Payton Marshall

Loving Leaves

She wonders if he’ll fade, just as seasons often do
how Autumn does so wither, as spring shepherd’s anew,
Love’s vein in wrinkled leaves, I force their fall to concur
Leaves lack listen to their mean, my plea they do demur.

My tree has offspringed apples of the forbidden heart,
Their ruby harbors snake’s, allure décored in art.

Oh apple, I wish I didn’t arrest your snakely bite.
Now I live in pleasured pain of what’s never to be,
your venom has murdered my leaves to love again
now venom is all that’s left of me.

Ashamed in the delectable I savored in your taste,
Discerning melancholic, has virtue lost its grace?

The reminisced ruby, this rooted lust is lifelong,
I wish there was no black in your moralistic wrong.

Before your bite life had ease, I rue the day I did,
Every pleasure has it price, a price I once forbid.

Forbidden Apple

In Genesis there is creation,
Revelation is where it ends
The interpretation between the lines,
Is where we lack to lend.
Parables and versus, count your blessings, share your wealth,
First and foremost love God, and love your neighbor as yourself.
But somewhere I got confused
For the church produced a muse
That the Bible was being used,
To bruise and to accuse.
We judge Eve for eating that apple, but don’t we everyday?
Don’t we eat the apple in a different kind of way?
I see apples being eaten every time I watch the news
I see the apple in a drunk’s bottle, floating in his booze.
I see the apple swallowed whole in the gossip of my school,
I see it in the church members who use the Bible as a stepping-stool.
I see it in the father, who has a daughter he doesn’t remember,
I see the apple in the terrorists that forever changed September.
Eve may have ate the apple, but remember so do we,
The Bible is a reminder that God loves us unconditionally.
Interpret the golden rule for what it means to you,
Because Eve did eat the apple, but remember so do you.