Partial Joys

My days are far from empty when you're gone;
I do not linger in an endless void,
Nor am I drawn out, sickly, pale, or wan.
But even on those days when I am joyed
There is an absent center to that joy
Which joins itself unto each moment's bliss
And makes of it a fragile, weak alloy
Not bad, but far less purely pleasant. This
Is your departure - thinking how much more
I would be happy if my joy were shared,
And how it was when we were one before.
So is my wheat of happiness part-tared,
My joy though joy still lessened. You aren't here
And so all happiness is partly queer.

Teal'c

I have heard many say to me before
"I can save these people. Help me," but
None that I believed could win the war
Against the foe I bear within my gut.
Yet once I heard the man whom I believed
I gave him succor and I joined his band;
I left my home and family, and I grieved
But never crossed my duty's stern command
To free my people from their false gods, whom
I knew to be but vile foreign creatures
Raised by technology, not by the doom
Of fate. And so across my oft-impassive features
I let a smile pass now and again
To think of how my life has changed since then.

Guitar

The frequency with which I talk to you
Is pleasure in itself; were it decreased
Or, God forbid, should I find it had ceased
I do not rightly know what I would do.
I might cajole or flatter, beg and sue
To see our commerce once again increased,
But that requires chances to at least
Mention my insistent need, and to
Hear what you might think of it. So I
Cannot be sure what I would do if we
Were, as I'll say I hope we'll never be,
Out of touch. I might as well just cry
For all that I can think to do. And yet
I don't think this is something I should fret.

Joys

It's wonderful to know how much you care;
To see the way you look at me and smile;
To glimpse your face, and know that, under there
There is a love makes everything worthwhile.
How can I choose but joy in your delight
And search for comfort in your times of need?
How can I not long for you every night
Writing these sonnets that I know you read
To tell you how much I reciprocate
All of the love that I receive from you,
In quantities to great to calculate
And quality beyond accounting, too.
I love you past the point I can express
Nor do I wish to ever love you less.

Confiding

I think there's something that you ought to know,
Or that at least I ought to say to you;
I doubt that it is really something new.
But every time I do not speak, I go
Away dissatisfied, and feeling low.
So I'll feel better if I simply do
Tell this to you, because it's very true,
And so it's best to let it clearly show:
I love you very much, and I desire
That everything you want should be achieved;
I love you past what I would have believed
Before it happened, like a wildfire
That burns out everything that's in its path
Except with love and softness, and no wrath.

R4TG

Explore to find out what is in the deck
Either aggressively or greedily;
Develop to improve your empire's tech;
Settle to expand citizenry;
Trade to garner more for what you grow;
Consume to use your products for yourself;
Produce to reap the seedlings that you sow
And take your canned goods down off of the shelf.
In all of this, you either gain VP
By building up and making synergy
With great developments, or simply size
Which can itself provide the greater prize,
Or build a VP chip machine and then
Turn the crank and turn the crank again.

Altered States

When was I social? How did this begin?
Where is the awkward teenager I was
Full of, if anything, such uhms and uhs
That conversation with him might have been
A surefire damnable and mortal sin
For all that people did it. Memory does
Play tricks, but even so, (I know because
I lived it) he still gave an awkward spin
To all he did, and though he still had friends
And good close ones, they were a rarity,
Not necessarily from charity,
But certainly those isolation sends
Each to the other. Now, what has become
Of me, and where'd this social life come from?

Seasonality

Why do seasons always feel so long?
We long for summer when the winter's cold
Rattles our teeth in unharmonious song,
But when the summer's humid waves unfold
Onto our skins, we wish again for ice,
And claim we hardly mind the freezing blasts
That tickle us in winter. They felt nice,
We say, and weep that endless summer lasts
As if it meant to boil us away.
Spring and fall, by contrast, do not linger,
But seem to hide, and let the others play,
So that the tip of winter's freezing finger
Touches the back of summer in mid-May
And in October, it's the other way.

Reproduction

Whatever I might try to write will fail
For all that I can say's already said
In one gigantic half-ecstatic wail
Which you, I must suspect, already read.
So why will I continue to persever
In writing what I know you know too well?
Why am I so obsessed with this endeavor
To put us both through such repeated hell?
I cannot cease because I cannot stay
The well of my emotion which upswells
And therefore I'm compelled to say and say
No matter if there's meaning in my tells.
So listen once again to this tale of
The way I feel, and how I miss and love.

Why or Wherefore

My inner monologue addresses you
And has for longer than I care to say;
I yearn for you whenever you're away,
And linger when our time together's through.
There's nothing I would ever rather do
Than spend an afternoon out of the way
Clinging to you, and letting slip the day
Until the morning wetted us with dew.
So why should I be sad? Although you go,
You're still here in my heart, and so you'll be
Until the sun sinks down into the sea
Not for the night, or for apparent show,
But in some alternate reality
And so extinguishes its lively glow.