Hold On
The edge
of her lips:
the edge
of her world
to hold on to
for dear life
and the rim
of uncertainty
that leads upward
to a smile
or to flesh
of tongue
and language
of feral love
and the border
of uncertainty
beyond the tropic
of Capricorn
where margin
for existence
in manna and
desire turns
ripe with certainty
upon sultry
touch and the taste
of the radiant
dew of her lips.
woman love poet (part 2)
the white sunrise
with the kiss
of the moonlight
kiss
the white beach
with the kiss
of the fresh, forgiving air
beneath the wing
of the saffron finch
or the leaves
of the eucalyptus
begging me not to cry
in jealousy
or despair
kiss
the red sunset
with the fever
of the red lilyfish
kiss
me, us
with the words
of sumptuous poems,
images kissing
the imagination
of color of our desire
to read our truth
of ourselves, myself
and you
woman love poet
that you are
lasts
for-
ever.
Word.
Space. Time. Memory.
Imagination. Yes.
Blackened flowers,
burnt moments.
Distance
from this thing
that you are,
desire does not relinquish.
Scrunched eyelids
in bright October sunlight –
bright flashes, stars
in the darkness – slowed
moments always come
back to me and others
who find you flowing
in and out of these
moments of desperation
on a deserted beach,
holding onto, dancing into
the imagination
of others, turning
on this thing
we want to detect,
we want to conceive
again and again
in this thing
that you are
to rise up
from the ashes
of blackened flowers, burnt
moments, lost love.
The Color
a carnival
of my desires,
palette of skinned
truths of my being
and glossy red
like the blood
of my heart, my love
pounding in the veins
and vessels of my senses –
a fallen mourning
dove’s feather, a bubble
from your lilac-scented
bath, the hard-crusted
confection of crème brulee;
a kaleidoscope
of my desires
in the translucence
of her mirrored skin,
prism of connection,
sweet transfer to the light
of my essence,
a rainbow touched
at last.
Se Um Lírio Está Em Seu Coração
O mundo não começa
A cair e girar até
As ondas do seu cabelo castanho
Tocar seus lábios e bochecha
Com a suavidade do ar.
O ritmo das suas linhas
Canto de poesia e trazem
Uma imagem à sua mente
Dos campos da valúpia
De lírios que ondulam
E conduzem o vento
Com o balanço elegante
Dos quadris de uma mulher
Como ela caminha no passado dele
Através do jardim tropical
De seu coração, o solo rico de palavras
De amor e paixão
Do seu lírio, Carine.
The Want
Twilight
and I begin to miss you.
I have dreamed of you
in the palms of my hands;
I have dreamed of you
lashes to lashes, lips
to lips.
A small gull floats beyond
over white beach, in Zeppelin clouds
and fuchsia sky, they melt
into your eyes, your cheeks,
my fingertips. Evening and
I dream of you when we touch
the stars and planets, the stars
and planets are points
of view. Is your moon, my moon?
Calm and
the same breath and speech,
the hollow, loose mumbling.
I wake, my love collapsed
in my eyes and throat
and the ocean’s breeze lifts
my hair, another gull.
I stand
and walk the boardwalk home.
Memory serves: I dreamed your hand
in mine, the want
of my palm, the want
of my desire, the want
of my dream.
The Dead Still Air
The dead still air holds up the clouds, birds, kites
and descending orbital satellites.
The dead still air holds up
the leaves that used to sizzle in the breeze.
The earth is waiting for the sun
to click on and the moon to slide
behind Venus
then it will release the jet stream
down the
The earth is waiting for a sign: clap
of thunder or silent lovers. The dead
dry soil cakes around the roots of trees
by the dry riverbed. Gulls swoop and veer
to catch a few drops of rain. The boy
snaps a twig and sparks a fire. The boy
picks a snapdragon bud, swallows
it and breathes fire. The girl
jumps along hopscotch squares drawn
on the concrete sidewalk and melts
her shoes. The boy picks a lady’s-slipper
and gives the flower to his mother
to drink champagne with the Gypsies.
