CHALLENGER’S DEEP

The boy enters the bathyscaphe that bobs along the beach.

He longs to try to hide away where moonbeams never reach.

The bite still throbs, the heart still boils, sick with lycanthropy,

But we know there's no werewolves at the bottom of the sea.

The space is tight, the quiet heavy, the steel sharp on skin,

The air is hot with panting breaths as the darkness sets in.

A life of seasick solitude is a small price to pay

To keep the beast inside of him away another day.

There are no days, or nights, or months when black is all you see,

So he sits in submerged silence for all eternity.

But soon enough, the moon appears, full and bright and strong.

Not even lonely wolves can avoid her gaze for long.

No light can pierce the dark abyss but still the body knows.

No one is around to hear the screams as the werewolf grows.

Later the empty bathyscaphe would wash up in the tide,

The steel shredded sharply by a man trying to hide

But the depths are no salvation from the monster inside.

- Nov. 27, 2022

NARCISSUS (US)

Lover, when I speak my words are yours.

(Lover, when I speak my words are yours.)

The soft curve of your lip, I drink

your kiss but come away empty. Is love

so spurned?

You are a timid thing,

hiding from the raindrops. My hair is a curtain,

separating us from the world, an

undisturbed oasis. I will protect you.

I will endure the cold beat of

rain if it means I can gaze into your watery eye

forever, a jewel just out of reach.

I will grow roots.

My spine will curve, a stem reaching

toward its sustenance, my head bowed

in worship of my lifegiving sun.

I could sit here until the end of days for staying is knowing you will never leave.

(I could sit here until the end of days for staying is knowing you will never leave.)

This riverbank an overlook (Look) into my portrait of desire,

the clouds up (up,) above your head

swirl in the breeze, your image splits (it's) apart.

Stormy (me,) lover,

you're (your) fleeting, but still I skim the

mirror surface, trying to hold the echo (Echo.)

of myself, my only.

- Nov. 29, 2022