Love Poem: shell

shell

you …

sweetly spun me
like sugar into cotton candy -
from a dizzy bobbin
to ornament for a spring willow …
no lament avowed,
for there is a demon in your eyes
whose night blade feeds …
he stalks me -
spurious spear in his grasp 
not near as lethal as the shimmer 
that winks me from those depths, abyssal
or the tender tendrils, oily black
reaching from the unfathomable fathoms 
to sunder my forsaken heart 
and turn my marrow
molten … melting …
flesh burning for your arrow -
welts of passion that thirst
to weep crimson
yet not even you can pierce that
hermetic husk …
hardened by casual care,
another’s name,
and the tear-tempered steel
of your bewitching …

gaze.







Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden, January 6, 2024

( painting by Bruno Barreira taken from public domain files at Saatchi Art )