Raging Rivers ...to the land where grapes are growing shaped to chalice brimming nectar and a sleepy lark is morning’s most notorious defector guiding pebbles up the river searching life’s eluding reason past the den where passing winters summer’s memories imprison, to the home past grumbling mountains dropping forests into gullies vainly aiming for the cricket whose lament the haven sullies way beyond the honey mire trapping grains of rainbow color in its endless yawning bubbles dragged by fog’s advancing trawler, to the bed of rustling foliage strewn with letter speckled petals torn from miles of raving passion which my skin with rapture nettles and as agony’s long ribbons clothe your flesh with burning slivers we will soak into tomorrow’s raging rivers... raging rivers... lover mine of rhymes unending dressing green my desert’s valley faithful words one thousand many pull the oars of my dream’s galley in my mind beyond the shivers chilly winds of north are blowing whispered words my lungs embracing where we going... where we going?...

• back to list   • back   • next

For Music Don’t undress my love, Close That top button Back... Please, Give me a few moments to swallow this mountain of saliva invading my throat... OK, Better now. Now sing to me, Please. I know you think you can’t sing, Let me be the judge of that, And the public... no, not the jury, This is not a trial This is a love story A real story A real love, Ours. May I close my eyes? Of course I want to see you Eyes are not necessarily needed for this I just want to eliminate the crack on the wall And the spider in the corner And the broken tile The curtains... yes, you may touch me, No, don’t kiss me Just sing, Please sing. Oh, sorry, did I fall asleep? Please, my love, this is no sign of insult This is sign of appreciation to what your voice does to my senses All of them, yes, also my sight. Do you know that once your voice penetrates my skin It tells me words I never knew Through senses I never owned In a body I never had till you came along and... sang to me? Do you know the words to your melody, my love? Now you can open that top button, And let me open all the rest Down to your waist Beyond it To your ankles Toes... Do you mind if I rip mine off And then let you rip off The rest of my skin Flesh Bones?... No, don’t worry about ripping my heart off You did it a long time ago, Thank you my love. Thank you for what?... you ask? For music.

• back to list   • back   • next

Love, Violently Brown flakes cram down, Grain to grain to grain The sand forms itself into myriad star shapes Beyond snow flakes imagination and monochromatic kaleidoscopic dreams and abstract brush drippings Hidden from world’s eye by the sole of your foot As it steps into the encompassing crumbling oven sinking ankle deep And underneath it worlds of art form as the sand competes with the giants of the universe in its desire to satisfy the softness of your heel, Wars rage and empires rise and fall And killer tsunamis devastate the depths of your toes’ indentations conquering for eternal scraps of second the place next to your sole’s skin and between your toes and underneath your toenails Ready to die a heroic death once your foot rises and grains slide back into the small crater resting behind And none knows of the violent death of loving sand stars as they merge back with mother dune into shapeless make-belief indifference. I see where your foot is about to thread I jump, I skid, I lie down The silicate armies grinding between my teeth and under my eyelids and into my throat Penetrating past slices of skin into the muscled kingdom of flesh Fighting ferociously for a right denied to them for the time of your next step To cushion your heel again, and your bounce again And die again in the mindless war ending with the eternal quiet of a sinking trace in the desert. You step on me, Your foot sinks between my splintering ribs And inside moments stolen from the raving mad rolling crests I feel the ravenous hunger of sand awakening in my skin and human armies of bone and muscle and marrow slaughter each other Fighting for that lonesome mad unique moment when you touch, and then you bounce, and then you are gone. You are gone. And love has left violently inerasable death In the desert, in my body, in my life. I wake up, I feel fingers tracing my lips Pulling out mountains of victorious sand from inside my mouth, From rib ends piercing spots of skin, From underneath eyelids, And as you sing me to sleep caressing my head in your lap I know that love was this once stronger than the eternity of those most eternal of desert armies. You are returned.

• back to list   • back   • next

Purity The purity of a soprano Rigoletto’s Gilda Madame Butterfly’s Cio Cio San La Traviata’s Violetta Sharp Like a perfect knife cutting through the hearing system The way a drop of molten metal Cuts through a skeleton of butter The smoothness of perfection incomparable unachievable. I feel you next to me in the big concert hall We two, alone with the divas on the stage And your shivers run in unison with the sound Going on beyond the moment of inevitable death And end And maddening human sorrow Dressed in so much artistic imaginary love. Your fingernails meet end to end as they pass through my wrist Your teeth chattering as pieces of my shoulder end in your mouth And when I look inside those pleading green suns I see The end of art and imagination And the beginning of Love. The only purity I will ever live through Without being soaked into the other side Of sanity, The purity of your love.

• back to list   • back   • next

Awaking When morning spills inside my yard It’s broken jar of honey Forgetting in one tiny shard A promise green and sunny, I cup inside my begging palm Your tender sleeping cherry And soak inside my chest the calm Of one awaking fairy. A roving bunch of early rays commits a reckless blunder And crawls beneath my eyelids’ flesh to tear my dreams asunder My moaning growl turns silly smile as fingers touch my cherry And as it springs to sudden life, he whispers... hey, there, fairy... The rooster visiting the porch Sends wake-up prayers rolling And summons east’s almighty torch To heed once more its calling, I leave my brazen back of hand Ride mountain down to willow Till gasps join rooster’s one-man band And fire hugs your pillow. Ten thousand ants beneath my skin in drunken glory lumber The hunger fed moments ago awakes from murky slumber A drizzle turns to tidal crave and rapes my sleeping willow As dams explode my belly deep and peace assails my pillow. I strain to hear the sounds unheard While morning moths keep dancing And bold beyond the swoon of bird Sun’s messengers romancing, My toe counts puddles down your back Beyond ravine’s soft dwelling Impudent drops of liquid skin My thirst and passion quelling. Your arms around my heaving chest the slowing wriggles capture As bodies slide through other lands entombed in dying rapture Against the muscle of your chest I’ll build my morrow’s dwelling The songs awaking in your heart insane desires quelling.

• back to list   • back   • next

Parting I will leave with you my thoughts. Hidden in that secret nook at the base of your skull Which your brain kept empty and clean For all of your years Till one day My thoughts changed to letters And the letters to strings of words seeding into the fertile barren lands poems, love, songs, Tiny blood rivulets irrigating the lush fields To never die. I will leave with you my touches. Lambent upon your skin Inseparable Burning your transparent hair ends into the heavenly stank of awaking lavender and dying rose and love making on back cutting pebbles, Soaked in memories of skin desires and sculpting the inimitable art of goose bumps piercing clouds of stretching shapeless freckles To never forget. I will leave with you my bodily odors. Locked in the flaring vaults of your nostrils and minuscule nerve ends, The human pheromones of clammy sweat and glistening seborrhea and sticky love purge, The inhuman pheromones of eucalyptus after-shave and mint tooth paste and freshly laundered underwear, The fading pheromones of a shared pizza bite we chewed mouth to mouth To never part. * Parting? You will leave with me nothing, lover, Except... you.

• back to list   • back   • next

It Was Never Love Hand in hand. It was never love. The hand in turning fist.       What was it? Hesitation. The dirt under fingernails? The hunger of infant, The chill of snow, Death...       Death? Why death? You did not ask about dirt, hunger, chill...       Dirt is beautiful       scraps of lover’s carnal desire imprisoned       in momentary horny cages       of lover’s insanity moment,       Hunger       at my breast turns victorious sleep       as a toothless mouth sucks life       into growing humanhood,       Chill’s embracing adytum       offers the sanctity of sanctuary       to snowflake’s ephemeral one timely       magic.       But death? Life is evitable, Death is inevitable.       And love? And love. The fist turning hand in again, So soft... Mouth in mouth. Her preferred pondering position, Pondering. Never was love. The mouth in turning teeth.       You said it already.       You just changed some words around. Words are meaningless, Meanings are wordless, Visions buried in my mind looking for venues to pass trough lips into your mind’s garden forever locked away from me to understand know fertilize sow.       Lips are not only word venues. What are lips?       Lips are soundless words       the gist of message embedded in       warmth softness bite blood shiver       Never lying once their message passes       to lips. About love? Quiet. About love! The teeth turning mouth in again, So sweet... Body in body, Past humanity, Way deep into loverity, Unchartered unknown territory Seeded with traps ferocious and treasures immeasurable and fate as undefined as lovers’ wishes define. Love is never was. The body in turning enemy.       I will tame my territory with wild flower stamens       robbed from your body’s unchartered skin paths       Snap closed the jaws of my traps with touches       snatched away from the ferocity of your fingertips       Offer you my treasures immeasurable       laced with thick drops of nectar sliding long my mouth’s side       If you tell me the punctuation to your words       and the meaning to your convolutions. I speak no more riddles Have no more words Only left with punctuation aberrations and mistakes to tell you all the things you will never know about my heart’s untellable secrets.       Untellable? Unchartered, ferocious, immeasurable.       Unchartered, ferocious, immeasurable love? Love untellable. Love is is. The enemy turning body in again. So warm...       Your mistake of words I know       accept desire wish       till I know your love       all. Till the end of words It is a long time.       Till the end of love       It is never.

