Socks On (One Night Stand Sonnet)

Ever gone out in public with a hoody and sunglasses in a frantic effort to conceal your identity because of fear of bumping into that one person you never ever want to see again? - the person you had a one night stand with? (hey, we've all been there..) Here is a short sonnet to relay the amusing, but painfully heart-wrenching moment when you see them again, and again and again...

 This may or may not have been taken from personal experience... All I can tell you is this: Sod's Law is real. REAL I tell you!

Walking to the shop to buy some bread,
Aimlessly I browse for something else -
Then I catch your eye, wishing I am dead.
A spectre from the past, echoing my movements through the shelves,
Adamantly shrugs through my broken soul.
I cannot breathe, your gaze so sour and sweet,
Wide and wild eyed, like a demon doe.
All I can do is ignore you and tweet:
'It's the third time today - for surely I'm cursed!'
- The cellophane bag slips from my wet palm -
My voice of Regret thinks this choice to have been worst,
Foolishly thinking: 'it's just one night, what's the harm?'
But Oh! how I could not have been more wrong -
For who knew what horrors could occur with socks on!

Copyright © JRFB 2014

Hope

She would awake every morn

Eyes flashing bright as golden corn,

Hearts pulsing; blood freezing;

Breathing accelerates -

When he passes by:

The One whose skin

Glistens as his smile brightens the Earth,

When darkness slowly pines away

As spells of sun step slowly out

Leaving behind trails of Hope.

The One whose eyes bring life

To starry seeds under pure pools of light.

His soul chases away the night,

And every head turns to see

His exquisite beauty.

Inhaling the sweet scent of youthful love

Reaching for those fine feathery limbs,

Hoping that he might notice her bright face from above

As he passes by.

Light fades - Evening comes -

Still his distant light fails to reach her.

Sorrow fills her heart-stems,

Choking her racing soul.

The light passes her by,

Leaving her barren - her heart left to crack -

Her slender, pale body bends in the blowing breezes

Beating her thin green dress.

Her eyes, now charred, crazed, bleached-black

(From the Sun's hateful glare)

No longer keenly watch her love's movement:

East       to      West -

And the once golden-jasper strands of hair

Which flowed loyally in the fresh air

Now hang limp, rigid, frayed,

Like a knotted noose

Over her slumping shoulders.

Her roots unravel - the green veil falls -

Over her boney stalk – petals with red-tinged tears -

As the Sunflower's journey ends

As the Sun makes his final bed.

(This poem was inspired by Blake's poem 'Ah! Sunflower'.)

Copyright © JRFB 2013

Free - Love - Lost -

The words are relentless.
Facts devastate the Mourning's crop of New Love
Free - Love - Lost -
In different worlds you would be mine
Our hearts entwined together in time
And I would cherish your exquisite light
And I would kiss your violet rays
And hold you tight
And I would touch your inner soul
And raise your heart to the highest point -

I will love you everyday
Absorb your soul in every way

I will keep you mine in love
Like the tawny lioness holds her cubs
So you will remain to me -
A secret love, only for me to see




Copyright © JRFB 2013

Missing

My heart is chafing, shaking with
      blood
tinged by ardent desires;
My soul is crying for your touch as you briskly
Part from me -

Two Souls,  two incomplete
fragments can
Never
Splice - together -
The fusion is irrepable
despite the grinding of my bones;
the melting of my heart -

(we will never weld together)

Gold and grey are clashing titans;
The Sea and Sky are forever apart.

Looking down, my glisting brown eyes
feel your light, feel your life

Beaming, teasing, being
in My world of shaded hearts:

    but I will never reach you.

The plunge is deep -






Copyright © JRFB 2013

Loving Through Lies

"What use is there in saying 'I love you' when almost instantly preceding this I think,      'I despise you. Burn'?

For you and I, there is no distinction. Whatever is conjured within my torn soul - shredded by your malice - punctures my enflamed heart, now swollen from your toxins. It is no use resisting, for you return, uninvited - a phantasm gently reaching for my spine, splicing my soul from within.

Freezing fires kill me; revive me; hold me.
Screaming with echoes of euphoric horror as I 
watch your scythe draw near.

My lungs, drowning in your cruelty, draw no air,
My breath evaporates - my blood dies - 
Eyes remain - petrified, molten:

'I mean no harm, I have come to love you'.

Every    
             word    
                           scolds      
each twisted hair on my corpse
scratching deep into my soul.

Air abandons me;
- I do not blame you -
now the fires steam as they
die
All that remains is my broken soul
                                                        - it reeks of death
scathed, black, putrid 

                                     by your simple touch -



Let me out. Don't come back to me, you keep me from my dreams. I do not want you; Love does not want you.

 But love cannot simply be brushed onto empty pages".








Copyright © JRFB 2012 

The Storm

Your words unspoken have drained
me - soaked me
with remorse and hatred of
those things left to melt away;
fade; drip; through a meaningless
pool of regret.

