he's doe-eyed and lovely

a cool breeze kissing

sun-kissed skin

never a secret he

wears the world

with a warmth that fends off

my winter hues

he exists so beautifully-

so painfully-

and i, like a wilted flower

beauty long-forgotten

and rot in my petals-

i fall at his feet

every night in my mind

leaving my sacred hubris behind

Might as well fall

Like we all will eventually.

Climb underground

With me.

It’s always dying

With you and me.

Always on the brink

So stop pretending

With me.

Let me sink

Into the earth beneath

Where my heart

Can rest in peace.

Wrap me in a sheet

This is just the ghost

Of me.

Cimmerian Days

Steeped in hardship Joys are scattershot As ennui drifts inward Like a surging tempest Before faultless ruin

wpm

It just seems a most appropriate thing

That world poetry day is in the spring

The trees are budding, the bright flowers bloom

We find escape from unending gloom

The frosts are all waning, the days grow long

The endless heavens are now thick with song

We're storing our sweaters, going for walks

Watching the daffodils sprout from their stalks

Something like hope is springing from the ground

Laughter lilts softly, such a welcome sound

Soon we'll see groundhogs emerging with glee

From winter's cold grip we will be set free

Days growing warmer, shadows disappear

The taste of joy becoming stronger than fear

In the warm dead snow Its a long way down to the sadness So farewell lover I am summer coffee Now as before I have loved you Now as before so must I go We shared the strangeness of passages The bitter wine of luminescent decadence We were always of a kind So rushed as the black rivers white water So consumed as the diamond in the mine Alone was just a momentary statement Said in haste to stave off the sublime So I wept as with your passing Came replacement and rewind A new ballad sung to unfinished skin

Perennials

Snow falls steadily covering every branch, creating a blanket of hope; whispering frost is not eternal. The cold once provided a sweet consolation as the flakes fell slowly upon my lips and I savored their taste melting on my hot tongue. I find myself craving heat and the suns rays caressing every inch of my untouched skin. I stare at each passing storm with my black eyes widened conjuring an early spring.

we're all falling. some more than others. plunging toward nth degrees, ensnared by fashionable ideology, chasing the unfamiliar to its obsolescence.

voices clamoring repetitive, crowds of conjecture in sync. the faces move lifelike, but i no longer listen. re-creations made in their own image, self-replicating multitudes -heedless.

brief

take off your long coat let that dark dress hang like a concupiscent dream

a moment born on the drift of desire

a shaft of light slips across the wooden floor to meet your calf

halfway up while pigeons swirl outside the window

reflected in your eyes like two way mirrors as the clocks tick

a thousand tocks gears mesh in a stream

of rotation counting out photons of radiance in your face onto my hand

when you look away the light seeps off on

thistledown wings finished slipping up your thigh moving on beyond

passion passing with it to recede like falling ash

Fading

Kandinsky's shade mixing paint

the velour of this sunset

needs something vibrant

to make its memory feel real,

Don't talk to the breeze

its words are disingenuous

senseless similes

meaningless metaphors

it meandered through a garden party once

and it dreams of eloquence

pretends to understand passion

though its never received a kiss in return,

Smell the wet exhale of a muddy field

while the shadows gather all around

patient children waiting to hear

gray weathered wood stories of when

we wore freedom and not leashes,

Do we dare speak of when

all of everything felt like

the foreplay of first time lovers

trembling desires held back

by hesitant hearts that always see

the ashes before the fires even burn,

All of this can never be the same

since eyes saw it from the other side

of these days that we think once were

our skin will never again

touch for the first time

in the velvet shadows of a room

in a house that no longer exists

all these experiences stand

like lovers waiting outside the gate

looking at the lights and wondering

if there is a welcome waiting within,

Smile because at least

once upon a better night than this

we were safe and warm and we wanted

every single hour we could seize

upon a pillow together

we whispered myths and fables

we swore would become real

and isn't it beautiful to know

that we were there once?

Remnants

I was already the paling of cornflower blue and canary yellow when we met; a second hand tea dress made far too delicate by neglect.

In those days, when we knew of one another, I often took the tender remnants of your words: the cuttings and clippings of intricate sensuality to piece together riddles–

I would softly send these off into your ear

as you gave yourself away from my arms toward sleep.

Ask me if I remember the tender places you made yours and I will show you how I keep the untamed tamed,

and then I would recount how I rendered to all the markings of ardent love in your name,

before the mind addled after your leaving.

i.

so we’ve been stars and dust and a thousand other things  in the sequence of life. 

ii.

time fades a line into the distance, mourn the self  that left these footprints over sand, 

the wind whispers them to the sky.

iii.

over dunes 

the sun fades and the shimmering haze of dusk sets into night, calm washed in warmth, 

so is reality;

this quiet edge of tomorrow —

dispersed, effused,

afflux.

Periwinkle skies

The starkest winter morning skies, When cold permits a pallid veil, Ere bright and white the sun does blind A forlorn stare of thousand miles, And from its zenith-throne rescinds The ribbon shreds of dreamer's haze, Then, twixt the crowns of barren elms Who guard the sage of outstretched fields, Their crooked spears and silver shields Turned indistinct fore greyish blue As hoarfrost's mirror overspills Into the endless horizon; As such, and then, and only there, When my gaze but drifts uncertain, I witness shades and figures blend; Your periwinkle eyes, again, And as my soul does genuflect, I whisper but the simplest yearning: May you so haunt me

Forever.

--- 10-1-2024, M.A. Tempels ©

searching for the night in the moonlight

breaking off our share of the vast obsidian glass sky

held up by a floating sheet of cardboard

firm, edges papercut sharp

no fear of failing flight

we are freeing the stars

& they are turning, burning away

the night wished for noonnight

The sky cracking unlike an egg

Folded into origami beauty

Soft-edged paper worn

a fear of endless descent

The stars look too ugly

& rain washes all, forever away