," this piece is not beautiful, but it is certainly the latter description.)

Another Encounter with Crimson                            Spring/Summer 2002

Another night this is that I must wrestle with 

the crimson sheets with its crimson armaments 

attempting to mutilate the hell out of me... Hurling 

me into a world in which the black night sky and its 

cold clouds became inundated with its crimson, warm 

ripples - disposing of the Full Moon and allowing an 

already-superstitious populous to know that NO! We 

are not covered by some Vernian-fabricated piece 

of green cheese ... but be that as it may be, I shall 

NOT allow the rippling crimson tides caused by the 

crimson moon howled at by many canae to crush me. 

My resolve is much like a George C. Patton-drilled 

battalion of G.I.'s : I'm on a mission to vanquish the 

wicked, the crimson, once and for all.

May Death Find Me Soon

May Death Find Me Soon                         September 4, 2013

The creeks have risen o‘er their muddy banks.

The frost a-bitten, and yet it is still September,

And there shall never be a return of a day with love

Which never existed, for it was all for wrought.

I thought of a time when I was five and very alive,

When I was innocent and the outlook good,

When all was serene and life was as it seemed,

When I needn’t worry about a chemist's flurry.. 

Alas! Today, I am an adult by age,

But in the eyes of The Sovereign, but a five yearling.

I have not one right about my soul on this night,

Not one, and you may hear me wail ad infinitum. 

May Death find me! O’ faithful Lord,

May Death find me soon! O’ Lord, may Death find me soon!

May Death find me soon or forever shall I swoon,

And be relegated to the role of Life’s Loon! 

I pray to Him nightly prior to my tortured slumbers

Of a permanent period of opaque peace broken only by Him,

Where I never have to awaken but to His beck and call,

And where the angels serenade me with trumpets of gold.

My sufferings are my fault, so those who know say,

And I must awaken to them at the break of each day.

Never will my lover be able to fathom my despair,

For upon her departure, my life was never again to be fair.

A love so epic, I desire to write it into lyrics,

But she will only abscond into absentia if I do, leaving me alone,

Left alone to wither away like a flower out of season,

To die a perennial season’s death, forever and on.

We shall only die in our own time so we read

In accordance to God and His Son, The King.

We are promised a place at His Table to break bread,

Yet never did I receive such in my mail while on the mend.

Another day of torture, yet another penny short,

And I? I am another mind, a body, a shell of wasted flesh,

Doomed to a life of peril with time flown by

As I see it be told on this day in another faux prayer.

Let it be! Let it be! O’ Lord! Please let it be!

Let it be that I never have to walk alone another day in tragedy!

I know of such a trait in my life as I have fallen far short,

For if one more egg cracks on this early morn sunrise,

I shall lament having never acted upon my better judgment:

To end my own sufferings, to preempt another December 21,

Another day where I must listen to The Rooster’s ominous crow.

The Lady of the Green Villa

The Lady of the Green Villa                                    August 30, 2013

Long-legged woman, straddling the earth so mean!

Looking on, singing a song, an opus harmoniously!

Running wild upon the runway she finds extending with each step,

The lady protests not as she waltzes into my heart

As I treat her with poetic care! 

My pen inscribes her name on my heart, her trophy,
As the lady of the Green Villa she be,
And later on, we'll play us a song,
We'll just play that fiddle all night long!

Driving the court, the hardwood of love,

Dribbling the ball, a woman towering over girls,

And she is the lady matriculating from the Wild Frontier,

Where a king once roamed, coonskin cap and all,

And she'll wrestle the bear of my heart down low,
All the while she soothes thy aching soul!

Lovely lady! Sweet child of mine!

Never shall ye be spoken of ill!

You're just a child of God so precious and divine,
Bringing home to me the Church of Scotland,
And I, your king, and you, my queen,
Our kingdom, love so blissful, never to divide!

Lo'! How you have my heart in your hands!

A tender love's touch, and a kiss on its scarlet glow,

A radiance that defines our shining city upon a hill.
Up the eighty-one way, I shall seek her graces,
Her good fortune she bleeds, and I shall wipe it on my soul.
O' how the lady of the Green Villa doth my heart keep!
She keeps my heart in her hands for her to mold,
To mold and to hold as she so desires!
Let us hitch a raft down the Nolichucky rapids
To the center of our universe that we have founded!