Seeing into your soul so clearly -a tumultuous river
relentlessly blaming its watery veins - striving to be understood -
appreciated - loved -

My heart quakes. My petrified soul allegedly withstood the pain;
now
the sharp pangs of Chaos pulsate through my mind
torn, ripping,
extracting
every detail - into the maelstrom unleashed.

Distress is my companion -
Anarchy, my aid -

You, however remain
a dull cave
                   of guilt:
Strangely, the artery proceeding

my dying    soul is here; etched,  carved in
lies
within You, my Saviour.



Copyright © JRFB 2012

Fever

you are an illness
just as I get better - at pretending I don't
care - you make me - love - sick again





Copyright © JRFB 2013

The Minons

While TV's blare ~ mindnumbing

While the students study ~ boring

While the second hand emigrates back to 12 ~ tick

tick.

While the night moves on ~ slowly

*

The Minons glide past – carefree -

Their purple cloaks shift and quiver as the night unravels,

Yet the air is still.

*

While the cold night shivers in echoes of the last night

and the night before...

The Minons go to where we are not, do not know, and never

shall be.

For the Minons, their flight has just begun.

hearts screaming; minds pulsing; eyes fixed:

They know all that is Unknown to us.

*

Beyond the superficial cosmic din that we call space

Beyond the immortals

Beyond Mars, Neptune and Jupiter -

Lies the People of Minacia.

*

There, the fruit grows bigger – fuller - juicier.

and the corn.

and Their minds.

*

While late night programs seem to be entertaining...

At Minacia, such a thought is trivial. Foolish. Unthinkable.

It is beyond enlightenment.

Beyond life

Beyond love -

Ropes of tires and

Strings of fires.

*

The Minons compel us to cease

like a downhill rally, We must

decline.

To us, colour is merely colour -

but at Minacia, colour is not seen, nor heard...

It is felt; they thrive off sensations.

Love – is - simple, shapeless -

like a cold shadow under the afternoon's sun.

*

The Minons marry the day and disturb the night.

The Minons seduce the day.

The Minons rape the night

- tearing at the still air - groping

the darkness till it

bleeds and grows yet

darker. They inhale the stench of self-pity; smothering

Their lungs, as the essence trickles into Their soul.

*

*

*

They are indelible, infallible, perpetual.

*

*

I would know.

*

*

Because they came for me.

While Life's disruptions blared

While heaven's fires blazed,

They came.

-Jaguar **Disclaimer: 'The Minons' are imaginary beings who shun humanity and believe that their own way of existence is a far more substantial way of living**

Copyright © JRFB 2012

The Chill

Good Gentleman, Good Lady, oh I wish that you could see – 

There’s sincere truth that comes with Civility, 

A certain charm lies in my heart 

Begging for yours to stay 

Until tomorrow, for just another day. 

Having parched my heart with burning scorn 

Drier still like the Sahel, the Corn 

Of my love cannot flourish, 

In an Empty garden – fruitless 

Are my efforts – unless collaborated with your prowess 

For your secret utterance so sweet 

Yet Devious, fell from the ivy tree 

Strangling your ability 

To love a soul (minus your own) 

Hearing the magnitude of the fall - 

For Hours I perched, alone; afraid

For your echoing Voice haunts me, above my grave

Slipping               out            and              in

Those weak and crumbling shelves of terror

Heavily Stowed away  – my mind is a Mirror

Crushed, shattered, splintered, broken –

Nothing can fill space left -  the words unspoken

Misery ubiquitous, hopelessness lost

The Frosty whispers chill

Our Flame, hardened, brittle – still.

Copyright © JRFB 2012

You Can Never Be Mine

As you clasp my Heart it crumbles into

Nothing.

When I breathe in your beauty -

It chokes me inside;

Every time I leave you

it's like half of my Life has gone,

the flames of existence brutally diminished -

Ghosts of sorrow remain -

But I know I'll only hurt you.

Seeing what I have done to you

Breaks my Heart;

it was never my intention to see you

Fall -

Hearing the very words I dreaded; ones I made you speak

engulfs my parched Soul with seething ruin.

But eventually, I wish to be

Free

         of the horrifying Truth.

I know now that things may never be the same:

every time I see your Face

the wounds in my Heart sting

and your own Heart - splintered -

With my own Selfishness.

                      Self-forgiveness for how I've made you feel is

Unthinkable.

I would choose you over my own Dead body

Always - Love leads to ruin,

Friendship leads to yet more pain.

Because of Me, it now hurts us both

to look at one another.

Because of Me, our whole lives may be shattered

and rebuilt with missing and ill-fitting fragments. 

Because of Me, this agonizing cycle of love

            Will never end - 


Copyright © JRFB 2011

I heard a Fly buzz - when I died (video): by Emily Dickinson

I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -

The Stillness in the Room

Was like the Stillness in the Air -

Between the Heaves of Storm -

The Eyes around - had wrung them dry -

And Breaths were gathering firm

For that last Onset - when the King

Be witnessed - in the Room -

I willed my Keepsakes - Signed away

What portion of me be

Assignable - and then it was

There interposed a Fly -

With Blue - uncertain - stumbling Buzz -

Between the light - and me -

And then the Windows failed - and then

I could not see to see

By Emily Dickinson