This is Love

Haste makes waste.

Still, I'm in a hurry to

Get misplaced

To be squashed and stuffed into

Space defined by you

Restricted to tick one box

Out of a possible gazillion and two.

Virtual chains and padlocks

Drape around my neck like gangsta bling

Until I can't be seen

For the sheer brilliance

The dazzling brightness

Of your testimonial.

At your insistence

I exceed excess

And recede deeper in denial.

This is love -

All the love I can hope for now -

The concessions I trade for

The right to your arm and your time

Your eyes and your smiles

And maybe someday soon, your name:

The ultimate addition to my collection.

Your Poem

I offer a verse for your consideration
A few lines for your appreciation
The fruit of some deliberation
The result of late night contemplation.

Which is the greater joy;
To write or to have your writing acknowledged
By a thoughtful audience
A like mind that understands what you said
As an echo of their half-formed or forgotten feelings
And acknowledges truth in its simplicity,
Uniqueness or profundity?

Which is the greater joy;
The reaction a good poem can invoke
Rushing blood and rapt attention or
A slow and steady cruise to the bank of recognition
A view through the poet’s eyes,
Or the conviction that those lines
Were written just for you
That the words ring clear and true
Because you and the poet are one?

Joy tonight is in midnight messages
Between a tent under the stars
And my room lit up by my monitor
In muses that work across borders
And poems that come in the night.