• back to list   • back   • next

Night Has Fallen Evening’s fringes drop down like cobblestones pouring out from a celestial overturned wheelbarrow crushing in hasty accomplishment day’s peddlers lingering back in crevices, rock fissures, flower heads prudishly closing for the night over crumbs of yellow light forgotten in their midst frightened into the unconsciousness of an eventual tomorrow... or none... Light, dark, nothing in between. My eyes move on, fascinated, the fringes now gone for the forever of one night and the rest of the billowing sheet of darkness floats down in a no hurry mistaken for hesitation by the mindless landscapes submerging in the relentlessly advancing no remorse dusk. Night has fallen. I shiver inside my bed of thoughts, the debatable bliss of civilization unhooking its infusing needles from my brain’s cells and the primeval pleasure of an untamed animal penetrates the momentarily freed venues lodging permanent residence in my mind. I love you. Wild horses at war with mountain lions filling me with images of slicing claws and crushing hooves and blood gurgling over splintered bone and... daisies?... of all flowers... daisies?... I push forward into the slaughter field, A human bulldozer plowing his way where better and stronger had fallen and as I approach I feel the needles ramming their way back into the shortly liberated recesses the well oiled machinery of civilization claiming its glorious return infesting my mind anew as the puniness of me sticks up an impertinent middle finger into its face before I lie down and curl around my chosen daisy, hug her to my chest, and sing us both to sleep. I hear the neighing of horses turning the cough of diesel motors and the lions’ roar turning the curse of human voices as night finally conquers my insides of skin and nothing is left but a tiny piping voice speaking straight into my coherence. “I thought you would never return,” she says, and a blast of green sunlight turns my world to cinders. “I never knew a daisy talking in girl’s voice, a tiny smock of hair bound atop her head in mock pony-tail fashion and able to burn my universe into the green of beautiful chaos singing in colors.” I hug her tighter, petals crushing, the heart of sun smearing yellow rainbows amongst the hairy forests of my chest. “I will never never return,” I add. Cars and trucks and trains roll all over us as we huddle into one clump of flesh and slip into each other’s dream.

• back to list   • back   • next

Juke Box The quarters tinkle, then they fall, The stabbing sounds of rock and roll Caress my mind, Betray my fear, As thoughts obscure through reason stroll. The needle stumbles, then it skips Sore victim to its lonesome trips, Another coin, And then one more, Another groove through reason rips. The crackles sputter, then they ride To death upon a sole tear’s tide, An empty glass, A dirty rim, And visions bleak through reason glide. The moment’s fading, then it tries Once more to reach the green of eyes, The quarter’s gone, The music lost, And reason wanes, and reason dies.

• back to list   • back   • next

Dementiality, Four Sitting in front of an empty paper, Rolling boulders up the mountain Sliding on detaching pieces of stone rubble Digging in One shoe falls to pieces The bleeding heel takes over The other shoe still in one piece... for how long? Heave... Shove... The pencil hastily dressing hooks to my knees Muscles to my shoulders, neck, Upwards, Another inch... What is there at the top worthy of the gigantic effort Bleeding thoughts glinting through my palms One slippery moment of inattention And the boulder rolls down Over me Past my dismembered ridiculous shoe, Back into the valley. I draw butterflies swimming elegantly around the resting boulder The air a motionless river The butterflies green The mountain growing taller, inviting, Inviting for what? I crumple the piece of paper, shove it into the garbage can And start anew. What are you writing there lover? Asks one butterfly escaping the crunching fist Its hairy abdomen gyrating counter clockwise And its antennae trying to decipher my meaningless scribble While listening to some internal music rhythm As it touches ink dot after ink dot, Clutching wings with other butterflies Flooding the valley from far away memories And covering my face, mouth, Choking me. Nonsense I answer Finding my boulder again and pitching my will against it Anew. Dementiality? it insists The hairy abdomen turning curly fire The spots on its wings sucking in the green dye And turning eyes The body shriveling down to one single point Then growing back into face, skin, leopard spots... freckles!... I hear a tiny voice, as the fire climbs upon the skull And the eyes dig nooks in the face And woman emerges from under my pen and boulder and need And lips brand me like high prized cattle Beneath my nipples... Brand you like high prized lover... the tiny voice repeats a song I never heard before And the boulder crumbles to dry-thorn dust And the mountain offers me its crown And I lay the crown upon your head Promising to let summer birds build a nest among your curly fire Singing us back into the forest once upon a time We were thrown out of... I love you.

• back to list   • back   • next

Beast After making love For the seventh time, Exhausted, I watched you slide into that obscure kingdom Where none can follow But your past and your hopes And your fears The wicked ways of brain mixing the ingredients into a fizzling jumble And creating visions beautiful, snarling, soothing... I felt you snuggling into my side Pouting, then smiling, My left arm refusing to let go of your shoulder While my right traced well marked red lines down your side, up your chest, Pinching your skin no harder than a flower’s rim closing for the night... When did you fall asleep? I lay there content, Watching the changing expressions on your face As you frowned to some wrong and then laughed at some joke Your feet jerking from time to time, Probably chasing squirrels in the park, I knew of your dreams, you told me of them, I envied their untouchable reality, I dozed off... I should not have... I felt the sudden jolt, Sounds leaving your throat and bypassing your mouth In terror Your muscles steeled ripping out of my hold you stumbled off the bed crawling on all fours to the floor away from the beast clawing its way into your clothes into your body tearing your sanity to shreds and your skin to pieces You reached the wall and hit it with your head The sound, hollow, terrifying, again, again, Stop it!... Stop it!... I screamed scurrying after you and taking hold of your flailing arms Touching your skin with caressing lips, your hair with caressing fingers as your dilated pupils tried to retrieve their way from the inferno just visiting you and focus back on this world’s reality and the comforting nest of arms of the one who loves you. One hour later, You shivered no longer, We remained huddled against the wall and you released clumps of my flesh from the vise of your fingers smiling weakly, apologetically. He visited you again, I stated, not questioning, The beast, raped you again, never letting go... You did not answer, did not have to, The lamp hanging in the room oscillating in sympathizing harmony with the pounding of your heart. I kissed you. I wish I was there, I repeated the words of yesterday, And the day before, And you knew what I meant. My beast, my hell... a smile effaced the paleness of your lips and you closed your eyes. I felt the eyeballs still fluttering underneath eyelids Against the hair of my chest. Do you also have a hell? you asked, almost scared of the sound of the words, of the meaning. Yes, I answered, did not have to think of it, so easy... Not being able to share your hell... I added. You opened green stains and focused them on my eyes. I had to close them, did not plan on getting blind before seeing enough of you. And a heaven? you asked further, do you have a heaven too? Again one of those easy questions, I wish you would have asked me more difficult ones. Yes, I do, I said, tasting your eyes, Sharing your hell. You knew of my answer, of course you did, yet I did not know of your following question, and was unprepared, surprised. And I, do I have a heaven? you asked. Funny, I thought to myself, How easy all questions are, how easy the answers once you do not have to think but to feel. I insisted on crawling back into bed, Pulled the thick comforter above our heads to hide our nakedness from the walls and the lamp and the wardrobe, Soaking the warmth from your body and feeding you love in return. We, we do have a heaven, I stated matter of factly, The beast vanquished for one more night, your heartbeat racing with soft delight back from the fearsome fields of past terrors. Which is it, you ask? and I stubbornly refused the offer of blindness. Sharing, I answered, Then opened my eyes finally allowing blithe blindness to conquer my life.

• back to list   • back   • next

Silence Silence, Damn distance curse. Clicked once more the mail link Yet the count stubbornly shows zero. The pain... Silence, Is it your voice Guessing my heart’s weather And assuaging the storm with... A whisper?... Silence, Counting time beats. I have waited eons for you, Can wait a few more days for us. Love you.

• back to list   • back   • next

That Touch Of Glass I slid the back of my fingers down your upper arm, Slowly, Feeling the crushed glass cutting thin deep channels into my skin, Colorful pieces of it dislodging and finding new haven inside my flesh. Why? I asked. Why What? Why the glass? I am not enemy, I am not invader, I am lover. You were lover. I slide my fingers again down the empty space above the seat next to me Craving that touch of glass.

• back to list   • back   • next

Real Color I wish I could talk, I am mute. Funny all these wordy titles About worthless me and my words, King of the..., Master of the..., Queen... Yeah, Queen of the..., ha, better said Eunuch of the... Don’t you think? Look at me, All this wasted ink and time and electricity thick dictionaries and sleepless nights English re-scribed and expressions uninvented yet and I cannot even get through this very simple message to you. I love you. Time to burn my poetry books, I guess. No, you are right, that would be a waste. Better send them to some retarded third world country, They could smear some culture on their skin while wiping their ass with, maybe, this very poem. Sorry, friends, Next time I will get it printed on tissue paper, Soaks better the realities of life. Oh, yeah, and its real color.

• back to list   • back   • next

Moods I listen to a poet, Singing, I don’t understand a word, he sings in Russian, His voice roughened by a lifetime of cigarettes and vodka, Balanced, Penetrating, A real poet, I listen and feel it swallowing me, drenching me in feelings And sweat I prefer not to understand... I feel... I sip... Dregs of insanity envelop my mind with soothing whispers... My brother the poet, how do you do it, How did you guess my mood and break my walls And conquered the castle of my melancholy Pouring your heart Into mine And singing it? Do we feel the same? I guess we do, though you are so much better. It is not for the others we sing, It is for us we sing it, we know our truths, We know our misunderstood words, None else does, none else has to, None else except... except... Do you think the same?... I cut the monolog of my thoughts as the track changes. Vysotsky his name. Fastidious Horses his song. Dead. Shivers cutting my carcass into burning slices As his rasp penetrates between flesh molecule and flesh molecule And pitilessly rips and rips Don’t stop! I feel like shouting, Tell me my story In the absolute beauty Of your art Tell me once more of the terrifying realization Of the undeniable verity of... I love you. I look around me, The music over. Did anyone hear me?

