Commandment

Take, then, woman and be

mouth and heart and all the world between.

Be word and song and all silence between

and stand in the line of twilight across dawn

Bend like wind and stretch like the river

keep the faith like a kitchen lamp

keep the kitchen like a castle

And above all woman be

mouth and heart

and all the world between.

Hope

Chain me up

tie me down

Take all the ropes and words and

whatever else you have.

Make a wall, a window with a lock

a door with a bolt

a castle with a tower.

Keep me shut up, shut down,

shut in away from all that out there

the out there where I could wander

where I could be lost.

Lock me up

Chain me down.

I don't want to leave you.

When the hero falls

Who sent you

who taught you the words

to say to me?

You have the face of a stranger

with blue eyes the stranger

for being behind such a tongue.

You have the face of a stranger

but the voice of a shadow

the one behind me

always whispering the half lies

after all the man who tells a half lie

has sold the bastard child of truth

sold him into darkness with weeping and gnashing of teeth

and who are you to speak with such a voice

to use such weeping against me?

Who sent you with this message

to freeze the very heart of me?

Do not give me that with your knife tone

Do not hand me the handle of that dagger.

After all it is only said that

I cannot shoot the messenger.

Tristram

To take a footstool for a kingdom

To trade honor for a kiss

I have turned my body to shield

and my sword to pillow

there is no tenderness like the blade.

To drink the blessed poison

To toast most meddling Fate

I have taken wine with another

after swallowing- with myself.

Greater than my self, my higher I,

and not myself at all-bound to another's crown

To taste joy in liquid and despair in dregs

To drink to the bottom of desire

She is all red and white

The crimson flame and the other's bride.

To be both nephew and lover.

To be dishonoured and delighted.

To be Isolt's- and no one's.

Isolt

This then is to love:

to eat the wild greens and not know hunger,

to drink the mountain stream and not want wine.

This then is to love:

to spend the day in sun and not know thirst,

to spend the night awake and not know weariness.

This then is to love:

to speak the whole day and not waste a word,

to stay silent for hours and need no song.

This then is to love:

to sit alone by the willow tree and be always two,

to stand at the river gate together and be just one.

This then is to love:

you there and I here and not a gap between.

Mark

To stand in ice- and not know cold

To wait at noon- and not know heat

To hear the harper- and not know song

to see the cathedral- and not know faith

To be in day- and not know night

To be in night- and not know sleep

To be alive- and not know death

Is to be in love- and not know love.

Kent.

You have a thing for heroes

Achilles and Hercules,

flashy swords and light feet.

You're all about short speeches

quick quips and battle cries

For Narnia, or Rome.

You like the mystery

of the mask and cape

so Captain America.

You're into tragedy

the great sacrifice, the bait

the battle of Thermopylae.

So what about the

milk-skinned, mild-mannered man

the alter ego without the alter

(but also not the ego)

Because I'm dying here

with nothing quick to say,

no game to play

and no mask to save the day...

just me.

I have a thing for heroines.