my incessant tom-tom

my lovers lips liberate my loose-leafed philosophy on life
Her skin is as
white as milk is as
supple as virgin soil
in a raped country.

These verbal pyrotechnics, these
paranoid rumblings of rhetoric exacerbate
the view through my
heart’s
mind’s
eye.

Once I loved like a man gone mad.
Gone crazed with passion
fueled by the incessant tom-tom
of my internal jungle,
beating it’s beats to a fiery tempo,
consuming all within it’s wake.

Once I loved like the lion and the leopard.
Once I was loved like a black widow.
Once I was transformed into a man.
And more than twice I have had my heart broken

broken into one-thousand tiny ants -
slaves to the queen
and providers for the nest.
Once I loved what I held and loathed what I saw.

This jungle beast was the detriment of my existence.
This jungle beast bore the seed of my loin
and cast it upon the rocks
to show that I had no power
over her will.

This jungle beast was chaotic.
This jungle beast lives and breathes.
But this jungle beast feasts of my lust no longer.

Back into the eye
of the mind
of my heart.

I repress the memory of my adventure
and explore the mystery of your terrain.
I think of all you are
that the beast was not -
aside from that wild fire.
Yes, we lust all the same,
but lust driven by love is a stronger passion
a brighter flame
a more incessant tom-tom than that which drove my beating heart to pieces.