SOON TO BE RELEASED - STRANDED HEARTS
An Anthology of Love Poetry
Written by Gesso Cocteau
Illustrated by Pete Berg
"Now I understand
the secret of redemption,
I will never forget you.
We are forever
stranded hearts _____."
STRANDED HEARTS
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True Love
True Love “Make me immortal with a kiss.” — Christopher Marlowe There are moments as an artist when creation feels less like invention and more like revelation, as if the piece already exists in another realm and you are simply the vessel pulling it through.True Love came to me in such a way. Two forms entwined, not just in body, but in essence, suspended, weightless, eternal.I thought of the Marlowe line: “Make me immortal with a kiss.”And I understood.Some kisses are not between lipsthey are between lifetimes.I wrote this poem as an invocation of that fire. True Love (for Carl) Make me immortal,not with words,but with the wayyour hands erasethe boundary of my skin.We are already myth,two bodies forgedin the same crucible of need,the same molten breaththat shaped the stars.You lift me into youas if gravity were only a rumortold by thosewho have never touched eternity.Kiss me,and let deathfind us fused,still burning. Poetry and Image© Gesso Cocteau
The Scent of Jasmine and Ash
The Scent of Jasmine and Ash (a love remembered across lifetimes at Angkor Wat) I was not born, I was remembered. Pulled from fury. My face shaped in the breath before time, where someone once spoke my name and even the statues turned. He did not remember me, standing beneath the South Gate where gods and demons still drag time like rope through the mouth of the world. But I remembered him. I walked barefoot through the ruins of what were. The dust rose like incense around my ankles, as if the earth was trying to hold me still. He had loved me here once, called me light, called me danger, then vanished like a name washed from stone. I entered the chambers where silence lives. The walls did not speak, but they opened. A thousand faces carved in stone looked away as I stepped into the memory. There was something in his gaze, like a note from a forgotten song still echoing in the body. He didn’t know why his hands reached for mine but I did. I have carried him through centuries, his many names his many mouths all of them living in the hollow beneath my ribs. I forgave him not as mercy but as fire: a temple lit by what endures. When he turned and asked if he knew me, I said only: ‘I remember you’. I did not stay, I never do. My raven told me, “The stones have already taken you in, carving your name where no one can ever erase it.” And now, the tiger watches from the shadows as the wind moves like breath against the skin of our past. Poetry and Image© Gesso Cocteau
Flowers That Open in Moonlight
Flowers That Open in Moonlight ‘Moving between two worlds is difficult’ The crow came first. Not as a warning, but as a witness.It sat in the crook of the ash tree,older than memory, limbs broken open from storms I don’t recall.Its beak glinted like the edge of a blade a memory of forgotten steel.The moon was so bright it hurt. I turned my face but it followed. Even the leaves could not hide me.That was when I saw him, walking toward me through the dark, shadows followed him but did not let him go. He had the posture of someone who had loved me once,or meant to. His face stayed hidden. What I saw was how the earth accepted him, each step without resistance. I leave bruises where I walk. Some flowers only bloom in the moonlight. I have learned their names by listening, not asking. I did not reach for him. I have done that before. The crow lifts its wings. The tree creaks open. The moon left a mark on the air between us, and it never faded. ©Gesso Cocteau art and poetry For the flowers that bloom only in the moonlight