Writing poetry is like trying to diffuse a bomb, and you don't know which colored wire to cut first.

Here are a couple of poems of mine that are tentatively complete. Feel free to critique and/or suggest anything concerning them.

The Ritual

If she happened to be downstairs,
Her hands busy in work,
Toiling over crafts or turning the pages of a book,
And I happened to be upstairs,
With my hands busy in work,
Writing a poem or changing the channel,
My heart might begin to suddenly flutter with fear,
Believing we were not in the same house at all,
But that these two stories instead
Formed some kind of impassable and infinite wall.
Or, even worse, that each story concealed itself
To be a different state of mind
And I merely dreamt her into existence –
She - a shadow of my shadow,
Lost in the murky waters of dreams and time.

My only remedy would then be
To stop the wild beatings of my quaking heart,
To stop my heart altogether,
To stop the bell tolls from ringing their sad song -
And, like a ghost, slip downstairs unnoticed,
Searching with desperate eyes
For love to be found in a woman
Whose hands are busy in work.
And from afar I would determine myself
To only be made known to her, once again,
By planting on the top of her sweet-scented head
The most serene and gentle kiss my lips can create.
For a kiss is all I need to know she is alive.
Alive in me.

Then, for all I know, the house would not be two stories,
But one; and our hands could work together in love, as one.


Spitting Blood

The sky bleeds the color of a deep red plum,
And far below the dissolving azure,
With teeth rattled and loosened,
Spitting blood,
I stand.

Do you think the blood trickling down my chin
And dripping to the ground
Is going to stop me from feeling the grass
Beneath my bare feet? Or from knowing the cool caress
Of chilled water on my living lips?
No! I will take my fallen blood, mingle it with the dirt,
And use it to slick back my hair!

Do you think cracked teeth, broken like glass,
Are going to stop me from loving
The wings of a bird, the veins in a leaf,
The tantalizing taste of oranges,
The gentle kiss of a woman,
Or the beating of God’s heart
Pulsating through all living things?

I assure you,
Next time
You are going to have to hit me
Much harder.