By: Jessica Goebel

Icarus

You were trapped in darkness,
And I tried to bring the sun to you.
But I became the sun to you,
And you to me. Yet I didn’t see.
I wish I could forget the things you said to me,
Exquisite darts that arced across the void
To pierce my heart.
I watched you make your wings of wax and quill,
And bent to warm you sooner, save you from the chill
Of loneliness and death that gripped your heart.
Yet maybe it was you were saving me.
Which of us was more surprised
By our discoveries? I couldn’t see.
Your only thought was of my warmth,
Mine only of how weary you must be.
I melted you; you melted me.
I saw too late you’d come too close,
Your wings disintegrate and my heart break,
The green and gold surprise in both our eyes –
And you were snatched away.
And there was nothing, nothing I could do.
I wish I could forget the things you said, and I to you.
Good intentions blinded me. I couldn’t see.
Did the sun shed tears for Icarus so long ago?
I do not know –
She weeps for him today.

Fold

Slight of hand, or slight of heart
The lies we tell the subtle shifting
See what you want me to see
The king of hearts, the woman
Sawn in two
What’d I ever do to you
I saw your arrogance and raised you mine
I called, I called but it was nothing
But a bluff. You held the cards,
You knew my tells and yet I fell,
I knew your hand and still
I called.
 

Summer

Sweet warm whiskey kiss,
Cool clink of ice. “It’s straight,” he says,
Accustomed to finer, fragile things who need
Life diluted for their tastes.

July heat lingers
On sun-kissed skin, in searching eyes –
Eyes surprised by unexpected beauty
And reckless abandon.

Silver moonglow veils us.
Summer night’s soft breath, sweet caress,
Cool pearls of dew – sedating underneath a
Diamond-studded canopy.

Final Reverie

Gently wash the waves of time
Against the shores of my little life.
Treasures they leave, and treasures take,
And melodies murmur for memory’s sake.

Gently came the waves of time,
Bringing you to the shores of my little life.
A treasure you were, but now you’re gone,
And still the waves murmur their mystical song.

Gently wash the waves of time,
And I fade from your heart like a whispered sigh.
But I wonder if you still remember me,
In the mythical song of the murmuring sea.
 

November

The golden and the garnet leaf
Bejewel the slender, stately tree,
And flutter in the autumn breeze
Beneath the azure canopy.

And they, like perfect precious dreams,
Grow brighter, richer in the gleams
Of autumn’s priceless panoply
Of curious, uncertain things.

And then, like dreams, each gilded leaf
Is nipped by frost and silver teeth,
Til when, in bittersweet release,
It gently falls on nature’s knees.

Then autumn’s days more quickly speed,
While deeper falls its cloak of leaves,
And softly falls each precious dream
Til cold and naked stands the tree.

Then cold and stronger blows the breeze
That scatters every withered leaf.
And cold and barren stands the tree
Awaiting what may be in spring.