Rik George writes

Flesh and Conceits

Elizabethan poets wrote their rhymes
to catalog their women’s charms
in strained conceits, or else the times
produced strange women, wigged with wire,
with jeweled lips and ivoried arms,
cold robots to set a man afire.
I prefer your flesh to take to bed
in all its humanity. Warm skin
beats ivory; jeweled kisses wear
the lips away. I like your head
with hair, not wires. Crescendoing
to spill my seed in your warm place
I glory in your hips’ wild swing
and the rush of blood that flushes your face.

  -- Sorayama Hajime

Rik George writes

El Amor Pasa


Some rite should mark the death of love,
some moment lovers declare love dead,
with ceremony, then take their leave
of one another with ritual graces.
There should be words the parsons read
with solemn sorrow on their faces
in chapels filled with candle light.
We’ll have to stumble as best we can
through awkward meetings in public places.
We have no comforting parting rite.
Love died between us, I don’t know when.
Your love for me was first to go,
then, some time, mine for you was gone;
no ritual marked the when and how.

["El  amor pasa" is literally "love passes" in Spanish, but the phrase means "love happens."] 

 La muerte del amor [The death of love] -- Arantzazu  Martinez