Shaded Looks (2006)

When pleasure is pain and pain is pleasure,
And each confused into the other grows;
When joy should hurt in equal measure,
And every thought should every thought oppose:
It’s then upon her beauty that I dwell,
And lacking will, must linger overlong;
Then Heaven’s eye reflected is my Hell,
For being here it’s there that I belong.
And when I think that I might only taste
The pleasure of her lips to feel the pain
Of ‘fare thee well’ – such hell by heaven graced
Condemns me to this agonized domain:
Not quite in Hell, exiled from Heaven’s glory,
By shaded looks I’m damned to Purgatory.

More than Words (2010)

Some things there are that are only heard
When nature sings with a silent tongue,
But her intimations waste away
If none be still to hear them sung.

Their silence says much more than words,
And if his cluttered thoughts he clear,
If she would pause and deeply breathe,
The truth between them they would hear.

For Eden shines within her eyes,
And heaven lights upon his brow;
In speechless thought they are betrothed,
But speechless, neither will avow.

You Poets, Born of Astral Dust (2006)

You poets, born of astral dust
And lunar filaments,
From heaven stream your sentiments,
Divine your trust!

You poets, fly from worldly cares,
Guard well your sacred souls,
You are not of the sphere that rolls
In rude despairs.

You spirits, doomed to roam the earth
And seek the Beautiful,
Take hope though roads seem ever full
Of Beauty's dearth.

For Mistress Beauty may be found
If heavenward you seek,
She dwells upon a lofty peak,
Not on the ground.

Yet poets, though she be your quest
Few make it through the fray,
Or from this care-worn world will stray
Upon her breast.

So poets, if you find at last
The embraces of an elf
In whom coy Beauty is herself,
Why, hold her fast!