Desert Night

Desert Night
by Gideon Burton

My only measuring, the fingered soil
I loosened in the cooling evening, dark
and light. And though the very skin of oil
that lines the distant highway’s asphalt, marks
the jagged underdressing of the sky,
I don’t suppose the waving sage will sleep
away the windy desert. Time to try
how many wilted metals sigh and weep
as rain descends to seed their sides with rust.
The tire swing has worn away the grass,
and autumn heat has broken summer’s trust
in what would live, in what would turn and pass
beyond the meter doubled of my height,
no matter how the sinner dims the light.

---

 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - Bukutgirl

Scouting Rocks

Scouting Rocks
by Gideon Burton

The merit of those badges and awards,
the virtues of the campouts and the dirt,
the reason BSA gets my support,
is not because I like a khaki shirt.
Oh no, I am a critic of the cult:
its rituals, its silliness, its lore;
its campy camps, the way it warps adults,
its fundraising -- we pay and pay some more.
And yet, my sons go out among the trees,
they hike and stroke canoes across a lake.
Testosterone is tempered by degrees
despite the whoopee cushion world they make.
     So, let them stone the gophers, burn their socks;
     Unplugged and exercising: scouting rocks.



 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship.

One More Sonnet in Her Name

One More Sonnet in Her Name
by Gideon Burton

Indulge me one more sonnet in your name,
My love, for you are subject I cannot
Exhaust.  Does thirsty earth grow bored with rain?
Could heaven by true Christians not be sought
Again and then again? As daily food
And yet more sweet to taste. As breathing’s breath
And yet more fresh and live. These are but crude
Comparisons, and yet as they from death
Preserve me, keep me whole and well, so you
Within the favor of your eye or in
The easy discourse we enjoy, or through
The daily chaos of the children’s din.
        Your presence is a godly gift and sure.
        Without you, love, no living I’d endure.



This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship.

Geese in Flight

Geese in Flight
by Gideon Burton

Observing Vs of geese that weave the clouds
Their squawking, needles sharp in cottoned air
Their liquid wings make currents in the crowds
Of stray reflections, those that hover, fair
As moonlight lingering or coming dawn,
I wonder why their necks are straight as nails
Their heads are beads of ink, their winging strong
Against October even as it fails
To snare them with its traps of cooling wind
They crease the smooth horizon, growing faint
In sound, in sight, in cries grown melting thin
Against the western south, its thinning paint
        Enveloping the parting birds, their flight
        Of woven wandering, their sinking out of sight.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - meltsley

New Suit

New Suit
by Gideon Burton

A wedding isn't just for bride or groom,
however much we hope the marriage sticks.
It's for the folks who must go shopping soon,
to throw some stylish fashion in the mix.
For women, such variety is there,
a hundred closets hardly scratch the surface
but for us men with little cash to spare
the choice is slim, no matter what our purpose.
Conservative and plain, the humble suit,
in grey or black, perhaps in brown or blue;
it tends to civilize the savage brute,
and gives some class to anything you do.
     At times I tire of this attire, and yet
     it makes me smile when I a new one get.



 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship.

Time Remaining

Time Remaining
by Gideon Burton

If I had known how little time remained --
the thunderclap, the drench of summer rain,
the whine of dogs, the muddy gutters stained
with gurgling runoff; or the whistling train
that every midnight dopplers in and IN
and OUT and out, the umber incense made
by toasting toast, the staining of my chin
with cherry juice, the scraping razor blade
along her angled leg, the throats of old
acquaintances, the consonants that clack
or hiss, the steam of vowels hot or cold
the crickets strumming into Summer's black.
   The children sprouting, wild with downy grace;
   the evening stroking shadows on her face.

---

 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - The Russians Are Here

Atmosphere

Atmosphere 
by Gideon Burton

The atmosphere, a sort of cooling jelly
that makes the housetops tingle as it sets
anaesthetizing sunrays on the belly
of this the firmament of our regrets.
The ocean, though it quivers, something wooden,
against whose splintered grains we push our eyes
until no moon, no acid tide, no sudden
reproach assigns fresh crimsons to this rise,
this cumulation, boulders swallowed over
and over any tree-lined crest or crag,
the thunder heads descending though they hover,
their rains to come though aspens cause a lag,
a bleeding of the moisture at the heights
of hesitation, darkly northern lights.

