PHANTOMS

 

Those phantoms, thrilling fantasies of love,

And did you see them, did they not come true?

Oh how excitement spills the soul with blood

And teases the heart with certain rendezvous.

 

Forbidden things there lurking, not to be seen,

Behind the wall, and down the hall, they all,

The moment unwary, ooze their sordid deceit—

The secret darkness, silent, within us crawls.

 

Oh take the hand that sometimes trembles in fear—

Emasculated, you've capitulated

From the loneliness of too many years.

It's overrated—just infatuated.

 

Now too long you've touched the heat in my head.

The fantasy of love, it's gone.  It's dead.

 

                                                           

Barbara Benjamin

English Sonnet

BBP198