• back to list   • back   • next

‘in Clan I try to cut a slice of bread, Half of my sandwich for the day, My trembling hand finally succeeding to get hold of the knife’s wooden handle, I clamp down on the piece of wood and try to hold the thin serrated steel blade against the bread loaf scrapping crust pieces all over the floor uncontrollable... I use my second hand to hold it sword fashion and somehow their shivers cancel each other as each chooses a different random direction and the blade steadies a bit penetrating the heart of loaf till a shapeless shaggy slice falls off. One done, one more to go. I miss you. Better luck with the car key, Sliding in and turning easily into a motor’s grumble, The steering wheel keeps my palms steady and only the wrist and the elbow and the shoulder refuse to calm down. Modern cars... Why the hell did they build these airbags in? All I want is write, not worry about living. My nose is running loose, It is running loose for a few days already... ducts? what ducts? what eye ducts? Just the stupid running nose, nothing to do with eyes I snort angrily and wipe it against my sleeve Transposed for a few moments to a childhood where all I had was a dirty rag or a crumpled newspaper leaving black lead laden traces all over my face. I snort again, this time in disgust at my memory, at my dirty sleeve, Shift gears back into fifth, then back into sixth. Falling apart, My head a blob of coagulated splinters each pulling its own way and held together by a mere physical miracle another unnecessity which I found myself asking who the hell needed it or invented it? I tried last night several remedies, Aspirin, Optalgin, some other members of the ‘in clan and staying just short of Strychnine to sounds of clapping and wolf calls and cheers and hat throwing in my mind calling “go for it... go for it... live like a rat die like a rat...” I recognize some faces in the crowd, Not many, some of them mine... “later, later...” I promise Bowing to my public, Knowing I have some more ‘ins to try before bowing to popular demand and appeal, Outcast freaks like huggin, kissin, lovin... Hey, snowing again, Shall I try slippin, slidin? I chuckle, not unlike a madman, Laying for a short moment the pen and paper on the passenger seat and moving through the fifth into the fourth gear. I hate wipers. I turn them off trying to imagine what it would be like for a blind man to be driving, Unfortunately the storm stays behind and my experiment rests unconcluded. Well, there will be other occasions. I chuckle again, Pulling into the office driveway And leaving my reality back inside the car till next time we meet. Probably tomorrow. I love you.

• back to list   • back   • next

Dreamless I stopped dreaming, Suddenly. As if a guillotine’s blade descended Cleanly slicing off the relevant portion of my brain And my dreams are gone. No more nightly poison cleaners. How long can one live dreamlessly? I wonder... I look at the scattered scraps of paper on my desk Crumbs of dark poetry desecrating their immaculate whiteness, Poor man’s sanctuary, Salvation, Not mine. Mine... it is my hope, I think... I close my eyes waiting for that liberating computer beep Telling me my dreams are back.

• back to list   • back   • next

Ignorance no, I’m not the one to save you, not the fucking warrior in black armor, or white, whatever you choose to hate crocodile killers are only in the movies and dragons were my food when I was a kid and I stabbed them with my wooden knife. but I am the one to offer you to walk all over me if it cleans your shoes and scratch my eyes out if it allays your anger and fear and when tomorrow you are sorry I offer you pieces torn off me to auction to lowest bidder. and if then, one day, you need me just use your whistle and I will come leaping and yapping and biting left and right and growling mindlessly until you kick me away again only because I tried too hard. till next time. because I am the one to love you beyond my mindless self and way beyond your ignorance of knowledge.

• back to list   • back   • next

Kennels I woke up from my nightmare with a shudder... Hey, puppy, puppy... I crawled heavily to my feet shaking my shaggy mane tip of muzzle to tip of tail, Loose hair chunks spraying all around me like a spring’s shower exposing once more the growing bald spots of skin, The colorless patches, the stains, The foliage of dry hair around me peppered with so much white... She was approaching, Her heels high, her walk brisk, Her long nyloned legs ending up after an infinite travel into something I imagined to be every human’s dream, Getting nearer my kennel, Hey, puppy, puppy... Something started rushing through my body, I was lost as to the human meaning of it and its name in human terms, I felt the thunder of winter clouds inside my ribs cage competing with those impotents up in the sky I stood up stiff turning limber atrophied muscles turning limestone hard I licked my fur to sun’s shine Kicked out of way the white lay of hair Pulled my dragging belly in dog turning hound turning beastly beauty, I started barking imitating to my best ability the sound humans seemed to love so much, Woof, Woof... readjusted my pitch, Wove, Wove... much better, The spark in my eyes seemed to catch her regard, She was looking straight at me... I started jumping like a circus clown, Made one backwards flip, then two, no dog ever did that, ever, Then the impossible two forward flips followed by a half screw left landing on my fours straight, tall, proud, My tail a cyclone of canine majesty... I saw the dragon approaching her feet, silent, deadly, sprinted forward and ripped it to pieces tail to forked tongue laying the smoldering leftovers at her feet in adoration, I saw the lion sprinting, I met him half way and battled him to death right there, in front of her pride oozing red from my veins as I lay the deadly carcass at her feet in adulation, She stepped over... Puppy, puppy... Wove, Wove... I answered enthusiastically rushing to the nearest field clamping down on a bunch of roses with my muzzle and tearing it off ground and roots and dirt and all galloping back to my kennel where I lay them on her path waiting for her to tread upon them, crush them into fragrant beauty as she kneels next to me and pats my head, Puppy, puppy... She crushed the roses, Passed my wagging figure patting me pityingly on the head en passant Looking straight through me at the kennel behind where she stopped and stooped and let the three month old slick Doberman jump all over her licking and slobbering and yapping disgustingly as they started rolling one around the other in the tall wet grass, Puppy, puppy... I slouched back into my behumbled position, After dragging the dragon’s leftovers and the lion’s carcass out of way, Scrapping the ground clean with my paw Licking it with my tongue, I did not care for my wounds. After all I was not just doing my duty, There was something in the sound of this bark which I finally succeeded to pronounce correctly which was pulling at the strings of my aging heart. Funny, I never thought in terms of aging heart till now as I let my belly hang back down my bald spots pushing out again my fur dulling my spine broken, no more flips for me. Next human who pats me I rip his hand off. I started closing bleary eyes watching wearily the two shapes rolling and rolling and rolling down the sunny side of the mountain in a storm of flailing arms and legs and paws and howls and laughter The last sight the vigorous slash of a strong shiny tail stump. I shivered in my sleep, running aimlessly, Poison oozing out steadily from the thorn stuck in my tongue invading my mind with human nightmares... numbers followed by millimeters mixing up with shifting gears and bending posts and noise and sirens and rubble and splintering bones... Papy, papy... Me and my damn French, I thought passing thankfully into the bliss of unconsciousness and nothing. * It was snowing heavily. I was not even aware I was writing this, except for those short glimmers of consciousness when instinct had to kick in to get the crazily careening car back into the single cleared highway lane. Now I read these lines and cannot keep from wondering... why the hell was I cursed with instincts? I hope it is snowing when I drive back.

• back to list   • back   • next

Coyote When one bright and sunny morning not a cloud to call the warning Dies the lilac, dies the daisy, wilts the rose in rhymeless mourning. There, beyond the garden’s towers lost and scared one whisper cowers Once so bold, now weak and hazy breathing in the dust of flowers. Under creepers lame and hoary knowing not of lovers’ story, One coyote old and crazy howls his pain in lonesome glory.

• back to list   • back   • next

Barrage Silence. The twenty inch pounders drop their lethal shells zeroing into my body silent wave, after silent wave, after silent wave... Silence ripping my brain to shreds and my shreds to crumbs, and my crumbs to... is there anything left after crumbs except... nothing? I let pieces of sanity drift away, those still untouched by the heavy barrage looking for hideouts in undisclosed places hibernating in timid hopes of renewal. Maybe peace comes nevertheless? When thunder conquers my world anew And laughter ripples through skin And words crawl the long miles climbing my beaches... Invasion... Oh, let me lose this war again...

• back to list   • back   • next

Before Or After I have never been in love, before or after. “After?” you challenge my saying, Razor sharp eyes cutting through fingers crushed against your lips. “You don’t challenge ‘before’...” I wonder. “I know ‘before’,” you bite, Tooth marks fencing the cuts like barbed wire protecting a well of flowing gold sprinting to red life with each heart pound, Poppy petals sprouting on your cheeks around freckle hearts moments before breaking down into washed out pastels sliding down long worn out tear tracks. “I know there was no ‘before’, No before us, I know by now. I don’t know about ‘after’.” “What about ‘after’ death?” I ask nonchalantly licking the liquefied poppy petals from your lips. A smiling question mark hiding a contorted vision. “You just accepted the ‘before’,” I insist. “After death there is nothing,” You hesitate, wishing to be contradicted. “After death there is forever,” I contradict. “Unchangeable, invincible, Frozen into eternity Love...” I will never be in love, before or after.

• back to list   • back   • next

Kismet You are beautiful, I said. The most beautiful woman in the world. I heard a depreciative snort on the other side As a nose blew its monosounding fanfare right into my ear. Yeah, you would not think so if you saw me right now, Red nose, watery eyes under a flailing hair worthy of the Medusa, Pyjamas three times my size gobbled by shrieking colors And padded jumbo size pantofles with rolling eyes and Disney copyrighted characters. I could see you clearly, unknown to you, My eyes closed, The red nose, the watery eyes and disarrayed hair, The pyjamas... peeking inside... sorry... The clown pantofles warming your toes... You are beautiful, I obstinately repeated myself, You are a painting by Michelangelo A mirage under a starry desert sky The embodiment of my... kismet. Quiet. Then another sequence of nose blowing, coughing, Mottled tissue paper finding its way into a waste basket, You are lucky you look only at my face... giggle... Turn your eyes up to my hair and you turn stone. I turn my eyes up to your hair, Touch myself... hey, still soft and fleshy and warm, Hey, I scream into the mouthpiece, I just did, Do you hear pebbles rolling or love sprouting?... Quiet. Even no sniffles anymore. You know what I mean, you know me, But you are as obstinate as I am. Maybe even a bit more. Just maybe, let’s not overstretch it. I don’t think Mickey ever painted a red nose, I’ve checked carefully the whole of the Capella Sistina, True, some voluptuous ladies up there are competing with me but all of them have powdered noses. He did not know you, I pound on. That’s why. Do you love Michelangelo? I ask, an irrepressible question out of the nowhere of self inflicted jealousy. There is no hesitation in your answer. No, I do not love Michelangelo, You silly butt, And it is clear you expect the following question. I ask it. Do you love me? A low flying airplane deafens me for a few seconds, Maybe you answered, maybe not, I don’t know And once the quiet returns I am afraid to repeat my question, I wait. A few short beeps tell me my battery is about to end, Please, please answer, I pray to whoever is on duty, A few cackles on the line making me jump, No... still quiet. The beeps repeat themselves. Also the cackles. No... I freeze... No...body ever called me ‘kismet’ before... The sentence finally comes through and a long continuous beep messages the end of the phone’s life. I push the off button, just for its symbolical value, And drop the cell phone into my pocket. I guess that now I know. The most beautiful woman in the world... Red nosed, watery eyed under a Medusa hair Oversized pyjamas and jumbo pantofles... I wish I was there to simply admire her absolute beauty. She loves me. I love you.

