SOME MIGHT THINK, PERHAPS, THAT I’M NOT PLEASED

Some might think, perhaps, that I’m not pleased
At how you’ve trivialized my name and day.
In fact, I think romantic love’s one way
New recruits for paradise are seized.
True, the object is the kind that’s squeezed.
Very well! We’re flesh, and though we may
Awaken first to lust, at last love’s play
Leads us to redemption by degrees.
Each soul must find its way from love to Love,
Needing love, beside itself with need,
Though through pride reluctant to give in.
In cards and flowers, chocolate hearts, and such,
None but must recite love’s gentle creed,
Each proclaiming tenderness within.

HOW MIGHT ONE KNOW LOVE EXCEPT BY LOVING

How might one know love except by loving?
Attraction might be right, but often wrong,
Perhaps because it’s short, and life is long,
Perhaps because the proof is in the proving.
Years go by, and one is always moving;
Very little truth can come along.
A week, a month, a year — and love is strong;
Longer, and the trick is one of choosing.
Enduring love depends on mutual need,
Need acknowledged, open, unashamed
To say, I do not want to be alone.
If one could put aside one’s pride and bleed,
No gift or gratitude would go unnamed,
Even as time turned the world to stone.

PORNOGRAPHY IS SEX

Pornography is sex
Out of context,
Reducing people’s
Nakedness to
Organs.
Given time,
Real people want
Affection, feel
Pain, feel love,
Have second thoughts,
Yearn for something more.

SOMETIMES DREAMS ARE BETTER OFF NOT REAL

Sometimes dreams are better off not real.
Old yearnings drain away through open gates.
Regretfully I tell you how I feel,
Returning both of us to former states,
Yet with wounds that time will have to heal.

SIXTEEN

Sixteen is intent on being lovely,
Immersed in the sweet rivers of her day,
X-ing out the chubby childhood ways
That I must cherish now in memory only.
Even as time steals the time away,
Each moment is a gift I treasure dearly,
Nor would I for my love the time delay.

I LOOK ACROSS

I look across
The palm of God’s great hand
And see the peace
That underlies my pain.

No tragic loss
Or grief can be so grand.
Through life’s short lease
Such sights our hearts sustain.

LADY

Lady was a lover to the bone.
All she wanted out of life was me.
Death might indicate that she is gone,
Yet she is here, and here will always be.