Not A Traffic Light

Traffic lights have such an easy job
Blinking life away, oblivious
To shattered glass and acts of tragedy
Or signs of cardboard begging charity
Who am I to stand aghast at life
Twisted metal spilling in the streets
And ask the reasons why it all should be
When I could wait in quiet apathy
But I am not a blinking traffic light
I am not a lifeless entity
Conscious to the wreckage we create
I am not content to sit and wait
We have felt the force of passing forms
Ripping through the course of our intent
I can taste the spillage of our hearts
I inhale the putrid bitter scent
Burnt and broken heaps that once were love
Scattered on the landscape of desire
Empty vessels gutted in the dark
Hope that we abandoned to the fire
Sometimes I would like to be machine
Incapable of tears for what I know
But I am not a traffic light that blinks
I cannot tell when to stop or go

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I Would Burn

To stand so still beside your bed
My light to give a calming glow
The fragrance of my love to shed
And this, my passion, ever show
If I, a candle, could express
My heart through flames and sweet perfume
Your eyes: my oxygen; my breath
Supply the spark to light this room

And I would burn to see your face
Each flicker dancing in your gaze
Until the last of me dissolved
The flame extinguished by the grave
Inscribed in fire, let me tell
With every length of wick I lose
I set this blaze within myself
To be the warmth inside of you

Prism

Light refracted
Fractured cracked and
Shattered into jagged pieces
Scattered on an empty surface
Far dispersed and lost for purpose

Beam attracted
Struck–impacted
Decimated into ribbons
Strewn across a vacant chapel
luminated hues of shrapnel

Piercing the abysmal dusk
Encompass and imprison us
In glowing bars between the pews
From saints above us passing through

To carve across our darkened hearts
A prism formed of ancient art
Forsaken tombs awakened here
Beneath the tired angel’s stare