• back to list   • back   • next

The Conspiracy Theory I talk to you, watching worriedly the rotating needles counting backwards the time still available to us, clockwise paradoxically metamorphosing in my mind into a four-lettered word moving from dirty to dirtier to obscene. I try the digital display... hoping... in vain... Clockwise thus redefined into a seven segments display game The numbers moving inexorably up As the leftovers dwindle from plentiful to nothingful giving additional impetus to the conspiracy theory claiming that forever is an invention of lovers same as never and the only reality is the limited size of an allotted time-slot at the end of which nothing rules. I feel tempted, the half pound hammer in my hand, I look around... then decide against it. After all there is another time piece next room, And another one on my wrist, and one your side of the world, And thousands more. “I love you, whatever they may say,” I shout in desperation “Conspiracy theory or fact my forever is never going to... never is forever... aarrgh... my nothing is nothing... the constipacy theory...” I choke, I start coughing spitting like an enraged tomcat Losing the thread to my words, I turn red like a beet soaked in red dye seen through a red screen Thoughts whirling around my eyes before settling on a three times knotted tongue and then swirling further... I had never stuttered before... I have to say it, She has to know, I have to say it... “I know...” she says, after joining her laughter and sneezes and snorts and guffaws to my sputter and shuffle and hiccups... “I know,” she says and I finally catch my breath and calm down. “I know.” A third time, final. “The conspiracy theory never heard of... us.” So simple. You are a genius I feel like saying, but I don’t, Knowing anything I say would just deprecate the uniqueness of the moment, I just listen to the silence. The words do not have to be said. Forever. Never. Nothing. They may mean so many things to so many people. They mean just one thing to us. Forever. Never. Everything.

• back to list   • back   • next

There Never Was There never was, there never will... The canvas slides beneath my quill My fingers trace a screaming line Along your spine. There never rose, there never set... Delights your skin cannot forget My lips assail your dripping vine And sip your wine. There never lived, there never died... In sinful flesh a love we ride Two bodies paint in passion’s art One single heart. There never will, there never was... Inside the vise of ripping jaws A tender nipple pours its song Three eons long. There never set, there never rose... Beneath my palm your flower grows Long roots a quilt around me weave To never leave. There never died, there never lived... If of my days I be bereaved I’ll take beyond the only hue Of loving you.

• back to list   • back   • next

Love Let’s make love, let killer maybe’s Be tomorrow’s unborn babies Let us pull a heavy curtain On the stage playing uncertain Let suspire And desire Be your smile’s undying quire, Shove the sorrow Through tomorrow As a heap of sun we borrow. Sir of words of meaning hidden Through my mind of question ridden Roams the craving unrelenting Burns the passion unrepenting Yet the needle Of your riddle Hurts from head and past the middle, Senses spinning Tell me meaning While from doubts my mind be weaning. Lady sweet of flowers many And of loveliness uncanny All tomorrows be forgotten Till the world be unbegotten Love unending Gardens tending Gentle fingers armors rending, Flaming ever Daunting never And consuming hell forever. “Hell?” We were sitting on the floor, naked, a soft linen quilt underneath us – an intricate Teutonic design repeating itself around us, her knees around my middle, chest to chest, our heads leaning on each other’s left shoulder, eyes closed. “Yes, hell. Beautiful fire flowers blooming incessantly inside a shower of red sparks...” “Hell has a bad connotation.” Her fingers started moving downwards counting the vertebrae on my back, I heard her mutter softly... one... two... “Hey, this is a long word.” I returned the favor and started counting the bony protuberances on her back in the opposite direction. “People use hell also in a positive connotation... if to use your long word. Like in ‘love as hot as hell’. A simple oxymoron.” “Now who’s using long words? And this is not really an oxymoron.” Her hand reached my waist line and started moving towards the front of my body. I started losing my concentration. “You are right,” I agreed, not in the mood for a fight and she was right anyway. My hand followed her example and started advancing towards her breast. We touched. “Rhyme me a poem,” she sang, forgetting to breathe. “Now?” I asked hoarsely. “Now.” “Before or after?” “Before.” I loved her to death. She could have asked me to put a bullet through my head and I would have put two... no, you wouldn’t, you would be dead after the first one... she whispered. She could have asked me to cut my right arm and I would have cut both... no, you wouldn’t, you would not have any arm to cut the other one with... She could have asked me to rhyme her one poem and I would have rhymed her two... no, one would be enough for now... She could have asked me to leave her... no, never... I felt the hot tear drilling a hollow shaft into my shoulder. I love you, I whispered back. Let’s make love, let senses smitten By those thousand rhymes unwritten Hang to flaming tails of lions Chasing skywards dandelions Crashing seven Then eleven Laying waste a gateless heaven Bodies flaunting Touches taunting And that scream divinely haunting.

• back to list   • back   • next

Look! Look into my eyes, Look! Yes, look, right there! What do you see?... no, look again! Not the color, not the anger, not the wrinkles damn them paving a hobbly way to the approaching passage... All these irrelevancies so irrelevant... You see it, yes you do, For what it is and for what it promises in its naked wordy stumbling way, Yes you do if you close your eyes and see inside into the reality, my reality, the only one which counts for me and I wish to make count for you even if it may be last in line – Love!!! woman, Love, unending, undying, real, as real in your life as your kids. There is a hand here to catch you always, A heart to lie under your feet and absorb the sharpness of pebbles and the weight of your life always, A love to cushion your doubts and share your pains always. A friend. Always. Look into my eyes, Look! Open your eyes wide and... let me be unoriginal... Let the sunshine in! I love you.

• back to list   • back   • next

Let’s Not Make Love Lean against me, Let’s not make love. The sharp point of your elbow against the soft ply of my arm, Your right elbow, Our wrists touching... No, I don’t twine fingers I simply let my palm’s inner soft hover against your knuckles hard, Do you feel the heartbeat in my fingers? My left arm surrounding your stomach My palm warm against your flesh warm And soft, Imagining a stretching of skin and a kicking tiny foot which I will never feel inside of you, Us... How did I miss you? Then, when we could. Your left palm soft against my knuckles hard emulating me, Reading my thoughts inside your life line, Pushing my palm deeper into your belly sinking my pain into your flesh your hand clasping and following deeper into you, You know, This is my tenderness. Easing away... the pain gone, For now. My chin in the nook of your shoulder My cheek against your neck, Now I feel your heartbeat making my teeth chatter, I don’t kiss you I just want to feel you. Let’s not make love, Just let me feel your elbow, Your belly, Your neck, And imagine... life.

• back to list   • back   • next

Finale Mountains, I passed through them Rivers of fragmented rock pour behind me The din fragmenting my mind never stopping me. Forests, I cut through them Tree splinters left and right strike with sharp wooden stakes The lashes splintering my mind never able to hold me. Woman, I reached you in bewonderment and halted Kneeled in front of you and made the dust at your feet my nest and your words my nourishment. Love, please teach me Love...

• back to list   • back   • next

One Of Those ...Do You Remember?’s Banality Assailing me, One of those memories never to find their way into the Hall of Fame of any nation or lover Suddenly intruding upon my privacy and demanding a place of honor in the glass paneled trophies cabinet alongside the green, and the red, and the freckles and the music and that damn special laughing sound which you know I love because it is so uniquely you... Banality, The banality of a queue in a supermarket, Your hand throwing into the trolley juice bottles and corn flakes and cosmetics and snacks and I don’t pay attention because I am busy chasing you my hand in your trousers’ back pocket Afraid... maybe wishing the tornado of your motion rips it off at shoulder and leaves it forever there, So far away from your skin, yet so close. Queuing up at the cashier’s desk, Crawling forward, I feel the muscles pushing against my palm rippling as you take the next step Warmth flowing both ways The cloth almost tearing at the seam yet you don’t ask me to take my hand out, Not even when you throw the stuff from the rolling band back into the trolley Not when the cashier lady breaks into a huge knowledgeable smile digging itself deeper into her face as you struggle with the money yet you don’t ask me to take my hand out. Life bouncing on the way to the car, Squeezing as you bend to carry the bags in Softening as you turn around and kiss me under the broken neon sign all letters vandalized by stone snipers except for the blinking leftovers stupidly claiming ...ART ...ART ...ART. I know what they are telling me at least, ...HEART ...HEART ...HEART as I compose the missing puzzle and you nod your mute agreement. Or do they simply mean to be left as is branding into my mind the memory of your kiss’s... ART? I motion the memory in watching it glide, settle contentedly alongside the others and falling asleep. What it does not know and I do not tell is that it was always there. I just pulled it out for a second wrapping myself into it and letting myself slip back in time for one night’s span. Now it is back in the glass paneled trophies cabinet alongside the green, and the red, and the freckles and the music and that damn special laughing sound which you know I love because it is so uniquely you...

