INTERVENTION

I am an heir to a jagged edged apprehension:

no one and no thing will claim me

and,

by claiming,

teach me to claim myself.

As I race toward the grave

mainlining self-doubt,

snorting regret,

confusing mere stimulation for feeling and

pulse for life;

My repreve comes in

the echo of a soul writ large,

a voice laced with crystal sugar and

dichotomy;

singing of joyful misery without the

oft obligatory shame.

It is a voice that

repeats a vow I had only heard before

in dreams;

a promise

to cry my tears when I can't.

*Written in tribute to Amy Winehouse.  I wanted to express what her music has meant to me. Artists have the power to transform the consciousness of others, but they can pay a heavy price for that power.  I hope that Amy has the peace in death that she could not find in life.

-For OpenLinkNight at http://dversepoets.com/

YOUTH

You are my gift…I am your affliction.

You help me claim the parts of myself that I fear most.

With you, I can endure and build my life anew.

But

My survival constantly compels your destruction.

Yet

You live.

-For “One Shot Wednesday” at http://onestoppoetry.com/

DILEMMA

You made a choice which allowed you to keep

the world you knew.

The world beyond was a child’s fantasy-

to you

even in its very real appeal.

You chose what you valued, but

to your surprise

that fact did not make what you got a treasure.

Once, you only needed your prize for love.

Now, you need it to make up for all

you believe you have lost.

Instead of a victor

you feel like a human sacrifice to ideology

to a wish of the mind that destroyed hope and

faith.

And what of your discarded love?

Like a prodigal

you now see it as the gem it could

never have been before.

But is this impulse Truth, or

is it the desire of an ego to keep itself safe and fed?

Regret makes us bolder, but

it does not always make us wise.

Which option should you have chosen?

What price could you afford to pay?

-For “One Shot Wednesday” at http://onestoppoetry.com/