Aphrodite

Your hair was the quiet fortress of dawn
Its shadow caught by the sun’s rays,
Held in scarlet rivulets which glistened
Blood-red against the slumbering sky.

Our abode was the hushed wind
Whispering its message across the trees
The dreary goodbye of coffee shops and midnight dream hovels.

The day Athena left you, there was only Aphrodite
Lost in her sea, Birthed of seashell bliss.
Our nocturnal reflections kissed
And flew over the twilight mountains.

Slowly we beheld the august apparitions
Beneath disappearing, autumnal rains,
The unconscious desire for summer’s warmth
Burning in the secluded magnetism of your gaze.

Ode to the Moon

On these sempiternal shores,
your reflection coasts across tidal waters
forming precarious mosaics,
fragile rays
mingle and dance.

Longingly, I search your face
for the one that you keep hidden
roaming, anxious fugitive
concealed in the dark.

The shadow that adorns you,
not perfect, nor virginally white
punctures the twilight
and coat of gloom
inseparable from your beauty.

Seasoned by seclusion
and nights of waiting
your weary forehead leans forward
kissed by the dawn.

My Tigress

My Tigress
by Julien Kareem Stricher

My Tigress,
You dream
Of Leopard stripes,
Fiery tongue
And neck of ice.

My aching fingers,
Through your burning mane
I run,

Your fierce song
Haunts
My restless nights.

Your ferocious game
Of tooth and claw,
Lingers over the fading verdure

Of the fields we ran
Hand in hand,
Our souls together.

Into the somnolent forest
I gaze,
Searching for
Your mournful eyes

From which I kiss
Away the grief
Of your primal longing
And early flight.

The House of Dusk

I returned to the place
Where I carved your name
In the husk of eternity,
And buried the last song
Of my longing
Beneath drowning sands.

It sank tenderly
With a mournful breath,
The lusty waves
Overtook my burnt letters.

Final engraving
Of my lost pearl,
You were the prize
Of the fisherman’s pride.

Setting sun, slowly dying
Your ultimate sigh
Was a blood-red victory,
And your cruel lips
The burial ground
Of my kisses.

Beneath the water Hope sank
Her head, fiercely stubborn
Serenaded by the foam.

She left us slowly
Drinking her humiliation,
Adorned with a necklace
Of broken seashells
That whispered our fallen dream.

As I watched her go,
She traced the shoreline
Of fainted doves,
Alone in her innocence.

The last rays of light
Hurried to their cemetery of stars
As sinister seagulls followed
To feast on the tainted crumbs
Of Lady Nocturne,
Bearing your memory
To the House of Dusk.

A Song in Scarlet

A Song in Scarlet
by Julien Kareem Stricher

Inescapable melody
You are the guiding note
Through my oppressive nights.

Delectable symphony
I skirt your verdant fields

Encompassing
Your stubborn mountains

Travelling across
The lush valley
Of our dying dreams.

Your song is Scarlet
And your lips
The bitter rose
Of my tongue of ice.

Fruits of the nascent earth
I relish
On your sumptuous skin
Where I bury our memories.

An ancient sigh escapes
From the petals of your mouth

Gently closing
For the last time.

A whispered farewell
A song in Scarlet.