• back to list   • back   • next

One Of Those ...Will You Remember?’s The moment to come, When the universe ceases to exist for a fraction of everness All molecular motion frozen Entropy finally reached, And the only bubble of other reality Those two bodies moving towards each other in illustrious isolation and uniqueness of purpose Reaching towards each other Reaching each other And fingers reaching for hearts through spines pierced by fingernails driven mad with want and wait. As our bodies disembrace and our mouths disentangle We let fingertips paint on lips The color of blood borrowed from exploded hearts Before the universe shakes off from its moment of lost evolution And entropy crawls back into university’s tomes And noise and smells and vibrations conquer our immediate vicinity And life is viciously back on its trail to perdition. I missed you, I whisper to the bundle of feminine flesh who insists carrying my hundred pounds heavy suitcase. I did not, she answers and her arm around me cuts my waist’s thickness to ring size, I did not, you were always here, she completes the sentence as we step out of the airport’s bustling terminal into our life. I love you, you know? I repeat my most famous sentence in my famously limited vocabulary. No, I don’t, she answers and my waist cuts one size down, One more squeeze and there will be two detached halves of me. No, I don’t, teach me, she completes the sequence And we both know that the memory to come will survive universe’s final death and molecular freeze and entropy finally reached.

• back to list   • back   • next

Make Love To Me Make love to me, And let the sting of seven lashes rouse my spring... Your body, Wrapped ten layers around me and still wrapping You finished rolling yourself around my legs Now you are busy with my abdominal muscles moving upwards towards my ridiculous nipples reacting like yours should... and do... My neck disappears inside your layers of skin and flesh and love And finally Leftovers of bone and curling red hair knot themselves above my skull leaving me swathed powerless... willing... hopelessly wishing for more of the same... Make love to me, Allay those fears concealed in question clothed cheers... Voices sing in quadraphonic resonance as pockets of skin and hair open up Accommodating colonies of colorless birds absorbing the myriad sun kisses from your skin and the countless fire sparks of your hair Their feathers soaking majesty ready for the festivities of the most glorious of euphonical cacophonies when your voice joins in And tribute is paid to Apollo as he listens and obligingly shoots his silver arrow through my heart leaving a glinting trail for your accords to cuddle in and hang love grapes all the way to the bleeding exit wound... Make love to me, Lay music grooves inside my flesh for lover’s hooves... I see your heart resting just behind mine the arrow having pierced both before burning itself to ashes on its way out... Pieces of bone, Feathers and tunes, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon spun between the crevasses of severed arteries and as you start unrolling and unwinding and unwrapping from around me The lithe snake of our common unweaving undulating flesh waves itself into the fabric of thoughts and heroic tales and the most tender of the simplest of wishes of single moments... Make love to me, Incise my will and let your love defend my quill...

• back to list   • back   • next

Ordinary       Love me like you wake up morning, Watch the glinting blob of slime My entreating eyes adorning When you say... till end of time...       Crave me like you blink unwary, Hear the cackle in my chest Swallows bustling in the eyrie When you whisper... that’s my nest...       Kiss me like you squint in sunshine, Lick the sweat in settling dust Taste the grape inside my love’s brine When you scream... now reap my lust...       Kill me like you pant past labor, Cut my vein till gurgling mud Paints a flower on the saber When you swear... my life, my blood...

• back to list   • back   • next

Love Crystals Following your traces on the desert stone, Invisible indentations I feel them nearing my cheek to the ground and sensing the heat emanating from incandescent crumbs having peeled off the stone’s face under your tread. I wonder... how would I have followed you if civilization would have clad dressing to the bareness of your soles? I love you. I see a parallel path running right next to yours and ahead of me, Undeniable prairie dogs dumplings disconsiderate of any ecological imbalance seeding a track along with a... wild hog’s track?... a wild hog in the desert?... the thought stupidly flashes through my mind before I blink and my eye stays closed for more than the classical moment as a vision of sun burned naked skin under a tapestry of scratches mounts from ankles along thighs around breasts up to a tuft of disarrayed flaming hair framing a mouth dripping pieces of apple and wild berry and honey drops behind it and an army of prairie dogs and wild hogs and raccoons and rabbits and burrowing owls follows nibbling and skidding and barking sunset songs to the disbelieving spirits guiding your way. I catch up with you, Opening my eyes to the reality inside the vision, Unchanged, Wondering what is which, Till that one moment when your naked skin creases at waist and soft mounds of flesh stretch solid and you crouch next to an egg shaped stone hugging it like hugging a baby And as the army of following beasts surrounds you you crack it smoothly open and crystals start pouring in a scarlet and amber and sunshine and skylight and jade and chameleon sparkling flood inside the furs and the feathers and the skin and your eyes... Night. The little army sparkles forward the queen in their midst stars dropping behind marking my way to a place unknown There where one day you will stop and wait for me and let me nibble and chew and drink same like all others, for as long as there are crystals in stones. No, you will get more, you trill, allowing me to near your lips and glean rare drops of nectar before evaporating unknown. What are these? I ask in wonder, unsatiated. Love crystals, you answer, stretch your feet and start walking again. I bet we look ridiculous together, You walking with me hanging on to your mouth like a young hummingbird painted at the corner of your lips.

• back to list   • back   • next

Touch Me Touch me, play me raw and tender Be the rogue and vile offender Pouring flames into my mouth Perfumes crude and most uncouth Soft lavender. Leave your scruples unbegotten Paint me flavors sweetly rotten Sinking teeth divinely mean Dipped in promises of sin Unforgotten. Turn my body bleeding quarry Way beyond the sooth of sorry Tearing clumps of craving flesh As I slump to earth and thresh Screaming glory.

• back to list   • back   • next

Do I Miss You? Do I miss you? If I say That beneath the blast of day Twenty layers wool beclothed Shiver memories betrothed       With a stroll inside the park       With a poem carved in bark       With a kiss upon a bench       With the girl inside the wench?... Do I miss you? If the plight Of an endless starless night Tells of thoughts beyond dimension Lost in pale incomprehension       About music way off key       About iceberg ridden tea       About one and thousand mile       About woman in the smile?... Do I miss you? No, I don’t,       And no sun has ever shone...

• back to list   • back   • next

Cock Tail I leave my shirt hanging on your gate’s pole tearing pieces of it then running around your fence and sticking them on its spikes like flags of what was once me and now isn’t. I unbuckle my belt and drop it on the path to your door like a harmless cockatrice letting your dog playfully pull my trousers down and losing them to battling sounds of cocks and cockateels and cockatoos chasing away the dog for the dubious pleasure of swallowing my shiny nickels and copper buttons and the broken zipper carried away in dangling triumph by the clumsy ostrich spinster. My shoes and socks float in the river fishes jumping above them as my underwear joins shortly after to cheers of drifting snow and beggars singing arias from Rigoletto jazz style. Naked, Proud in my belly button and age creases and steel muscles which could snap a dinosaur’s spine masked by flabby pieces of flesh hanging loose on bones competing with your gate’s poles and my shirt’s leftover pennons The insolence of skin beguiling onlookers by dressing goose bumps starting at my tiny nipples and spreading all the way up to my bold top and down to my bare toes The pride in my finger insisting on your door bell until the gates to life open and you appear there majestic in your unflinching serenity asking to my want unseeing of my nakedness and foolishness and dauntlessness. I wait, with the cocks and cockateels and cockatoos and even the ostrich spinster seems to have frozen in its ridiculous posture a black shoe lace having added itself to the zipper in its beak or mouth or muzzle, You don’t hesitate You evaluate. You decide. A horrible sound as a comet changes course and crashes into the sun sending long undulating tongues flaming towards us Your decision taken you incinerate your layers of clothing outer blue inner red your skin a green inferno fanning out and enveloping me engulfing me engorging me my skin sliding in between your peeling skin and your boiling flesh we turn one single entity maturating into temerity of desire riding absoluteness of love. My belt suddenly bellows The cockatrice finally emerging into reality gathering in its coils cocks and cockateels and cockatoos and even the ridiculous ostrich spinster then rolling itself in the fire consuming the human lovers it shoots for the skies where it swallows flames and comet and sun and all that is left is ovations sang by dying planets for young undying us... We never woke up.

• back to list   • back   • next

Moments Ago My palm slides to the other side of the bed, Tracing the warm indentation which moments ago embraced your body, A thin fragrance emanating as the ravenous linen finally concedes the reality of the laws of physics and reconciles with the room’s stagnant air releasing tiny molecules of you. Just moments ago your pores fed bits of carnal matter into the linen’s texture, Now it all dissipates with the heat, the sweat, the memory of sighs. I hear sounds Refusing to let them sink beyond the primeval fears of my skin, The rustle of a pair of panties rubbing against the thorns of an imperfectly shaved thigh The snap of a bra’s clip The slithering sound of shoelaces pulling tight against a foot which moments ago kicked the bed’s head board into a thousand splinters... The hand grabbing the door’s handle, hesitating... Feels like years ago when we made love into an art as abstract as a flame’s shape pouring up from the pits of hell... Moments ago... Are the same thoughts hammering their way into your head When the partly opened door finally clicks shut with you still on the inside And I hear the sounds in reverse Shoelaces sliding out, a bra snapping open, Panties impatiently torn into fist size shreds with threads dangling loosely long corrupted seam lines As you conquer back the indentation just liberated And I conquer back the body just untrussed And the sigh conquers scream shape again Just like... Moments ago. And when we wake up, Years later, It all looks as fresh and as beautiful as you looked moments ago.

• back to list   • back   • next

Night Sky At the top of the mountain, Lying on our back, You snuggle against me seeking consolation inside my jacket against the cool air, The dragon inside you flaring your nostrils and letting steam bursts dissipate against my cheek burning the tips of my stubble. I reach up with my left hand and glean a handful of stars, Part of the Milky Way, the full Ursa Major and some of the Ursa Minor leaving behind a dark uneven trail Then open my palm against your face and blow my harvest into your eyes... Oh, the billion and one glimmers of beauty in that dark green sky... Another glimmer joins the rest, a damp reflection rolling down your cheek... Why do you cry? I ask. Now lovers won’t have a path and sailors won’t have guidance and wolves will howl to a dark empty hole... You say. Then you approach your mouth to my left eye, kiss it, and after looking apologetically at me you turn your face up and spit powerfully a stream of sparks which settles back into the liberated spots above the thin clouds renewing the beauty of chaos as if nothing ever happened. How did you do it? I ask, magic? I did not ask you, did I? you answer, satisfied at your deed, Then resume your hand’s journey inside my shirt as the dragon returns to its puffing wisps. A few snowflakes taste my cheek, finally choosing yours to melt on. Then the quiet. The magic. The white blanket around us. You may have won this round, I think sleepily Yet not fully, I add loudly Watching the night sky twinkling forgotten in its twin green universe called mistakenly your eye.

