The mist rises:

It hangs like a tattered curtain over the meadow.
(Why must I lie here and wait for darkness...and for him?)

I view it from the grass.

The mist creeps:

It crawls over the flowers, curling and climbing above the trees.
It is cold; it is chilling; it has no feeling.
(Neither did he, my Night-Wing, who brought me to this place--with his sharp kisses and
promises of dark Eternity.)

I shiver in the grass.

The mist disappears:

It dances into nothingness under the warming fingers of the sun, dwindles into a wisp of gray
and...is gone.
(A prisoner, I wait--for the moon and its coldness to free me so he and I may touch again.)

I lay cold in the grass.

(This poem was written during my angst-filled university days. Under the title "Epitaf," it was featured in the February (second) issue of Sounds of the Night Magazine, 2008.)

We were happy, my love and I, until she, born
of evil and air,
Came into our lives without a sign,
So Pale, So Cold, So Fair.


Tall and silent, so certain was she that as
she drew him away
her eyes only spoke--two pallid cold eyes as never
saw light of warm day.


Pale of eye and hair and lip, still as Fair as
Death was she and
The strength of that frail and bloodless hand
Did take my love from me.


Thus she took him, unmindful of my grief
and the pain that many another
Before me had felt and after me
Will feel again.


She took him, his strong hand pale and weak
in her own
That many strong men before him had grasped
And with that Pale Fair One had gone.


Alone I now wait, waiting until the time
When a hand through my window will beckon
And my own pale hand is again in his
And once more he is mine.

(The above photo is "Death Comes for Alcmena" from The Thracian Horses, performed by the Mercer Players in Macon, Georgia, to have been performed on November 21, 1963. The performance was postponed because of the assassination of President Kennedy.)

There's a Shadow waiting at Home for me Warm and soft and watchful, And I never appreciate him more Than when it's raining and it's cold while The wind blows sheet-water in icy blasts. As I slam the car door and dash up the drive, head down, collar up, I see That glow in the darkness--fuzz-furred shape against the light, tapered ears twitching, gold-gleaming eyes Watching Waiting With a soft purr Welcoming me Home.


(Believe it or not, this is a poem though the computer made it into a paragraph! The handsome feline at left is Thibault Minuet, the "Prince of Midnight", named after the hero of my most favorite romance novel ever. It had Fabio on the cover. It was the first time I'd seen him and a day later saw him on TV and recognized him from the cover on the book!)

They have gone now
And only I remain
And when they ask me why,
I will say:
because of the soft summer rain.

I like to hear the rain
playing on the grass
falling at my feet;
It reminds me of Before,
Of Summers when
the grass was green
the sky was gold
and bird-sings filled the air,
and everything was seized with Living....

How could I leave all that?

They are gone now,
And I alone remain
And when they ask me why,
I will say:
because of the soft summer rain.

After a long, dark waiting, he appeared

on a night windswept and chill,

making the old Earth cry blood-red tears.

Burning ice-cold with flesh long denied

Life's warmth, he sought to replace his lack with

my own weak pulse,

while holding my heart, night-bought and conquered,

in one pale hand.

I sought my damnation in the darkness, and would have won it,

but for the blood of the Old Races burning in his veins.

When it called to him

He didn't resist,

forsaking the puny Mortal who desired him

to return to the Mountains that birthed his Kind.

Thus now,

when the wind moans soft while the clouds obscure the moon

and through my open window

I hear a soft wing's-rustle break the night air,

I sit and hope and wait,

But he doesn't return,

And I cry alone beneath the waning moon,

And I cry alone beneath the cruel moon.

TWO OF MY FAVORITE STANZAS:

He did not wear his scarlet coat, For blood and wine are red,And blood and wine were on his hands When they found him with the dead,The poor dead woman whom he loved, And murdered in her bed.

And all men kill the thing they love, By all let this be heard,Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word,The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!

Ballad of Reading Gaol

Oscar Wilde, 1898