Poets and artists published in Spectrum Online Edition: Love Lines are invited to read at the Saturday Afternoon Poetry Zoom meeting on Saturday, January 21st between 3 and 5 pm PST. For more publishing opportunities, go to: http://spectrumpublishing.blogspot.com

Saturday, January 14, 2023

Christopher Askew

Love bites 

 

A sinister shape in the shadows

a feeling of fright in the air

a phantom in white at my window at night

letting me know that you care

               

The moans and the groans in the darkness

that fill me with dread and despair

the wails and the screams that invade all my dreams

the flailings that lay my soul bare

 

The feel of your fangs at my collar

the heart-staking stab of your stare

the odor of death on your skin and your breath

cara mia! your claws in my hair!

 

You're the nails on my chalkboard, my darling

the essence of fear to my scare

O the things that you do that endear me to you!

My devil, my darkness, ma chère.

 



Love & Snapdragons

 

These are the snapdragons

I nursed back from death – 

they finally bloomed,

but only for a week.

 

I decided they’d grow better

in deeper soil. This required hours

of digging out buttercups – those things

can really take over, like bindweed.

 

I also planted my one moonflower

for the year – the last viable seed

from the handful you gave me

some bright and blooming year gone past.

 

Those other bulbs are hyacinths –

I ‘m not sure yet where – or if –

we’ll plant them – our snapdragons

are in their third year in temporary pots

 

It crossed my mind

that they might become perennial

with the thermal mass of the cement porch

and a brick planter –

 

but that sounds like a commitment

you’re not ready for yet.

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Alicia Mathias

    for: J.A.F. MY LATE GRANDMOTHER'S  LONG-LOST PEARL returns  to its  setting