Love the love that tastes of tarts and sours

 & bites the hand that feeds you

Suck nectar from the flowers to taste the beestings

See the scars to kiss the black and blue

To love the love that sets a soul to bleed

That might be hate, that might be need 

Fly the flag &  ring the bell that never goes again silent

Know the chains heavy embrace, in it be freed

Time sounds its own alarms and  day is sinking slowly

Down  the skyline, into inky starlight quiet stills

But even we,  the worn and tired  few dipping lowly

Have caressed the blade to feel the steel

Just to  live to tell the tale with wicked grins

C.Nichols 2008