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S.S. Rose

  • Autumnal Night

    Cloudy veil recoils the night The fiery stars with gold alight A moon antiquity could not tarnish Bold and lustrous orange above Lisping, aging, mourning leaves Congregate ‘round our patient ...

    1 min read
  • Eventide

    On a lonesome night, Wintry, crisp, remote; Tumbled notes of faith From an inky cloak. As the frost-buds dropped On the slumb'ring loam, All the stars were hidden In their ...

    1 min read
  • Ill

    Water like a drop of fireHot and bright and keen like fireFloating down and scorching snowLooking down, can’t let this goPain skin-deep and ache withinDrowning in this sullied sin Cuts ...

    1 min read
  • Father

    He sees her guilt:The crease of crinkled wretched eyesThe wet folding palms like drowning liliesFetid past clutched in a choking throatHe sees the tears:Unwanted guests with lambent tailsIncessant ins

    1 min read
  • Winter is a Live Mind

    Hello there...please rip this one up. It needs it desperately. S.S. RoseWinter is a Live MindChurch-bells ring thoughtlessly:A menial dirge for a useless poet, A gray prayer to the slate-eyed ...

    1 min read
  • To the Fiend

    Were you with me, fiend, A part of the crimson staining blood,The stiff wrists and sharp cold ache – Like ice pressed against the flesh? Were you staring through the ...

    1 min read
  • Sixteen Winters

    The days reflectLike yellow light against the soul Colored glass shattered into weeks And scattered winters – Sixteen of them littering the lawn Prismatic hope breaks Into shafts of cold, ...

    1 min read
  • The Memory

    Antiquated memory-lights glowThrough faded paper leavesAs retrospect clouds thought and breath,And Time syncopates the heart’s beat.A summer-spiced sunFalls in white drops of rainThrough burnished t

    1 min read
  • My Flotsam Love, Part I

    Be still, heart of taken, pulsing sin – No more do tears of blood atone. That dreary toast! as hellish haunts do Raise to sneering lips their cups of fire,So ...

    1 min read
  • My Flotsam Love, Part II

    Sudden stillborn time erupts in snapdragon flame:A sun-spate summer. Onionskin eyes wide to a sky of kissing blue,Of June berries and rain-sick wind.Your eyes of coffee grounds Breathe a world ...

    1 min read
  • Agápe

    Hello Everyone!Just a quick note: I'm still iffy about the title - I'm debating between Éros, which means "sensual love", because that certainly is part of this poem, and Agápe, ...

    1 min read
  • Luna

    “Luna”Moon-painted water –A million tides of black evening silkSpeckled with salty white and moaning withThe deepest of bluesI am upon the edge, or rather I am the brinkThe hair’s breadth, ...

    1 min read
  • Sylvia

    I never wear lipstick, So when I do it’s like I bitInto a pomegranate Or a neck full of bloodGod knows you’re heavy –You’re the reason I quitBut still and ...

    1 min read
  • May

    I can hear in you the hum of electric lights –papery-wasted skin,hair, a chemical crimson waste of color.The hue of whorish lips, a monstrous, bloody smile.I feel in you something ...

    1 min read
  • Via Dolorosa

    Spoiler! : Greetings, clever friends -- do please tell me what you think of this. I'm not sure if I like it or not, I find it rather melodramatic in ...

    2 min read
  • Wooing in the Desert

    "Wooing in the Desert"I: GomerPainted like a fool, I amwhiter than lilies in your arms,though not near as sweet -- for lipstick isnot like cherries and beneath it my mouthis ...

    4 min read
  • (some months later)

    Anger settles quietlysifted like flour thoughcareful pleasantries,kitchen-counter talk and hidden need.We thought we were compatible, or so we were told,and now we are too simple to know the means to ...

    1 min read
  • eighteen

    Spoiler! : Umm so the last two poems I've posted are spur-of-the-moment and need TONS of revising. For that I need your help, YWSers. Thanks a bunch! I sip tea ...

    1 min read
  • Rylee at the Well

    A mumbled toast stammered out on wine-breath as we meet at the well -- Rylee's hands, shaking from the dark merlot.Hand in hand, that holy kiss,a sacred incantation redeeming the ...

    1 min read
  • Lyric to Ashes

    There is something to be said for the sight of dazzling fire, a brazen iris adorning the senseless waves. The heart I loved belonged to the sea -- in death ...

    1 min read
  • love theory

    We lingered in the lamp-lit backseat. I esteemed myself his bohemian mistress of lust and possibility, made him promise me more room, my swaying homage smothered by those scant inches ...

    1 min read
  • Veins

    A morphinewind weakens prohibition, (Your kiss black as moonshine, your touch a lick of flame) A hot finger down my spine – the shivering, seductive needle at my wrist. Mary, ...

    2 min read


People say I love you all the time - when they say, ‘take an umbrella, it’s raining,’ or ‘hurry back,’ or even ‘watch out, you’ll break your neck.’ There are hundreds of ways of wording it - you just have to listen for it, my dear.
— John Patrick, The Curious Savage