The young woman drinks Oktoberfest beer
and speaks into a cell phone
that has no memory. The girl
jumps rope and starts a tornado
that carries her to Oz. The young woman
lives as a butterfly and dreams of nothing
but not being alone in a house where nothing
happens. The boy somersaults
into winter. The girl somersaults
into a handstand and into a pool
of lemonade. The young woman somersaults
into a cartwheel and later that night
dreams of silent lovers.
Then
my arm and cupped hand in the stream
scoop water like a copper ladle
through a school of minnows,
catches one, others cascade between
my thumb and forefinger
or over the edge of my hand
back into their salvation.
Tadpoles scatter and dart
through the rippled image
of my head and eyes;
my shins itch from wet, cuffed jeans
and clinging grass;
green shallots on the opposite bank
tingle my nasal membrane; the emptiness
of my stomach aches.
A monarch butterfly
jitters past, slow motion, like a leaf
sent speeding by a gust of wind
but caught now, caught now, caught now
as the lone minnow circles
the sea of my open palm.
The Big Sleep
Before closure:
on the slope of the hill,
soft, clumps of mowed grass
pillow my head with meshed cuttings
and the fresh smell
my eyes read the dusk sky
for first winks of stars and the cusps
of the smiling crescent moon, the one who lays
snug against me, shoulder to shoulder,
does not disturb the gathering cricket song
or my mind – a night latch without a key –
a slap at a mosquito curbs the cricket chirp stream
her chest heaves steady, deep,
I know she dreams of “esta um dia
tão bonito lá fora…”
two birds on a telephone line are
identical as the last sinews of day drag
across my sky’s ceiling of cover; a wild
Canadian goose, no, a flock in a ‘V’ honks heading
south, the sound far-off along some natural map
marker, the echoing hangs
on the slipping light
a tribute, taps. Sunset.
And a first kiss of star light:
I wish I may, I wish I might, live forever.
In the Garden
In the garden of my heart
I care for all the flowers
I tend evenly.
Grace of sun
and rain feeds the tulip
seed in the same way as
the lady slipper, lily,
yellow rose. Most
flourish in my coarse hands
but one grows
toward me not
the sun inexplicably.
In the garden
of my heart insects
pollinate iris and
orchid equally.
Color, pattern, taste,
scent, shape attract me
to each plant,
yet one pleases
me more favorably.
Daisy petals in
my hand fly away
with the wind
but one flower clings
to me in the garden
of my heart.
In the garden of my heart
one flower grows
into the filament.
Autumn
The ‘where to’
is your last stop. A night’s
drive and home before sunrise.
All the road unknowns
soon will ease away into sleep,
your mind tracing white and yellow
lines through all of your thoughts.
What guides you easier
than the North Star, compass,
parents, friends? Engine
tuned, gas tank full, wheels straight;
it is the geometry of travel.
“All worry,” you say out loud, “is removed
out here on the road.” With no moon
or streetlights, your vision is limited
even with high beam headlamps: you
can only see 40 to 50 feet ahead of you
in an ellipse
that hides all angles
of vulnerability. You open
a window to stop the slip,
the nod, the drowse. The cool air
fills your nostrils and lungs,
tears your eyes and parts
your hair. You smell autumn,
fall: an old sweater
you wear once a year, kept in a cedar chest,
the fading perfume of a her sex
from a full night lying
in an apple orchard. Cores
of your appetite brown
in the dark, scattered with dried leaves
and the backs of your heads damp
and pillowed on roots and clumps
of meadow. The air is musky and prickly
with yarn, sweet
and tart as warm cider and cinnamon
and cold as a brook’s stone plucked
from coursing black water. It is the air
of cyclical death on your face,
everything seems to fall
into place within the commingling
of white and yellow lines,
have reason.
' Above Vitebsk,' Marc Chagall Illumination
My breath
cannot expand my exterior
so you attach the hose of your Think-Tank
to my mouth, block all exit holes,
smooth loose skin and turn on
the illuminating gas.
You fill me completely – fingernails
pop off – and you free my ties to the Earth.