---

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - ~jjjohn~

Shipwreck

Shipwreck
by Gideon Burton

Below the surface I can breath the salt
That's seasoned coral banquet tables, shores
Of blank oblivion, that's salved the halt
And wounded joints of sailors. Ragged floors,
Crustacheon orchestras, have sewn the wind
Of arctic memory in tightened seams
No code can break, however many sinned
To taste the water of those fathom dreams.
No shipwreck's timbers snag the hollow course
Of oily time, dividing flesh from bone
And sandy grain from crags of lava coarse
And proud. Not even this, the moon, alone,
       Aloof, with all her ripping tides and pull
       Can wash one minute's breeze, one breath, less full.

---

This work (both text and photograph) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship.

Through a Glass, Darkly

Through a Glass, Darkly
by Gideon Burton
after 1 Corinthians 13:11-12
"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."

To put away these many childish things,
My childish thoughts, my understanding dark
With odd enigmas, fragmented with wings
Whose dropping feathers trace and hide the mark
Of first creation, brooding still in vast
Abysses, restless and obscured behind
The glass enveloping both present, past,
As much as I can seeking seeking find
To see it face to face as I am known,
No longer shards and splinters but the whole,
The egg, the center core, unseamed unsewn,
Not these, the pebbles loosened in the shoals
        Along this sheltered shore hid from the moon
        Of knowledge promising the morning's soon.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - MichaelPickard

Awaiting Autumn

Awaiting Autumn
by Gideon Burton

Who knows what warmer winds will dress the way
When Autumn comes in cool but firm descent
Or when the angels, burning, kneel to pray
For respite from the fires heaven-sent?
Who yet can see what softness leaves attain
Once wrinkled on the footpaths in the woods,
Or what cool water washes heated brains
And bathes the night and all its starry goods?
I’m certain summer means no malice sore,
And yet the eye of heaven crossly glares,
As though I must be cooked, and cooked some more,
So angrily it radiates its stare.
        The stroking heat my patience will outlast;
        Would thunderclouds combine, the lightning clash.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - LLacertae

Toward the Spices

Toward the Spices
by Gideon Burton

No less than sea foam dancing in the thin
reluctance dropping from the rising moon;
at least as much as vapored salt whose din
against the rocks and pier fills up the swoon
of old humidities. I have a boat
to launch against such listlessness, a sail
I’ve furled too tightly lest its fibers bloat
and founder me, though tacking hard the rail
of purling orients -– a ship of dreams
rewoven by the melodies of dusk,
a small but able craft that’s caulked and seamed
and rife with spices: cumin, curry, musk.
The spray explodes and douses all the wood;
the decks of heaven shiver where they stood

Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - Polifemus

Immanuel: God With Us

Immanuel: God With Us
by Gideon Burton

How near, how present, closer than we knew,
a whisper's distance, intimate as air
inhaled, invisible and potent through
the swaths of hours, liquid, light, and rare
and drawing closer, closer as you pray
and pray and search and open every layer,
well past the patterned stupid stuff you say,
awaiting one who is already there,
not only next to you, but there inside
desire and pain and stumbling through the waste
and echoes, present as the dark collides,
the waters rise and night applies its paste.
     How near to knowing, tasting what you seek
     How reverent, patient, waiting, loving, meek.

Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - GrayBlueSkies

Deep Summer

Deep Summer
by Gideon Burton

Obligingly the water reeds will comb
The pale humidity until its strands
Condense along the brows of sable loam
That edge the river with their crumbling hands.
The sluices of the summer sky break loose
A cauldron’s heavy honey, thickened light
That ropes along the shoreline with its ooze
Of radiation, bruising, brazen, bright.
I walk along the cottonwooded trail
That makes a blind, a copse, a hidden place
Beside the restless water.  Will it fail
To keep me sheltered?  Will it dim my face?
        Deep summer waxes, melting to the wick;
        The water answers, cool and thinly thick.

Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - Matt.Hintsa

Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee

Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee
by Gideon Burton
after the hymn text attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux

The very thought of thee -- oh, Jesus, sweet
to me thy sacred name within my breast.
Yet how much more with softest peace impressed,
thy face to see, my Lord to praise and greet.
No voice, no heart, no memory competes
with what thy name invokes, what is expressed
when Heaven's Father is through thee addressed.
This is a food to me as wholesome as it's sweet.
My broken-hearted hope, our joy and prize
awaiting in the garden, wet and meek,
eternity and healing in thy wings;
To those who fall, how kind thou art, how wise,
the living water that I thirsty seek.
The very thought of thee, so sweet it stings.


Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - Iko

Words to Slow

Words to Slow
by Gideon Burton


I need the words to slow me, slow me down;
if only they could regulate the flow
and flux, this rivering desire that drowns
the sense of senses till it's all I know
and see, this sphere of lava that I tongue
and swallow, swallow into fissured thought
where musing's fusions press, compress, till sprung
into this webbing mesh of fiery knots
reknotted onto moorings anchored where
but where to settle this and these? Compare
the scrape of bone on slate, and if you dare,
then tell yourself that dreams are made of air.
     Compose me, sonnet, nothing's tethered sure.
     The animals within begin to stir.

Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - wwarby

The Play's The Thing

So, after taking a van full of students down to see a performance of Macbeth at the Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City, Utah, here's a theatrically themed sonnet:

The Play's The Thing
by Gideon Burton


With humid breath, with labored lungs and heart
Awash in sticky sweat and flush with heat,
Gray language finds its colors in your art;
The slack of time grows taut within your beat.
It is a bare occasion, yet you dance;
You fight with pricking foil in blazing peace.
Your anger rouses, given half a chance;
Brute passions flare, then mollify with ease.
I am compelled; each footfall keeps the eye.
You enter, exit, silent in the wings,
Then bursting forth, you laugh or you may die;
Perhaps some music rises as you sing.
        Play on, for your performance I attend;
        The play’s the thing that’s caught me in the end.

Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - balbano

Seashore

Seashore
by Gideon Burton


More often I would whisper brittle songs
against the water-whittled granite rocks
refusing years of swelling tides, the wrongs
of salt and winter’s every clutching shock.
And whether any errant gull observed
I cannot rightly say. At least the sky
permitted more than any flesh deserved,
however many scabbing questions why,
or casualties I levied in the flow
of apprehension. All the ocean knew
how many gullets cramming with the blows
of pebbled time a mind can yet construe.
Despite all habit: song or feeble prayer,
the atmosphere remains remote and rare.

Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - itchy73

I Promise

I Promise
by Gideon Burton

I’ll wake you with the mouths of flowers wet
against your warmer skin. I’ll brush the smoke
of waking with the voices we forget
too well, too soon. Not long from now the clock
of humid summer heat will swallow us.
The tadpoles of regret might wriggle loose
the mason lid; we may no longer trust
our wrinkled hands to finger well the noose
around the constellations, bulging whites
that bleed the sunlight pebbling through the arch
of nights against which flocks in arrows fight,
their straining necks half reaching to the stars.
I will remember lying here with you,
as though the water swallowed other truths.

Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - AleBonvini

Say Anything

I wrote this sonnet some time ago when I was feeling blue. I visited with a friend recently whose own mood reflected the tone here -- and for whom I posted yesterday's sonnet, Toward Hope.

Say Anything

by Gideon Burton

In time the seasons seasoned, thick enough

for sediments of sentiment to swell

and harden, thickened with a mud as tough

as easy distance made them in the spell

of unforgotten and avoided faith.

Who knows what healing, what relief or grace

might well have settled, quiet in a place

reserved for friendship thorough in its trace

of due alliance, cobbled in the past

and worn to supple leather in the task

beyond this mere suggestion, slowly fast.

It isn’t wise to question, nor to ask.

The yestertime evaporates away;

say anything, the edges start to fray.

Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - sparktography

Toward Hope

Toward Hope
by Gideon Burton

I could no further distance contemplate
than shimmers just beyond the wick of road
alight these hundred miles in the great
and virgin desert valley. As the load
of evening presses musically and firm
against our resignations, silver rain
will polish what the asphalt cannot learn
beyond the dusting noons, however plain.
I think I can hold out until the pass
between the brooding mountains thick with dusk,
at least until reflections, copper, brass,
or gold absorb the shadows and their must.
Must I await the hours, begging day
to spangle midnights long before they fray?

Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - luckyfly

Cave

Cave
by Gideon Burton

If no one ever came again so near
these musty caves of limestone rock where drip-
by-drop-by-drip stalactites growing hide,
and pools of water mineraled and clear
keep blackly mute and still; and if no bats
in huddled dirty masses clenched the walls,
and if no crevices made homes for rats
or thirsty snails -- this silent tomb would call
to me to wander blind and feeling through
its passages, to pause and wait for one
more drop of liquid time to sound, or to
await the creep of crystals where they're hung.
     Descend with me, in covert depths go down.
     We’ll rest with time where timeless quiet drowns.


Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - Erik K Veland

Stream

Stream
by Gideon Burton

I wish that I could lie within the stream,
the river cold that over granite stones
descends. It is a cool and living seam
between the dusty trails and woody bones
of this, the forest deep and ever green.
Perhaps I could those rippled whispers know
at last, or feel the dancing morning beams
that ply the surface, easy as they go.
It’s foolish, yes, but wiser than it seems.
For better men, alive inside their souls,
have drowned in waters thick with hoping dreams,
have wrecked upon the craggy, stony shoals,
and all for want of lying still and sure
to let the water wash our anxious stir.


Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - andywon

In Weakness, Strength

Recently I completed years of service as the leader of my LDS congregation. One of the themes of my ministry was the consecration of our weaknesses. I found that as people were candid about their needs (of whatever sort), it made possible the strengthening and unity of the whole since it gave occasion for people to serve. I've always loved the candor and spiritual passion of St. Paul and the admirable way in which he owned up to his shortcomings. When writing to the Corinthians, he confessed to some troubling personal weakness, a "thorn in the flesh." And this passage has become, of course, one of the greatest New Testament lessons about God's grace.


Here is my imitation of 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, followed by the original verses from the King James Version.

In Weakness, Strength
by Gideon Burton
after St. Paul

Unmeasured comes the flow of revelation.
(A thorn was given to me in the flesh;
it buffets me, deflates me as it crests)
Unmeasured comes this harsh and thick temptation.
Three times I've asked Him, pleading on my knees,
that this could pass, that I escape its grasp.
"My grace," He answered as my hands unclasped,
"It is enough for thee, enough for thee.
In weakness is my strength made manifest."
And so, infirm, unwell, I know the Christ.
Reproached, cast down, distressed -- all one device
to toss me headlong to my Savior's breast.
     How weak I was in weakness, but no more;
     for I am strong when weak before my Lord.

2 Corinthians 12:7-10 (KJV)

7  And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.
8 For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.
9  And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.

Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - Leia Speia

Quantity Genius

Continuing my time theme from the last sonnet, today I gave myself the challenge of writing a sonnet inside 10 minutes. So, while I sat at my son's cello lesson, I wrote this (with 12 seconds to spare!). The theme of it comes from a blog post by Mark McGuinness that I read about how the ratio of great artistic works to mediocre ones, over the centuries, has had more to do with volume than genius (he used Bach as his example). Lesson: churn out more "chip wrappers," as this blogger called them (mediocre works), and you'll churn out more diamonds along the way. I'm counting on it at OpenSourceSonnets!

Quantity Genius
by Gideon Burton

It's said that things of genius occur
when stars align, the muses speak, or some
sublime endowment outward starts to stir--
inevitable what it will become.
And in my moments, I have felt this flow
of grace artistic, everything attuned;
it is the sort of thing one yearns to know --
oh, may it come just once, though late or soon.
But I have heard the masters (such as Bach)
were not so touched by winds of the divine
as they were scribbling just to beat the clock.
For revelations they had little time.
     A masterpiece or two more likely comes
     by massing many pieces, one by one.

Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - Cross Duck

Time

Time
by Gideon Burton

They say that it is constant, but I doubt.
No matter how precise the measure, time
eludes those quantities. The numbers chime
assurances, but liquid time spills out
and over, roving over night or day
and smashing through the weakness of our weeks.
Time is an animal that preys and seeks,
then suddenly, asleep, it breeds delay,
grows faster as our decades deepen, slows
and lumbers when it seems that it is watched.
It beats, it hums, its rhythms mold our maps.
But counter-rhythms syncopating -- they botch
the symmetry of clocks. And dreamers know
whole centuries compressed within a nap.
     If I had time, she'd mock me for the crime,
     who's leashed and leased me with her silent rhymes.

Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - judepics

Proverb

Proverb
by Gideon Burton

Three things unhinge the firmament, and four
Return creation's bounds to chaos grey:
The bleeding constancy of dark dismay;
The body breaking, growing ever poor
In time's economy; betrayal dark,
The love of brothers turned to oily stone;
And water dripping, dripping in a drone
of rusted plumbing. I have seen a spark
Of moonlight sizzle over rippled waves,
And with an hour's silent music bled
Myself of what was pale or weakly red
Along my veins. These are the sharpened staves
       To pierce an afternoon, to curb the mist,
       To solemnize the breeze, the evening's fist.


Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - Sarah Julianne.

Godhead (kinetic typography)

I have been toying with kinetic typography, taking as my next text the Articles of Faith from my religion. You can view my 14-second experiment with the first of these in the video. Below that, a sonnet based on the same statement of belief.



Godhead
by Gideon Burton
after the first Article of Faith
of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints


In Elohim, the Father, we believe,
the Sire of our spirits, heavenly man,
who wished for us a body to receive,
to sense the flesh of time, to know first hand
what can be known when one can say, "I am" --
a mortal with immortal yearnings, drained
and full, in surges of both joy and pain.
That we might sense, a little, the I AM,
Jehovah, Jesus Christ, our Bridge to home,
and in His mediation we believe:
the Comforter He promised, we receive,
the Holy Ghost, whose graceful peace has grown
     in patterned wholeness so divine and clear,
     I find my God in all I see or hear.


Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship.

America's Guardians

America's Guardians
by Gideon Burton

America, your guardians, the men
Who with their youth and strength obeyed the call
To shield your freedoms, happy to defend
Our glad republic with their very all,
Begin to weary, though their hearts grow strong
As they recall each sacrifice they made
For you, America. And it is wrong
Should we allow their memories to fade
To vanish in the misty past. I fear
The very peace that they secured now clouds
That ardent loyalty they had so clear,
Those patriots whom waving flags turn proud.
         America, we won't forget their strife,
         Or dull our thanks to those who gave us life.

Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - Scott Ableman

On News of a Child's Death

On News of a Child's Death
by Gideon Burton

For decades now, unraveling the tight,
The winding ball of this our spinning home,
And still I wake with shudders, sweating, fight
To feel, to know, to have it to the bone.
And yet, in sudden thieving, children pass
Unshriven, hardly catching breath from birth.
The purest cries, the cleanest giggles last
But seconds, robbing innocence from earth.
I know of God, I trust in Him, and yet
His summons come too harsh to tiny limbs,
Before the fall in them has even set
They spring to death who leaped with playful grins.
       Forgive me, sons, I hold too tight, too long
       Your cries are joys, your tantrums angels' songs.

Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - Photoholic1

Vivaldi

Written at the church of St. Martin in the Fields, London, while listening to a Vivaldi cello concerto on May 25, 2001.

Vivaldi

by Gideon Burton

On these crescendos, brushing toward a soft

alignment, something heavy seems to light:

a slight , accusing signal, less than night,

and just as suddenly compelled aloft.

The music, rising, in perfecting fades.

Its blush and color thunders in its rush

toward a last parenthesis of breath.

A death perhaps. Perhaps a shift in clef.

The even ground tugs skyward in the crush

of green ascension, morning heaved in spades

another time for this, another peak,

another supposition given full

disclosure, casual of where it pulls

serrated phrases on us, strongly weak.

Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - kardboard604

Plea

Plea

by Gideon Burton

Bananas, ripened past their mellow hue;

A softened mango, cracked and spilling ooze;

The sponge of grapes, their tissue reddish blue;

Tart grapefruit, wet -- so hard it is to choose

Among the fresh, reviving fruits of earth.

Each calls to me with odored, breathy sweet.

I hunger for what quenches, sharp rebirth,

When lips the fruitskin pierces as they meet.

Perhaps I speak in metaphors of you,

My love, whose garden harvest ever yields.

Yet I withhold from seeing these as true

To you: who are much more than earthy fields.

       I stand with fruit inside a land of flavor,

       Yet hunger more for your forgiving favor.

Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - epSos.de