The Secret

You are the secret my heart holds
silently, quietly, gleefully.
When life erupts around me
or turbulent skies loom,
I take you out and smile at
remembered moments,
remembered laughter,
remembered peace,
remembered dreams.

jkb 2016

Shut up

Go ahead, throw words 
and words and words 
over me until I am covered. 
A strong wind comes-
they blow away. 
Save me the trouble
of sneezing from the dust 
of your pointless particles, 
your endless verbage. 
Verbs are action words for a reason. 
Action speaks more to me 
than your cheap, cloying, meaningless cliches. 
I'm closing my ears 
and opening my eyes 
to SEE what you are really saying. 

jkc 2010

The Dream

Illustration: Where Have All Your Dreams Gone by Joel Robison

The Dream

LOVE, if I weep it will not matter,

And if you laugh I shall not care;

Foolish am I to think about it,

But it is good to feel you there.

Love, in my sleep I dreamed of waking, --

White and awful the moonlight reached

Over the floor, and somewhere, somewhere,

There was a shutter loose, -- it screeched!

Swung in the wind, -- and no wind blowing! --

I was afraid, and turned to you,

Put out my hand to you for comfort, --

And you were gone! Cold, cold as dew,

Under my hand the moonlight lay!

Love, if you laugh I shall not care,

But if I weep it will not matter, --

Ah, it is good to feel you there!

Ashes of Life

Ashes of Life

Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;

Eat I must, and sleep I will, -- and would that night were here!

But ah! -- to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!

Would that it were day again! -- with twilight near!

Love has gone and left me and I don't know what to do;

This or that or what you will is all the same to me;

But all the things that I begin I leave before I'm through, --

There's little use in anything as far as I can see.

Love has gone and left me, -- and the neighbors knock and borrow,

And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse, --

And to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow

There's this little street and this little house.




Edna St. Vincent Millay 

10 things I hate about you

"I hate the way you talk to me
And the way you cut your hair
I hate the way you drive my car
I hate it when you stare
I hate your big dumb combat boots
And the way you read my mind
I hate you so much it makes me sick
It even makes me rhyme
I hate it
I hate the way you're always right
I hate it when you lie
I hate it when you make me laugh
Even worse when you make me cry
I hate it when you're not around
And the fact you didn't call,
But mostly I hate the way
I don't hate you, not even close,
Not even a little bit, not even at all."

- 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), dir. Gil Junger

Indigo Evenings

I get the night time blues.

My heart aches.

Dreams dry and wither.

I reach out my hand to shadows

who dance away with the light,

chasing their own heart aches.

Nothing but indigo nights for me

until morning when the damnable sun

with it's irrepressible warmth

and optimism rises once again.

The cycle continues, uncaring

that I conspire against it.



~~JKB 2017

She dreams