Light-headed and giddy
I inch away from the experimental
platform and begin to see things in ways
that you do. Tops of trees are eye-level. Baby birds
smile, are fed in nests of twigs, grass, hair.
The ends of oak branches are caught in the web
of caterpillar silk and a lone Peregrine hawk clings to one
branch blinking some teary-eyed message in the wind
to me. I look down, a small pond tattoos
an open field near a dairy farm, the twin blue
silos like a pair of child’s eyes. Chimneys
of a mill town exhale soot into storm
clouds, hanging over the brick homes
and tarred roads that connect in blocks
and ovals like a massive fishing net,
ripped and frayed, restrung
and stitched. Nothing can hold
me, I drift higher
and float along a map
of rivers and lakes. Everything
is microscopic and demands my attention;
objects miles away appear to rest in my hands
when I hold them out before me. Lightning pricks
the ground like injections. Satellites glide and orbit in homage
to the stars. I trust the Man on the Moon when he winks
to me. Clouds shadow my flight, try to learn the way
to the ocean which suddenly lies before me
like a blue Easter egg
in my palms.
my love
my love has two eyes to see my smile
and my eyes reflect unconditional love.
my love has one heart to record
and exhibit the truth of my being.
my love has one soul to know
the depth and trials of my soul.
my love has two lips to kiss
me to feel the passion of my blood.
my love has one body to cry
from in pleasure or pain.
my love has two ears to hear
my pledges of fidelity and eternity.
my love has one sense of mystery
to torture me with her sensuality.
my love has one mind to create
the world in which I exist.
The Sky in
(climbing Croagh Patrick)
By the statue of St. Patrick
the old man sleeps, head back, mouth
open, swallowing the sky. Soundless.
Ewes graze or sleep in the open fields
in the beginnings of Croagh Patrick.
A crow rests in the last tree
to the summit. Soundless. You recognize
the shape of sanity against the pale
backdrop of your friend the sky:
the fullness of joy and agony
waiting for roadkill.
Do not open any letter
that will break your heart. Offer your blue
friend salt with her Blue Curaçao
margarita. A beautiful woman once said,
‘A drunk is a better lover than the poet’ –
it is why the sky drinks
and I exist.
Rivers and oceans always reflect the sky
but the sky reveals all color
in rainbows and the spiritual remains
of water in clouds. Expect nothing
from clouds, though, or crows
except to pick the remains of your existence
and your soul.
The Gaol
In the chambers
of my heart
I imprison my desire
to take part in the execution
of the moon.
It’s only crime
relates to the passage
of time and the length
to heal and how I became
a guard to the prison
of my heart,
awaiting the pardon
and release delivered by
my new love.
The Cliffs of More
The ocean wind
unleashes a torrent of tears
from my eyes
that fall beyond the edge
of the cliff
and are caught up in the currents
of the air,
up into the currents of the sky
where the clouds
possess them for their own
and many days
from now as thunder and lightning
clouds collect,
you will run outside to spin and dance
beneath darkened
skies and catch my September tears
with your tongue.
Clifden
Right now is night
and a deep black night along Clifden,
beneath a full moon: a fortune in silver
clouds and linings within blackened water.
the air speaks:
a rustle of sycamore leaves,
clanging bells from sailboats
in the harbor, a hard gust
that warns of the coming silence.
Any word from me and the small village
would float away
as the horizon does as you fall away
from it on a hillside
onto your back and meet the moon
and a zillion stars with your eyes,
and thoughts of them meaning less than
those stars right now
if you were here with me.
Edge of country: rock. Green
West meets
finds beauty here
loves dangerous beauty.
Moon pull
and tidal surges
over the edge
and onto our legs
and shoes. You
pull closer and pull
the moon’s white
blanket over us
as if we can hide
from the pull
of what brought
us here.
In
By the bridge of the seven arches
my reflection in the River Nore
showed many faces of myself
before I laid your picture
in the wake of ducks and geese and watched
your picture float away,
your eyes full of tears
for my delay in meeting
you in our secret place near the beach
where you live,
and dance in the veranda
that resembles a music box
where my heart is a key
and your lips a lock.