• back to list   • back   • next

After All... You remind me of Shiva, A bit on the voluptuous side, You sit cross legged in the middle of the flowers bed Palms upturned at the sides of your shoulders The left one a bit higher up... damn arthritis... The two uneven mounds of mixed grains and sunflower seeds and honey cornflakes with crumbs of milk chocolate A source of unending frolic for a pair of mourning doves attacking the left mound And a mix of swallows and bay breasted warblers and finches bathing their beaks inside the richness of the right one and flying merry go round in and out of the heavenly mix. My eyes rest fixed on your mouth, A crushed cherry held between your lips red juice slavering down your chin And a trio of invisibly winged hummingbirds diving with watchmaker’s precision into the flesh of the melting fruit, Their buzzing drone the only sound up and down the sleeping street. Oh... I almost missed the family of tiny prairie dogs jumping in and out the water filled bowl placed strategically between your knees. I shake my head. The mirage does not fade away though I insist, And I feel sorry for the poor crow perched alone on a nearby branch away from the fun and the food and the music. I open my shirt and sit in front of you nodding to the crow invitingly, After all none of the other creatures is interested in me. After a short hesitation it flies in and with the strong corn of its nails starts ripping my chest’s skin till it passes my flesh and uncovers my ribs finally squeezing in, content, next to my heart. “What are you doing?” you open your eyes in wonder, The circus around your head and between your knees never halting. “Letting the poor raven in,” I answer mimicking her upturned palms and collecting just a few droppings from a passing quail. “This is a crow,” you retort closing your eyes again. “He claims he is a raven, he quoted passages from Poe,” I insist. “You are silly, crows don’t talk,” you insist at your turn. “Neither do hummingbirds feast at a cherry held between your lips,” is my scientifically accurate answer. “This is a fact,” you say. “So is this raven.” You do not seem to move, to shrink, to bend. Somehow you float over towards me, wriggle, squeeze, and penetrate between my ribs Birds and prairie dogs never leaving you for a moment and the only concession you make to the now crowded place is lay your ear against my heart. Oh, yes, you also leave the water bowl outside. Are you listening to my music or am I listening to yours?... The crow does not like the sudden neighborly invasion. It flies out and perches on the oscillating swing scratching its wing with its beak. “Crazy humans, what kind of a world is that, I am a raven Quoth the Raven Nevermore.” Then it leaves for a cemetery and never returns. “See, I told you,” I tell you. “OK, probably a vision,” you answer from the depths of my chest, The palms still up, The mounds smaller And you start sipping the nectar from my heart’s left chamber. Well, you do not fly out hummingbird-wise pouting your lips to do it. After all this is not some fairy tale.

• back to list   • back   • next

The Poem “Ha, Thousand words poem, Anybody can write it, A kid can write it, A computer...” She was teasing me, I knew, Nobody could write her my kind of poems. True, they came relatively easy, and fast, A flashing thought of her and inspiration was all over me devouring, and just one driving session to work and a few negotiated (successfully, else I wouldn’t be writing this) lampposts later, et voila, a new flower for her overflowing memories album. You have to buy some new pages to your memory else you’ll have to squeeze everything else out just to fit all of me in, I used to tease her And her terrible punishment would not be late to follow... Twenty seven times in one single night. No wonder I lost fifteen pounds in one week... “Challenge me?” I dared her, Cocksure, pretentious, conceited. “Are you sure?” “Yes, I am,” puffing my chest turkey size. “OK, then...” smirk? hesitation? “Yes?...” “...write me the most beautiful, amazing, thrilling poem ever...” pause, My mouth’s corners reaching into a knot above my head... so easy... “...one word long.” The same mouth corners now dropping underneath my chin and tying a new knot there right under my bobbing up and down Adam’s apple. “One word?” “Yes.” “Beautiful, amazing, thrilling?...” “Yes. Oh, and I will make it a bit easier for you...” “Yes...” hopeful, my tail thrashing... “...and mesmerizing.” ...the tail swiftly back in between my legs. “And mesmerizing?...” “Yes. Easy, isn’t it?” It took me nine days. Three times three. Never before. Yes, sometimes I was busy with those long winded rhymies that could take even fifteen days, Chasing dictionaries, internet, Fifteen gross. Never nine net. Nine days later and not even one additional lamppost event I gave her a sheet of paper, folded in four. It was incomplete, True, I had it ready after a mere three days, ha, But we were nine days later now and it was still incomplete. I told her so. She looked up at me “You have your one word poem nine days later and it is still incomplete?” First mirthful. Then worried. “Are you serious?” I returned her regard, miserable, my beaten dog flapping ears hanging loose at the sides of my head. “Yes. Still, it is a good poem, It fulfills all your criteria. But... incomplete. Sorry.” Any sign of mockery disappeared from her eyes, She unfolded it once. “Wait,” I said. “What?” “Don’t read it out loud, It will completely change its meaning if you do.” “It must be one hell of an incomplete poem you wrote in one word,” She said, Taking one step back and unfolding it the second time. She knew of my dementia. I guess she couldn’t be sure it did not hit a higher notch. There it was, In all its majesty, My one word beautiful, amazing, thrilling poem... Oh, yes, and mesmerizing. She looked at it for one full hour, Reading and re-reading and then re-re-reading the one word gloriously decorating the middle of the fold... you Drip, drip, drip, dropped her tears. Finally, I sighed, happiest than ever. Finished. “Thank you,” I said. “For what?” she asked, uncertain. “For punctuation.”

• back to list   • back   • next

A Daisy In Winter?... or Punctuation Marks And as I was drifting away to sleep Old Mount Everest started curving the white nape of its neck bowing its head towards an ever bulging belly And then, when it finally reached that impossible shape It lifted itself in one supreme effort to rest upon that gigantic round rock sculpted in place by my questioning imagination. And as I was drifting away back into my day A figure emerged from my dissipating dream Puny, tiny, sturdy, And with a grimace turning grin on her face Pitted her back against that monstrous round boulder And with one single heave shoved it out of way Letting a surprised Everest fall back onto its stony pedestal Its head jumping back up straight The terrible quake moving Earth one mile away from its lifelong orbit. I looked at her as she winked and was about to soak back into my chest, Red of hair, rude of mouth, beautiful... “Hey, what did you just do?” I called out Just as one of her legs started dissipating inside me. “I just changed your friggin’ question mark into one friggin’ exclamation mark,” she answered, Her other leg and half of her belly already absorbed. “Hurry up if you have any more silly questions, I have some friggin’ lovin’ to catch up with...” Half of her torso disappearing as well. “An exclamation mark? All I see is a huge mountain pillar There is no dot underneath it.” Her head was still out, One arm as well. She touched her mouth with one finger Then put it on my mouth Pulling it fast away before I had time to bite it, Then laughed shrilly. “Look underneath you.” I looked under the bed. “No, no, silly, Earth, the whole of the friggin’ Earth is the dot under the exclamation mark. Oh, and I left you a present...” Then she disappeared. I still heard some thumping inside my ribs cage, She was probably catching up with some laundry, hanging some pictures, Then finally I heard her sigh contentedly as she fell into an exhausted coma called sleep. I woke up. Peed, showered, shaved, ate, dressed, Maybe in a different order, Picked absent mindedly the daisy from my pillow... ...a daisy in winter?... stuck it in my shirt’s buttonhole And got into the car. The blister on my lip bothered me less than the music which was blaring from inside my chest. I wonder, should I go to a psychologist or to a cardiologist? I murmured to myself, And a dissonant echo... those French cars... seemed to answer ...or simply accept the music. Well, I guess I will finally end up with a visit to the motorologist ...being a smartass poet, ha... ie garage, Something was definitely right with the echo in this car. I kissed the daisy and started driving disregarding the second blister now on my lip.

• back to list   • back   • next

Just An Illusion In the desert of my need I saw you Far away, real, I crawled up to you I hung on to your skirt’s hem and pulled myself up Feeling your body underneath, Your warmth, Your reality of being. And then, when I tried to drink my life back from your lips And my arms hugged your body I fell through you. You were, after all, just an illusion.

• back to list   • back   • next

The Theory Of Imperfect Imperfections To each their own. Mine? Waking up next to you.

• back to list   • back   • next

Duels “Sorry, I have to do something gross,” you apologized And blew your nose. I blew my nose in empathy, Making a big show out of it and dropped the tissue in the same waste basket. You looked at me obliquely, uncertain if it was mockery or love. Ouch. The bread knife slid from the loaf nicking your finger. You made a pouting face sucking the bleeding fingertip in your mouth. I took the same knife, chose the same spot and nicked my fingertip in the same manner Then took hold of your finger and put both in my mouth, licking the sore spots. Again that strange look, vampire? love? then some understanding started penetrating into it. It was when you were telling me about a world without toilet paper and I told you about a childhood of placebos going all the way from roughly sliced newspapers to industrial cardboard soaked in water that you finally asked me “It does not look like we’re having a duel... is it love?” I admired your political realism, I admired your literary acumen, your green eyes and some of your freckles, mainly the hidden ones... Some other things as well. But most of all I admired your intelligence though I could not concede. “You are sharp,” I said. “You mean intelligent.” I conceded. “Yes.” A big smile. “So it is love.” “No...” quizzical look... “it is life.” “Life is love.” “No, love is life.” “Sharp.” “Intelligent.” You conceded only after I pinched you in a soft spot. “Yes.” Then “Are we having a duel?” “No, we are having love.” “Life.” “Sharp.” “Intelligent.” “Yes.” Oh, that inverse rainbow which suddenly shone between your lips. “Thank you,” I added. “For what?” “For life.” “For love...” you hastily covered my mouth as I was about to say it “... and life.” “Sharp,” I said. You decided to break the pattern. We made love.

