icon

a halo of blood
frames her head
her outstretched hands
clutching roses -
their red petals hemorrhaging
at her sandaled feet-
black husks- withered
to be swept away
with unanswered prayers
and offerings
of burnt out votive candles
to empty benedictions

the danger in reading
words in darkness alone

succumbing to social media
voices constant texting
labeling you,
believing
- multi windowed messages
in your darkened room
door locked -
safe -
alone -
no one aware

they will all
profess disbelief
you showed no outward signs
just a lingering love
of dead poets
and their dead words.

portrait

polluted
the serpentine river
coils its path
kissing the mold covered rocks
weathered and torn
by night's wicked waves

gulls gibber mournful
a garbaged sigh
beneath the arch of whispering lies
where words of love intently die

established patterns
etched in lace
brown and rotted
hung in rooms, lighted
by TV sets
shining the cruel light
that man cannot live by
while practicing joy
of hair oil and grease
between the late movie
that offers no peace
and stale crumpled linen
of his unmade bed
where day break shall find him
still lonely
still dead.

---

Joseph A Farina is a retired lawyer in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. An internationaly award winning poet. Several of his poems have been published in  Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine,The Wild Word,The Chamber Magazine, Lothlorian Poetry Journal,Ascent ,Subterranean  Blue  and in   The Tower Poetry Magazine, Inscribed, The Windsor Review, Boxcar Poetry Revue , and appears in many anthologies including:  Sweet Lemons: Writings with a Sicilian Accent,  Canadian Italians at Table,  Witness  from Serengeti Press and Tamaracks: Canadian Poetry for the 21st Century . He has had poems published in the U.S. magazines   Mobius, Pyramid Arts, Arabesques, Fiele-Festa, and Philedelphia Poets . He has had two books of poetry published— The Cancer Chronicles   and   The Ghosts of Water Street .

---

While you’re here, why not check out our submission guidelines and our bookshop?