POETRY: Lust by Reggie Drake

It was that supreme being.

That spoke to me through crescent light.

Distinguished in her mannerisms,

And humble in her walk.

She glowed.

Glowed with the radiance and beauty of a wild flower,

Waiting to be plucked by cultivated hands.

I appeared infinitesimal in correlation with the majesty of her aura.

The warm serenity of her smile.

The soft tenderness of her touch...

And I pined for her.

My desire wrestled with the moon for its resplendent gleam,

So I could lay the boundless, preeminent ray upon her fair countenance.

My yearning,

Eager to glow the mystical luminescence of love in its purest form through transcendent moonlight.

I want to be, my love,

Your sweet Elixir.

The cure for all your aches and pains.

Covet me,

As I covet you,

Hold me close as I have dreamt in many dreams

Or release me from this clockwise slumber.

So I feel not the throbbing pain buried beneath my chest.

Extinguish the fire burning within my soul,

And quench my insatiable desire;

For you.

I lust.

With the ceaseless vigor of an inherent sinner,

Having tasted the waters of vice and choosing,

To remain in a perpetual state of corruption.

I lust.

With the vitality of an old patriarch probing through vast regions in search of the fountain of youth.

Vainly seeking that which cannot be found;

Just as I have vainly sought your Heart.

Your Mind.

Your Soul.

Peel apart the layers of my flesh and gaze upon the remnants of a lost soul.

For without love I am simply a broken shell,

Strewn about your vast shore.

Never again able to savor the aphrodisiac,

Of my Divine Dream.

Inspired by Pablo Neruda

POETRY: First Sight by Reggie Drake

When I saw her it was like....

The culmination of long concealed felicity bursting through the confines of my heart,

Sprouting like a shovel striking an undiscovered well.

I felt it.

The sensual energy generated by our adjacent bodies in close proximity.

It sends chills down my spine,

As I picture us,

Living out the days of our youth,

Aloof to otherworldly worries and issues,

Choosing to remain trapped voluntarily within a realm of blissful unawareness.

I see us holding hands in later years,

Even with our faces withered with wrinkles,

And the corporal aspect of our intimate affiliation fading like dusk into dawn.

I could never leave this.

I will NEVER leave you.

The moment your gaze became fixated on mine... I knew

At that moment my heart and yours became one in the same;

Joint-locked in virtual space where it appeared no one but you and me existed,

Like two star-crossed lovers intertwined in the web of fate.

It was destiny.

The contingency of our happen chance meeting.

My coincidental glance.

All of it choreographed by heavenly specters gently lowering their guiding eyes down upon us mere mortals,

Initiating our union into holy matrimony.

All of this I knew...

The moment I walked past you.

POETRY: I Lost My Passion For Writing...... By Cheryl A. Baldwin

sleep!
all i wanna do is sleep.
but all i can do is weep.
.......over the lost of you

cry!
all i can do is cry....
to rid my body of what i feel inside.
..........because words cannot decribe you

dying!
i really feel like dying....
eventhough i tried denying, i cant....
........because i know i could've saved you

write!
all i had to do was write.
to keep the feeling alive....!
but i chose to stop.
........because someone didnt like you

decieved!
i was so decieved.....
.......into thinking that you didnt matter

so believe!
all you have to do is believe....
and know that in your heart
........you will never be alone.

POETRY: The Counterbalance by Reggie Drake

A picture perfect portrait,

Of social and economic corrosion.

Depression turns suburban street corners,

Into loitering lounges as streetwalkers work avenues for daily revenue.

Base bumpers and trunk thumpers prance down public venues,

As if to announce the arrival of some risque parade.

A dying fragment in America's brain child.

Ignorant young cats throw rocks at the crazy lady down 8th street

And the neighboring drunk stands on his stoop uttering countless maledictions and blasphemies,

In a single incoherent slur.

A man who once had a dream, a vision,

Now reduced to a meandering, heineken-wielding guttersnipe.

Eviction notices plague houses like the spectre of death.

Dozens of denizens crowd into sanctuaries surveying the sermonizer,

As if they were mere mortals gazing upon Michael the Archangel,

Desperate to find solace and reprieve from the hard knocks of life.

