BEFORE THE FIRING SQUAD
If this was the end: The moments Before the firing squad Did their duty And I was granted A final request If would be to run my fingers Through your hair As I kissed your lips And then Put my lips to your ear – No words needing to be spoken As I kissed you, As you put your fingers To my incarcerated cheek That would soon Gain the final freedom Granted By the bullets Of the incarcerator.
FACE TO FACE
Lying face to face With her breath In my breath And our smiles Crooked as Old World kings, I put two fingers In her mysterious hair And then the air Around us is frozen. Our forever eyes looking Into the other’s. The fragrance of flowers crushed Beneath us. Night after night, This is where we lie In a crypt overcome With ashes and the lava Of a volcano forming Since the rise of the dinosaurs. Immobile in our twisted love-pose, This is where we lie In my mind’s eye that is The eternity of my sleeping dreams.
PASSION STILLS ALL TEMPERATE THOUGHT
Passion stills all temperate thoughts. Contemplative thoughts cannot quiet or conquer passion Or give reverence to sanity and caution When I feel her fingers All along the hair that waits for her On either side of my face. “How is it there are so often differences Between what’s good and what’s right?” I think about that as her teeth touch my ear While thousands of clenched fists Pound on the trembling windowpanes, The rain coming in underneath them More and more.
John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many disparate literary journals since 2009. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.
Flight of the dragonfly 