Lovely Loyalty

Lovely Loyalty, I'm glad you still laugh;
I'm glad you still hang out with Steve and Wish.
I saw you the other day on the half
Of the pond where laundry's done, and in bliss
Knelt down to give oats and take your picture.
It was here where you and your brothers hatched.
While some have moved on, you've been a fixture;
Today I find you with young Wish attached.
Then other times you're with your brother Norm,
Who seems to have moved next door as it were,
Where the rains cause a small pond to form
Behind that lot. Last time he didn't stir 
From his nap, though I did see him out there.
If there weren't cameras I'd stop and stare.

Steve! (and George!)

I didn't realize my initial luck
When I returned to the pond to receive
Your greeting, thinking you another duck;
But it was you I dreamed of meeting: Steve!
I didn't see you on my last visit,
And the time before you seemed out of sorts:
You didn't eat; so it is exquisite
Having you run to me with laughs and snorts.
And you too darling George! Having you back,
Creation's refrain shall ever resound
In euphony like the ducklings who track
Mama, squeaking and frolicking around!
Steve and George, thank you for being friendly
And treating the tiny ducklings gently.

Razor’s Kiss

Oh I have never loved the razor's kiss,
But a sharper childhood's crazed example
Wrote its lessons on adolescent wrists.
I'm what's left after the flames are trampled.
Is it rebirth for those who never lived?
Seemingly this ultimate weapon's curse
Is its dual-edged blade; between the ribs
The killing intellect is reimbursed.
Yet the fire of the mind ever rises.
Ashborn children may have been their own prey,
After so many daily demises 
Perhaps falseness's dross was burned away.
I never loved the wounds of my feeling;
I still hate cuts, but I love the healing.

Oracles

Only those who can dwindle themselves down
Receive the revelation of horror.
Prospective seekers must enter the ground,
Harrow the depths of the ancient borer,
In order for the god's madness to pierce
Cryptic chambers predating humankind.
In the darkness of the cave lurks fierce
Negation of the new, illumined mind.
Inhumed in a grave within another,
Time stops, movement arrests. Everything, all
Is inert. His hymn of silence smothers
Adepts in their mortal clockwork's recall.
Trophonius wrenches senses inward,
Electrifying Orpheus' vineyard.

Words/Actions

Words of an action and actions of words
Are vessels swathed in seas of intention.
Neither are law and either are deferred
To in conflict's caustic condescension.
Nothingness stranding an eternal core,
Enveloping the wildfire of the soul,
Extinguishes hope with a silent roar.
Divide me from the warmth, leave me in coal.
Over the sheer precipice of desire,
Riots break out in free fall to dictate 
Being as a tool in fulfillment's mire,
Opens distinctions on which to fixate.
Tell me, or won't you, that I'm beautiful;
How's my faithfulness inexcusable?

Ritual Murder

Wine-dark was Iphigenia's slit throat
At Aulis for her father's winds of war.
Ever did the earliest poets note
Power never blinks, for it's sinned before.
Blood soaks the timeless gruesome practices
Of those poised to think they could rule the world:
Druidic butchers seeking accesses
To gory foresight in entrails unfurled;
Beneath the forum girls and slaves entombed
Alive where order purportedly grows;
The role Abraham readily assumed,
Demonstrating the lengths a "great man" goes.
To this day the powerless pay the price
For fiends who lust for human sacrifice.

Sonnet about you and ducklings

Another day with nothing to write about,
As usual my thoughts return to you.
Particularly when you and I crouched
Among the train of ducklings passing through. 
I can't describe the exhilaration 
When they huddle around your legs and mine,
Mobbing us with zero hesitation,
Cheekily playing with your shoelace twine.
I adore the gentle way you observe
These sacred offspring in their merriment;
The awe and affection duly deserved
For those precious puffs of life Heaven sent.
The love they show us makes my spirit soar,
And your love of them makes me love you more.

Hyacinthus and Apollo XV

The god of music heard my fervent prayers,
More beautiful than any man he looked;
I dared not want him yet like needing air,
I still besought him while my body shook.
   Let all take note that who attempts is glad,
   For when I asked of him he asked the same.
   And then he said, ah here's my handsome lad,
   He held my cheek and sweetly asked my name.
I begged him to unlock the secret song.
He bade me stand and took me in his arms,
And instantly to him did I belong
For more than songs and divination charms.
   Is this the thought upon the godly brow
   That though eternal thinks of only now?

Hyacinthus and Apollo XIV

Your gleaming limbs beneath the streaming light
Entice all beauty lovers with their shape,
Yet I alone most wondrous of delights
Have known—their tender fingers on my nape;
   Your precious abdomen and milk-white thighs
   That wrap around my circuitous embrace;
   Your feet that bring you when you hear my sighs;
   Your lips on mine, my arms around your waist;
The melting timbre of your singing voice;
The intimacy of your whispering;
With these alone a lover would rejoice.
But more, much more than one could sweetly sing,
   More cherished than the blind could ever see
   Is this my lot, that you have chosen me.

Hyacinthus and Apollo XIII; Zephyrus III

He loved and lost and left for foreign lands
Away from olive branch and temperate bay,
Where what was known were climate's cold demands
And frost instead of dew proclaimed the day.
   Around the Earth his refuge lay; the air
   That gusts upon his tear-stained cheeks ripostes
   In slicing curls. In perilous despair
   He flies alone towards the snowcaps' gloss.
When Autumn clasped around the one who spurned
Him, Zephyr crossed beyond meridians,
Equator, spheres and hemispheres; he turned
To gentle Spring the sleeping hinterlands.
   But soon the wind returns again and sips 
   The bitterness of absence on his lips.