Tiger Swallowtail

source

Darkness and light lie 

side by side

Lovers

Making each other stronger by opposition

You are composed of dichotomies:

Fragile wings 

the colors of a killer

Soaring born of crawling

Beauty and grace from lowliness

You are a stringless kite

Dipping and diving

to escape your earthbound origins

You inspire awe, envy

Desire

You are free

You are imperiled

from those who seek to kill

what they can not possess.

submitted for Poetry Jam, Your Stripes, My Stripes

Shine

source

Ten?

Twenty?

How many

Do you need?

Fifty?  Sixty?  Is that enough?

You count friends like a cashier counts coins

You jingle them in your pocket to make sure they are still there

You like to sort them by value, put them in neat piles, admire your fabulous collection - oh, how it has grown!

Never mind the dust, chokingly thick, as they sit on your book shelf; you know that underneath the layers of neglect, they will always shine brilliantly at your gaze, won’t they?

submitted for Poets United, Verse First, Fibonacci Poems (mine is in increasing word number/line)

The Agent

This room is

where you name stuffed animals

This room is

where you try on Mom’s lipstick

This room is

where you have first kisses

This room is

where you dream of the future

while your first love fucks your best friend.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Words Count With Mama Zen, Houses

YES

by Jim Chines

The Hollowness of Time

source

Time stole in

lighthanded as a pickpocket

Took her youth

quick as a gasp

Passing by the glass, she glimpsed 

fissures at the fault lines of her surface

saw her structure sinking

She hadn’t noticed

this slow decay of her self

until the instant it caught her 
off guard

She wondered

whether Venetians perceived their city sinking

little by little or

Would they find themselves one day

knee deep in water and ask

“When did this happen?”

She once had been called a rock

Sturdy, stable, strong

and grew to embrace this image

But even rocks erode over time

crumbling to gravel

then dust

What would she be

if she fractured?

She imagined herself a geode

delicate, crystalline beauty at her core

But she suspected
that under the exterior

She was only hollow.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Free Verse, My Love In Her Wild Magnificence

Nothing Sweet

source

Sweet nothings whispered in my ear

Are nothing more than air

And declarations of devotion

Feel just like a prayer

Words

Won’t get me there

Don’t

Get on your knees for me

Your touch can tease, can please, so please

Give me a love that’s bold

And  take me, break me, make me love

With passion uncontrolled.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, FB Goes Old School

Love

Eternal Love Locks, Pont de l’Archevêché,  photo by Susan

Forgiveness is a part of

Love

Pushing through after the mistakes-

A branch breaks

In time, corrects the wrong

And still grows strong

You and I will always belong

Together, like autumn and spring

Whatever the fates may bring

love: a branch breaks and still grows strong. 

submitted for Poetic Bloomings, In Form Poet, Ovillejo
and Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, First and Last Lines, What is Love?

and Poets United, Verse First, Committed