Apoca-Lips

Apoca-Lips

 A young man doesn't always think with his head

There are often less admirable organs in play;

When decisions are made - those go/no go choices,

That you come to regret at the end of the day. 

I made a few bad ones in the interminably lonely

Years spent blundering up and down and everywhere.

I spent my energy in a frantic and stumbling search,

Knowing in the hard world, you were still out there.

Lips are stupid things that dull the wits and heat the brain.

Seven times I found myself fired off the wrong direction,

By gunpowder kisses, laced with hormones and fire till at last

I learned to keep them closed - for my own protection. 

Stupid me I never thought that you might not be

An ardent kisser; that you might be a creature

Of wind and fire, mind and passion more than I ever,

Bargained for, and that lips are but a single feature.

And in the end I found that passion is not the thing

I thought it was, when I was young and hormone-raged.

 I've learned a steady fire heats passion better than explosions.

And has settled in my soul; grown ever deeper as we've aged. 

(c) 2015 by Tom King

Rose Day

Rose Day

by Tom King

I plucked a flower from God's garden.

   A precious rose it's edges dew drop lined

Not because she was what I deserved

   But because my God was being kind.

And for all the years that yet may come

   Unfaded, I will hold her close to me

Kept safely sheltered in my heart for yet

   Uncounted ages of eternity.

© 10/7/2013

Across the Void, Fingertips Afire

With fingertips afire

Reaching out

Into the unknown
Time and space untrodden.

Holding hands is to love 

What making first contact 

With an alien race 

Would be to mankind. 

It is that first tenuous 

And terrifying leap 

Across the void 

That changes everything.  

Tom King

© 2013

First Love

by Tom King

I loved you first of all,

Any sad experiments I later made,

I was only looking for you..

In all that wasted time

It was you I loved.

You I ached for in the night.

Did you know, I prayed for you

When I did not know

Who you were or where you lived

Or what your name would be.

First love felt empty

Till I found you and was filled.

(c) 2011

Photo: Autumn 1974

Pine Forest Academy