Eager to escape the violence and corruption of the home created by human hostilities.

But amid the decay lies the self-starting artist,

Who endeavors to to better his craft.

As society crumbles he flourishes;

Eager to paint the vivid picture of this peculiar predicament through his work.

He is neither perturbed nor disturbed by the drunk roaring his random rambles;

Nor does the altercation down the hall break his ironclad concentration.

He works magic with his pencil as he abracadabra's shapes and contours on his notepad.

And despite the chaos and disorder outside;

He simply exists to continue his art,

And bring beauty,

To a dying world

POETRY: LOVE by Reggie Drake

The cornerstone of human nature.

The epitome of euphoria.

Too vivid and profound to characterize this prodigious emotion,

Yet the meaning is minimized by redundant utterances proclaiming this sacred affection.

Represented by hallmark cards expressing intimacy with the symbolic and depreciated heart.

It is abused and abandoned when forlorn lover delve into a carton of ice cream,

Unable to bear the silent "rip" of their torn heart sinking to the floor.

It is seen in the faces of adolescent youth and seasoned seniors,

Engaged in trivial conversation about the happenings of the world.

It booms bold when hands hold,

Forming a silent tryst amidst the boisterous banter,

Of old familiars rejoicing in reunion.

Present, yet intangible,

Existing eternally since the foundation of the world.

Pen and pad cannot hope to etch a silhouette of frame of mind in its prime,

A simple word yet so hard to define.

The apotheosis of human emotion,

And the entity that unites and touches lives.

The lifesaver of human fallibility and weakness.

The Great Equalizer.

POETRY: REGRET by Reggie Drake

Sometimes we take things for granted.

The small things we overlook with snooty faces,

Never seeing the full picture,

And always looking past the underlying message.

Fathers and Mothers break their backs to mollycoddle,

To spoil children,

Who return this well-intentioned parental affection with an undying desire for more.

Never satisfied.

Grandfathers breath life into lifeless anecdotes of times gone by,

To instill sagacity and values into grandson's,

Who in return, pursue hedonistic lifestyles,

As if to rebel against the presumed wisdom of the old;

Like the prodigal son who's morals expire amidst carnal desires.

Adam and eve had everything they could ever need,

When it all collapsed like a utopia corrupted by human err,

When Eve received the fruit of sin that ensued God's wrath.

The art in life is to get it.

But we can't seem to get it.

Juveniles flunk fast and infect streets with deadly doses of poison packed drugs;

Doing "business" that has no business being done.

If only they had listened to Uncle David that one time when he said,

You live by the sword you die by the sword.

Uncle Dave is starting to make sense now isn't he?

Now that life if falling apart,

And you can barely hold it together by the string it sits upon;

Only now looking back through the looking glass;

Only now seeing what the mind could not previously discern....

He finally understands.

Affliction floods the inner chambers of his conscience like a broken dam,

Eager to conceal devastating water.

Uncle Dave never existed.

He was simply a spiritual guide inside the mind that differentiates right and wrong.

Important diminutive details were omitted by his outermost arrogance,

And he failed to perceive what inwardly he already knew.

He now sees and wishes he could break free.

But he is enclosed by the compact walls of his prison cell.

POETRY: LOVE by Reggie Drake

The cornerstone of human nature.

The epitome of euphoria.

Too vivid and profound to characterize this prodigious emotion,

Yet the meaning is minimized by redundant utterances proclaiming this sacred affection.

Represented by hallmark cards expressing intimacy with the symbolic and depreciated heart.

It is abused and abandoned when forlorn lover delve into a carton of ice cream,

Unable to bear the silent "rip" of their torn heart sinking to the floor.

It is seen in the faces of adolescent youth and seasoned seniors,

Engaged in trivial conversation about the happenings of the world.

It booms bold when hands hold,

Forming a silent tryst amidst the boisterous banter,

Of old familiars rejoicing in reunion.

Present, yet intangible,

Existing eternally since the foundation of the world.

Pen and pad cannot hope to etch a silhouette of frame of mind in its prime,

A simple word yet so hard to define.

The apotheosis of human emotion,

And the entity that unites and touches lives.

The lifesaver of human fallibility and weakness.

The Great Equalizer.