• back to list   • back   • next

Latin Nonsense Tell me of those words uncertain Hind your glinting eyelids curtain And I’ll strike memento mori With the stolen morning’s glory From your eye’s seraphic quarry. Share with me those questions churning In your cheeks red falter burning Ultima necat I’ll parry When your cheek my lips will marry Seeding sun inside your cherry. Ask me tales beyond your worry Depths your chest betraying flurry Join me carpe diem raving In your chest the beat engraving Our passion’s insane craving.

• back to list   • back   • next

Monoliths Looking into the green landscape The storm having left damp traces of beauty insane behind, Blinked away salt crystallizing into bi-dimensional sculptures devoid of height yet so rich of glitter as the river dies and white flowers remindful of inarticulate snowflakes paint a random tapestry on your cheek, The canvas to your heart stretching thin upon your cheekbone easel. You are beautiful. How many said it? Like the sand grains in your handful. How many said it every waking moment meaning every single intonation of vowel and inflection of sound? You are looking at him. I love you. I dip my right forefinger in my mouth And start wiping away the randomly shaped monolith from your cheek without asking permission. Permissions are not needed between us, We simply know. Then, when I finish the right cheek I move on to the left cheek As your finger in turn touches the moisture of my lips Ascertaining our reality By tasting it. You seem satisfied with the conclusion Since you smile Sucking your finger again And for an inebriating moment the green landscape plays havoc with my mind as it roves chameleon like through blue through grey then back to green. You know how you are doing it, You know how to do it, You accept my offer of ultimate adoration when you dip your right forefinger in your mouth And start wiping away the randomly shaped monolith from my cheek without asking permission.

• back to list   • back   • next

Ribbon Wraps Pour your flowers nightingale, Scarlet ribbons grace your tail, Bid the playful sunrays in Sinking anchors in your skin And to dreamscapes setting sail.       Nightingale? Me? With a tail? Uncertain smile.       No, of course not. Just a lousy metaphor.       Lousy metaphor? Me? No ribbons? Pout.       Thin ice. I tried stepping on my toes       forgetting that my weight remains the same. Slip into my dream gazelle, Three your ribbons one your bell, Watch this rhyming playful skunk In your fragrance getting drunk Building runes your love to tell.       Gazelle? Me? With a bell? Uncertain smile.       No, of course not. Lousy idea.       Lousy idea? Me? No ribbons? Pout.       The ice was certainly cracking under my feet,       I was losing control       watching the cracks run all the way to the shore.       Nowhere to run. Girl of poems thousand score, Ribbons-dressed your reaching lore, Guide my hand through lover’s art As my words besiege your heart Till your lips turn bleeding sore.       You seemed to contemplate.       Hmm...       Girl? Me? With poems? Smile.       I knew if I opened my mouth I would find a foot stuck into it.       So I shut up.       Icy water started seeping up through the cracks       Licking already at my feet       Just as a terrible splintering noise       told me my next kingdom was going to be a frozen one.       Her thumb and forefinger picked me up by her favorite ear,       my right,       And pulled me straight inside her robes.       Finally.       I cuddled inside her warmth barely hearing her mumble       as to herself...       Hmm... Lore? Art? Heart?...       I kind of like the idea of tying it all in ribbons.       And she started wrapping narrow scarlet ribbons around us.       I dared, risking everything...       And love?... I whispered from inside the cocoon.       And love... I heard her echoing.       I was saved,       Her hand not for one moment stopping       the ribbon wrapping motion       around us.

• back to list   • back   • next

Carnality When we then meet, When we then kiss, Then... Your lower lip hangs on leftovers of drooling flesh dangling down to your belly button Your teeth uprooted and splinters cascading down your throat My tongue invading your mouth and shooting down to your stomach boiling there in the hell of your yesterday’s pepperoni pizza leftovers and your love.       When I then meet you,       When I then kiss you,       Then...       I suck your lungs into my mouth       accumulated silica filling my mouth and cutting my lip to slivers       I bite holes into your collapsing cheeks       the sudden air rush freezing my teeth into exploding pellets       My inviting throat sending over the snake of my tongue       pulling yours away from its roots and sending it into the hell       of my yesterday’s pepperoni pizza leftovers       and my love. As you then give in, As you then lie naked underneath me, Then... Your rib ends push backwards exiting along both sides of your spine Your breasts pulled behind my back nipples tied to each other in a triple sailors knot My one dragon army invading your boiling marshland deflagrating its way upwards until it meets the flaming rests of my tongue and your love.       As I then give in,       As I then lie naked underneath you,       Then...       I lock my fingers behind your back squashing our ribs       till sharp ends penetrate my locked arms piercing my wrists       I stretch my breasts in an agony of giving       nailing your body to mine inside an unbreakable bond of flesh       My inviting lair radiating my femininity pheromones       luring the beast to the devastating landscape of carnage       of the flaming rests of your tongue       and my love.

• back to list   • back   • next

All Marks, Then One Remember when beneath the silk My probing fingers’ questing sin Encountered craves of sister ilk Upon the landscapes of your skin?       If I remember getting born?       If I remember getting torn       From skylights rich in flowers’ seed,       Your flaring breath through flaming need       My only greed? Remember promises we carved With fingers’ tips and fingers’ nails The growling flesh since ages starved About to whip with thousand tails?       If I remember hunger’s sting?       If I remember desert’s spring       Invading world’s ascending skies       Then laying mists of green goodbyes       Inside my eyes? Remember canopies of wool And oceans deep of linen white And tears abundant as we spool The minutes round the pass of night?       If I remember all that was?       I don’t, I won’t, I shan’t because       It never was my summer’s breeze,       My cheer, my tear, my purple seas       It ever... is.

• back to list   • back   • next

Crayzeelee The pain of after Reflecting in the beauty of now * My bird, the lark. My flower, lilac. My animal, dog. And your woman? she asked. I cried nonstop for three days filling up three huge beer mugs. Then I got up looking at her sadly, left enough money on the table to cover the tab and a generous tip “If you don’t know by now You will always not know...” flipped over the Slade record in my head letting the needle drop in the “Mama Weer All Crazee Now” groove and made for the door. “Wait!” the empress commanded and I waited. “If you don’t know by now You will always not know...” she quoted me saying as I turned around. “Sit down!” the empress commanded and I sat down. She picked up the first mug and downed it in one single lengthy gulp. Then the second one. The third. She burped lightly... “sorry, too much salt...” then started shuffling the tarots pack with a smooth continuous motion. “Witchcraft?” I asked. “Fate,” she answered. “Will you cheat?” I asked. “Never you,” she answered. “Can you stop the sun?” “No, but I can stop the moon,” and she did a small motion with her little finger. I looked out the window, The half moon turning full then half again. She smiled apologetically, “Sorry, wrong spell, Memory problems...” then handed me the cards pack. “So you can cheat,” I insisted. “Never you,” she repeated. I picked up the pack. “What now?” “Take out a card. Write on it. Put it back in.” I took a card, wrote on it, put it back in. “Take out a card. Write on it. Put it back in.” I took a card, wrote on it, put it back in. “Take out a card. Write on it. Put it back in.” I took a card, wrote on it, put it back in. She hesitated. I slid the pack towards her. She did not touch them. “Take out a card. Write on it. Put it back in.” I took a card, wrote on it, put it back in. “Now shuffle while I go for a pee, All this drinking...” I shuffled. Then I stood up, picked some paper napkins, entered the “Ladies Room” and pushed them under the closed door. I got back to my desk, shuffling. She returned, blushed. “How did you know?” I did not know. I was done crying. I wanted to know. “Stop!” the empress commanded and I stopped. “Pull out a card!” the empress commanded and I pulled. Then a second one. A third. She hesitated. I slid the pack towards her. She did not touch them. She asked a fourth time. I pulled a fourth card. She removed the ring from her finger laid it between us at the geometrically absolute gravity center of the table Removed the ring from my finger laid it exactly atop of hers. Closed her eyes. Turned her back. “Turn up the first card. Lark.” I was angry. Turned the first card. My handwriting. Lark. “Turn up the second card. Lilac.” I was not angry. Turned the second card. Lilac. “Turn up the third card. Dog.” I was anxious. Turned the third card. Dog. One card left to turn, I knew where it was leading, I hoped. “Turn up the fourth card.” She did not say anything. She did not know. My hand shaking. I turned up the fourth card. Joker. Nothing. “I don’t know your woman,” she said, “I am witch, I obey fate.” She cried nonstop for three days filling up three huge beer mugs. Then she got up looking at me sadly, “If we don’t know by now We will always not know...” and made for the door. I broke the record in my head. “Wait!” I commanded and she waited. “If we don’t know by now We will know now. The moon obeys you. Fate obeys us.” I gulped down the three mugs. I picked up the Joker and jotted on it the one word. You The rings blazed. Melted. Split. I slid hers on my finger. She slid mine on her finger. The fragrance of burning flesh inebriating, intoxicating. “Did you cheat?” she asked. “Never you,” I answered. We heard the news in the background, Something about the moon. It was irrelevant. We married. * The beauty of now

• back to list   • back   • next

Beauty, Ahead Of You Beauty ahead of you, anticipating your next inhalation and filling the air with drops of aromatic sunbeads and crushed jasmine petals tinted the yellow pollen of white lilies and angry bees and sounds of larks gurgling their morning throats to saturation with exploding tiny water pebbles And as you break through the curtains of air veiling the nakedness of your skin sliding through it for the interminable bliss of one moment Beauty behind of you, sowing inside the clapping vacuum your next exhalation the tangled filigree of a sunbeam thread slowly sinking inside the one drop rain gliding off a curled leaf the dust pellets bursting open into unfurling jasmine petals the trill five octaves higher than the bark of bats converging into the celestial symphony of skin’s sensations And as I touch you the beauty vanishes inside me and timeless love poems paint the insides of my flesh cavern

• back to list   • back   • next

Just A Scene I watched your profile as you turned the steering wheel away from me, All I could see was a mop of hair a piece of ear some of your neck, Then you turned the steering wheel towards me Your eyes leaving the road for a few parts of a second caressing my face, Adding a smile which hid again behind that mop of hair insistently blocking my view as the car rolled again the other way. Snippets of fragments of crumbs of memories Assailing in tireless waves my waking moments. I refuse to close my eyes, There is no need, My other mind independently counting strands of red hair and denying ridiculous claims of missing the count on purpose so that it can start counting anew again and again... Yeah, ridiculous...

