A Lover Covets Love

Love, debasing,
luring, chasing,
never thought to be a flaw, but
now erasing,
warring, pacing,
beats the heart and wears it raw.

Have a flower,
hunger, power.
He loves you, and you love that he'd
wait an hour,
gloomy, dour,
just to know you love him back.

Feeling happy,
warm and sappy,
nothing sweeter, sweetest fall from
feeling crappy,
twitchy, tappy,
angry that he didn't call.

Now you're weaker,
smaller, meeker.
You don't want to be alone so
you're a shrieker,
crier, weeper,
can't go back, and can't atone.

Trapped by needing,
begging, bleeding,
best to force it, make it fit in
what you're seeding,
growing, breeding.
Work the land and never quit.

Prophecy

A mountebank will teach a man that reckless faith is grief;
no prophet brings an iron word to men who know a thief.

Tock

The mainspring of the clock unwinds,
but mine is tight; each tick reminds.
Eternal cadence binds me short:
no time for work, no time for sport,
for each of two will rob the one.
Though time is endless, I have none.

Mortality

This life is futile, bounded twice: birth brought me late and death shall take me early. No work produces permanence, and play cannot sustain itself, so our labors and our loves fail to leave a mark. My words will dissolve in the vastness of time, and even time will end and swallow all traces of me.

My Fire

A bit of boasting burns a bridge,
and brashly will I kindle.
With sickly glow,
the fire's low,
but prideful flames won't dwindle.

Eternal blaze, I covet you
while you drive me to covet.
You cause me strife
but give me life;
I hate you and I love it.

You drive the lively forest back
by poisoning my vision;
I see a face
of friendly grace,
but your smoke paints derision.

I'd like to snuff you, but I won't;
I feel compelled to feed you.
I'll let you stay
again today,
but say that I don't need you.