Sonnet after accusations of being 'pretentious'

The florid crime, the quirks of Calliope's whims,

Distil the drool, satiric treacle's pride,

The glottal joke, the aspic spittal's phlegm,

To sweetened truths and honeysuckled lines.

In nervous creeps the sorry heart rebels

With relished winces, spices numb the lips.

And rapture's yodelled song is quelled,

Preferring obmutescence - or a quip.

The things you call pretentious burn the blood.

The pierce and pant, the flush that swells the lungs.

Split-second strokes that cannot cool to words,

Caloric gases rise to rack the tongue.

Feel free to dress your abstinence with spite.

If beauty's truth, it's safer to be right.

And now you've shown those fucks

The shit they say will hurt for sure.

They mean it. Bastards work that way;

No girl's a saint, no human heart is pure,

But those with skill go out their way.

They make their mark and make it last.

Act innocent as you fight back.

Distract themselves with blunted jousts,

Defend attacks, complain of being attacked.

Just fools fight those at war with their own hearts,

Like healing those, who live by staying sick,

By cannon fire, alive but spirits cursed.

Such losing battles strip the soul of grit.

But war means time and readiness for luck.

You stood your ground. And now you've shown those fucks.

She hides tonight

She hides tonight in the frosted mist,

In the half-shaped curves of ice and light.

She hides in the damp-petaled leaves

That swoon from sun-bitten trees.

In the sky's drenched-cotton folds

And in the crispness of the grasses.

She hides tonight in halogen hallways

In rose-light behind dirtied curtains.

In the crack and beat of guilt-quick footsteps.

She hides in the breeze upon the spine,

In the dying sound of lovers' hate

And the stomach's ulcerous heat.

She hides in the rain-pearled webs

In the rotted squeak of wood-worm planks.

She hides in the bottle-necked, pineal rush,

In the mucus spice upon your lips.

She hides in the spider's liquid womb,

In her black-silk spawn about to burst. 

Where are all the bohemian girls?

Where are all the bohemian girls?

Disheveled and distracted in their crafts?

Where are all the wine-soaked girls?

Black-fingered women, curves like Raphael sketches?

Where are all the bohemian girls,

The cough and spit, unshaven women?

Where are all the blood-lipped women,

The bite and screams like Sahara storms?

Where are the chivalrous women,

The midnight girls, and battle-tested?

Where are the iron buckled prophetesses,

Rapier-skilled, and hearts like holy water?

Synchresis - Caesar weeps before a statue of Alexander

Before you conquered worlds, defeated memory's ranks,

Deployed the rains of hell to fight your fight;

Before you battled ice and heat, left gods outflanked,

Left terrified the terrors of the night,

You must have sliced your soul, let spirit bleed,

Pierced innocence, cut horse-skin for your heart.

The needs of war require the death of need,

The loss of loss, and grief for grief, to start.

My trauma leaves me little skill, but lust

And shameless scorn for those who've shut me down.

Pathetic tears can't fashion life from dust;

What lesson now can sun draw out from stone?

Though by my age you'd played the thief to God,

Time waits. I'll purple history with my blood.