SOUTHERN SUNS

Blood on bandage
Skin stretched so straight
When it should bend.

Stitches on gash
Wanting to break,
But held so hard.

Pangs of pain bring
Aches and pinpricks
Across the spine.

Then comes itches -
Like healing tricks -
But short relief.

No sleep, no rest -
Throbs of regret -
For sunlight's kiss.

Hidden for now -
Ugly reject
Of surfside days.

Old skin and eyes
For other climes,
Fired pink and green.

Drawn out and dried,
Longing for times
To blush again.

When sun shines next
I'll challenge yet,
'Til I'm at rest.

BID-OFFER SPREAD

What can you give someone
Who has already decided,
On grounds that you can never know,
That you have nothing to offer?

Like the maiden on the Grecian urn,
She will never come to you.
Her heart will never beat with yours,
And her lips will never pucker for you.

She will never sit at your feet
For she sees no semblance of a king
In her meagre picture of you -
Scrawled jagged across an ugly canvass.

Memories of you will never wander
Through dreams that stir her blistered lust.
In time she will not even recall
That you bid for her with nothing.