Each person you pass
is their own singular brew
in unique kettle

I
stale smell of old books,
light divides the dark in two,
I wake from my work

II
sensation returns,
singing bursts from the garden:
your light rouses me.

III
otherworldly hum,
screech against the wooden floor,
something works upstairs.

The black cup is hot.
I would drink from the black cup.
But still the cup is hot.

Hidden compartments
filled the president's table,
with secrets untold.

funny how the ouch
with a simple c in front
spells couch - a comfort

~~~~~~~~

soft cushioned pasture
even though cultivated
still nature's sofa

~~~~~~~~~
.

Sun beams through crystal
a dioptrical rainbow
a marked refraction

Edited
Broken pottery,
a bowl held in winter's hands;
eternity paused.

Original

Broken pottery,
a bowl held in winter's hands;
shattered shards of love.

I could have left you many months ago
to salvage what was left of my young mind,
but I would not have had these scars to show
you now; though you were cruel, you were kind.

Throughout those frightening nights, your shadow grew,
you cast a wicked spell that held my hand
and let my mind discard all that it knew
so that it spoke your words at your command.

He made them by the dozen and so swift.
Quite unremarked the cups all seemed to be.
A haggle, then Denarii, then the gift
is taken for the slave’s new bride to be.

Upon a Sunday morning brisk and cold,
they watch a crowd lay palm leaves for a man
who rides upon an ass, yet seeming bold.
Another huckster, think they, with his clan.

A night of turmoil, fear and wrongful threats;
they beat him ‘til his flesh is stripped from him.
Upon the tree he bleeds, the cups are wet.
The old man casts the fullest as a whim.

Across the seven seas he sailed to seek
the greatest treasures that a man can find
and here he laughed and dined with men who reek
of greed within their hearts that made them blind.

The pirate king was trapped among his crew
who wished him ill and stripped him of his loot
they longed for him to die, of that he knew
so he made plans to give them all the boot

He paid a serving girl to seal their fate
and then he seemed to be in jolly mood
but in the end he felt the sting of hate
for she betrayed him with his poisoned food