My hand falls to the covers; releasing my 
cell phone as it chimes a busy signal.
With new reserve she slips away
and back into her shell,
as soft light swells from down
the stairs, to hover on the walls.

"It happened years ago" she groans,
"but that's not what I meant".
I sway and give a tired glance
to defuse her chance to escalate.

Twilight’s ocher rays creep through
a dusty window to cast their defiant shadows.
 
"We're almost out you know."-
she explains with a sigh, and slips a
black hoody over her breasts.

"Well maybe it's not a stipulation"
 I offer with an unassuming gaze.
"You know what?" her voice raises,
"You try to analyze every damn thing:
when will you learn to just...".
"I have other mysteries" I start.
"well, I don't suppose any of them
were chronicled on the pages you
ripped out right before my eyes".

She fumes in silence, giving me the floor.

"What about you... what have you really shown me
except a box of Hallmarks and tiny porcelain figures?"

From the phone, the operator's
prerecorded error message interjects.
I pick it up to hit end, as the sound of
her heels trails off over hard wood.
The front door slams, and the operator
lingers in silence.
 

by Luke VanDerPol

You stretch up to the sky

to reach out for it’s light

And your dreams are lost

in the atmosphere

Like potential

Without time-

like an essence

Without life.

Though myriad changes wound

and flecks on fragile petals weather,

an emptiness can’t befall it

 if the ruined perseveres,

but the whisper of eternity is lost 

to one that's waiting for the end.

by Luke VanDerPol
 
 With that ephemeral
tragic talk show stare,
to cut through your most
elaborate mask
of martyrdom,
you dissect my vivid colorscheme
as you would a photographed still-life,
to destroy all of the negatives,
As if all that we've become
was inevitable,
But you were the one
that painted us grey,
And true martyrs
don't pass the blame.

 Bleeding the Illusion---------
by Luc VanDerPol

I rose from a wasted sleep
with Neitzschean hymns still echoing
as if they'd been my lullabies

And it would seem the clouds
 that so amiably dimmed the vapid rays
Have formed a front behind my back

And bitter memories like tombstones
stand so cold and silent.
A laryngectimized living still life,
or mute caricature of a history
doomed to repeat forever.

A Harlequin Romance
 by Luc VanDerPol

We steal away into the night
and pretend that we're immortal
Breathing life into this tragedy

I'll be your Kurt like you're my Courtney
and we'll live life like it's novel
Bleeding this love so perfectly

And when we feel it's said and done
we'll step into the light to make believe
we moved the planets
and die a little closer to the sun