August 21, 2011 by thegnosticpoet.

He looked like Castro with a lesser beard
And younger by a bit, as I then thought.
Perhaps he’d spot the tyrant twenty years,
But the nose, cheeks, and eyes the photos brought
Across the Strait of Florida, he shared.
He must be far older than I, with wife
And full-grown sons across the table there.
Undoubtedly he led a different life.
I looked again and saw his gray matched mine,
And estimated once again his age.
Around his eyes I saw no trace of lines:
Late forties say? My thoughts were not assuaged.
Here was a man much older than my mind,
And if he looked at me, what did he find?

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October 23, 2010 by thegnosticpoet.

The night was cold and damp with clouds upon
The face of Selene, dimming radiance,
Encouraging dark deeds and wicked fun,
With murders and mayhem and games of chance.
Over again they churned there in my mind:
The thoughts, the memories, the imaginings.
My hands in Abel’s blood, I could not find
A way to cleanse the stain or salve the stings.
Would morning ever come? “Look to the east!”
I hearkened to the voice and turned around
Away from my thoughts, away from that beast.
In the east of my mind a quiet sound,
A small light shone, dimmed and filtered by thought,
’Til I made my way to what God had wrought.

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July 7, 2008 by thegnosticpoet.

If you saw my love, she is not the sun.
Her hair and eyes are dark as outer space,
although there is a twinkling bit of fun
that shows like stars within her eyes’ embrace.
And yet, she is not glory that hurts the eyes,
nor is she heat to dry the skin and parch
the tongue. She shall not coax a plant to rise
and grow into a wizened tree, a larch?
An oak? A yew, perhaps? But, no, not she
to be the center of a solar system,
giving life to all and boiling the sea
in time. She is a gentler light that limns
the edges of my clouds and shows the way
in life’s darkest nights and stormiest days.

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