I LAVISH KISSES

i lavish kisses

on soft skin she exposes

where shoulder meets neck

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a painful silence

moments i don't hear from you

i feel so alone

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i cast forth poems

hoping at least for echoes

you answer silence

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love's a theory

imaginary concept

i know must be real

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in dreams together

hand-in-hand crossing the edge

into reality

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to understand me

you must understand true love

its link to freedom

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i would not bind you

but with shared words and desires

and true love's freedom

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she does not submit

but rather commits herself

to love's wide expression

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though my work of art

i may not see or touch you

just write about you

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once wrote without lust

could not understand my need

minus the passion

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you understand my truth

mortals love but poets lust

write of both at once

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Premonition on the wind

Gliding beneath dark clouds

Above the shadowed earth

Moaning in ecstatic passage,

Fondling leaves,

Caressing flowers,

In darkness as,

Their unseen blushes

Give evidence to the

Accuracy of its promises.

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you and i make love

green grass bed and bare blue sky

caressing wind and sun

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In the dark, an owl cries

Evoking ancient memories

Written in the blood

Raising runes of mythic fears

Upon the trembling flesh

As the fearful cry resounds

Against the choral background

Of wind and unknown creatures,

Moving darkly through

The watching forest.

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ariadne on the shore

marooned as theseus sailed away

to his father's death

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arriving at the stone walled city

wrapped within a ragged cloak

emissary from cross wine dark seas

upon an ancient horse

telling and retelling

stories whicpered in the dark,

sung at the fire before dawn's battle,

for singer, song, and memory

may die with the sunrise

• Donovan Baldwin