• back to list   • back   • next

Moments Your finger Touching the side of my mouth Collecting bits of humidity fed moments later to the tip of your tongue Then returning the favor by feeding its tip to my mouth. I taste it, imitating your gesture, then I let it curl around my index finger and guide my palm’s heel to linger close to your nipple’s exploding presence through the satin as your other hand searches for convoluting shapes lower down on my body penetrating between cloth and skin and sliding further while tips of tongues lead us dancing into world war three of the senses keeping the biting gates open as we exchange massive loads of saliva tinted with pulsating drops of blood and breath.

• back to list   • back   • next

Whirlwind The whirlwind In the middle of the torrid and sleepy day Who suddenly dived out of the inexistent clouds Ripping your buttons Tearing your shirt along the double seam Your underwear billowing till it exploded leaving for moments short the beauty of your skin within its sight and tender grasp. And as you gasped for more it disappointed you laying back in place your satins then your cottons then your silks and the only souvenir of momentary hurricane the jasmine seeds hanging there inside your red curls. “Who? You mean to say Which,” you say. “Which? I mean to say Who,” I say, remembering the infinite care with which I planted those seeds smelling the future aromas of your body before retreating into my invisible cloud, dreaming.

• back to list   • back   • next

In Abstract Ways Born In your body, In your hand, When the dough of my flesh oozes out reluctantly between your fingers outside of your fist as it closes upon the crust hosting the steaming remains of my screaming desire. Rubber ball pieces of soul thump on the sidewalk bounding about aimlessly behind the strange procession composed of your red flame fluttering in waves about your shoulders and enveloping my stumbling disintegrating frame following you attached at finger and heart and breath. Like Siamese twins. Like love. I love you in so many words and ways. One single. Absolute. I will die once our fingers separate and hearts beat a double rhyme and hurricane turns breath again chasing the rubber balls in a desert called life. Knowing I will be born yet again the moment your fingers squash once more the dough of my flesh and let drops of it trickle between your lips.

• back to list   • back   • next

Soap Bubbles Murders Soap bubbles, floating above the hot water as I sink to the depths of the tub and let them glide down my skin in singles, then in packs trying to hang on then giving up and after exploding their quiet mad disappointment into my eyes... burning... I sink my finger into the biggest, its molecular thin surface stretching inwards allowing my finger to penetrate its impenetrable shell the first ever, the last ever to touch that one timely sacred domain of its uniqueness and live. I close my eyes. You. That fragile balance between reality and dream so vulnerable to air drafts and sighs and sudden moves and inattention and love, which will it be, how will it be? I carry the breathing, undulating creature to my pillow lay it on the linen with the care of building a life in an uterus denied to me and know that tomorrow when I wake up it will still be there... or not, if it does not want to. “You have the strangest ways to tell me that you love me,” you say. “You quote yourself,” I say. “Still true,” you say. “I have the strangest ways to love you,” I say. “Ways?...” “Way!” I stand corrected and I add “Like none before.” “What about after?” you ask, hesitating. “There is no after,” I answer and you know and you let me touch your eyelash with my lips licking away a crumb of sunlit dust. I watch the bubble stretching its colors upon my skin then soaking in then dissipating into my blood. I know that next time I cut myself I will smell lilac and jasmine. You pick a needle and prick your finger reaching out to my nostrils... oh, the lilac and jasmine fragrances... “So you too are a soap bubble murderer,” I say. “Yes,” you answer, “there is no after.” I fall asleep in your lap never letting go of the bleeding finger you slide between the left ends of my lips.

• back to list   • back   • next

That Body That body, In its shadow Venus de Milo hardly a bony teenager La Gioconda’s eyes a study in sarcasm And Juliet but a shrew, That body Divinity Writhing in inferno’s agony. Let me anoint myself on your skin’s dunes Inside your eyes’ irises In the depths of your mind’s crevices And rock you into the bliss of eternal caress and green fields and wisdom Which are yours by right and beauty. I love you.

• back to list   • back   • next

Vision? What About... Love? Sitting in my lap, Legs dangling beyond the easy chair’s arms rest Fingers twined tightly at the nape of my neck with your forehead resting in the cozy nook between shoulder and unshaven chin while I sneeze repeatedly as savage hair rebels invest my nose. “Sing me a song,” you beg. “I just did.” “No, you just sneezed...” I sneeze again, “A song.” “Promise not to turn stone?” “Promise to turn stone if you don’t.” I spit on my fingers and stick the rebels to your scalp, That’s better, no more sneezing, And I start singing Paul Anka’s “Put Your Head on my Shoulder”. “I hate Paul Anka.” “I love Paul Anka.” “I love Paul Anka.” Everything around me turns stone, No wonder, if I keep singing the seas will dry and gold will turn plastic. You turn flesh, Then honey, Then skin to my skin like skin you engulf me, “I love you,” I hear my voice out of tune with the out of tune song, You don’t answer, busy not turning stone, Chuckling from time to time as I hit a desperate note, And skin finally turns fireflies blinking like crushed diamonds upon the uncovered parts of my body. “I love you,” you finally answer, Metamorphosis complete, And my singing matters not as first morning rays find a smoldering crater where leftovers of trickling lava follow the fire monster home to earth’s fulminating heart. “Fire,” my scorched throat whispers hoarsely while I keep rocking you in my arms. “Love,” you respond singing the fire straight into my bones.

• back to list   • back   • next

Love Its Name we married, we touched, we burned, the seed inside me swelling growing blooming into shapes of transparent toes kicking hard my belly from the inside pain wedding sweetness as rhyming fragrances evade my mouth the echo of a newborn’s heart penetrating insistently inside the rhyme... “wait... your belly?... you are the male...” i touch your nose with my ringed finger making certain it sparkles, blinding your eye. “this is our couple, unique, this is our marriage, unique, this is our child Love its name, unique, growing in my belly sucking its life from my flesh, my blood, my urge, pieces of me in it, and pieces of you, and the rest of... us.” you let my finger linger on the tip of your nose, uncertain if to move your head up and bite it or lower your head and let it draw designs on your forehead. “Love, what a beautiful name you chose for it...” “Love, what a beautiful name we chose for it...” i see mountains reflecting in your eyes as rivers swim upwards defying gravitation and the laws of nature and the laws of man and green pours into rainbows defying colors and the laws of nature and the laws of man “and how do i know i am the mother?” you ask defying evolution and the laws of nature and the laws of man. i know that depending on my answer your head will move up biting my finger off or down allowing it to draw phrases copied from the ring onto your forehead. “you will know once i give birth and rip away the umbilical cord from my body and see Love suckling tomorrows from my breast and growing into a wondrous creature of softness unknown and warmth unmatched.” “and how do i know i am the mother?” you repeat. “you will know once you allow it to cuddle against you and its softness unknown touch you and its warmth unmatched seep into you.” “and how do i know i am the mother?” you repeat patiently, for the last time. “you will know it once it learns to speak and your patience will carry you to that day when unteached it will say its first word ever, and it will call you... mom.” my finger did not move. your head moved down allowing the fingertip to touch your forehead and i start copying there the magic of the words from our ring.

• back to list   • back   • next

Brush Strokes Stretch your toes, Stretch them, More, thinner, Let me fit wads of rolled cotton wool between them and then paint images of pagan art on each single toenail ignorantly, patiently, leisurely, Hypnotizing brush strokes turning each into a masterpiece of green winds and glowing roots and crawling flowers and love words in languages ancient unknown to all but you and me, the first and last of lovers. The thin brush misses a spot and touches the flesh between your toes once, then again... is it on purpose?... I guess it is, My hand dragging it up to your ankle then beyond leaving a trail of red bubbling wine drops in its wake gliding, skidding, Then I shudder and return crestfallen to another toes-bordered valley And move again up your ankle and beyond this time the trail fermenting with your sweet rot of jasmine and my deeper rot of lilac steaming up from your flesh in true emulation of summer god’s incense... I actually wonder who emulates whom when the fragrance hits my sensory systems and I start disintegrating into love particles soaking past your skin barrier. I reach your inner thighs, Dip the brush in green nail polish, then in an overturned honey jar And leave spots of solidifying yellow dew with green hearts all over the forest I earlier on painted with the tip of my tongue around the tips of hair not closely shaven and the amorphous freckles blushing with virginal pride decorum upon the sun burned landscape surrounding that pale isle shaped like my fingers’ spread. And there where the thigh flows into your belly I run the brush gently again and again. You sigh. I bend over your belly button and let a drop of mint flavored saliva drop in its depth, You squirm for a second as it burns your skin and cuts down through your flesh through your entrails exiting with a hiss trough the skin stretched upon your spine, Then I dip the brush in the blood stained mixture and paint sun rays stretching all the way to your nipple and beyond Letting the light blind me as I repeat the move to the other nipple, Then upwards cutting your lips in four and your forehead in two, Then downwards splitting your body into an agonizing left side and an agonizing right side screaming the tender woes of love. “I never knew love,” you say. “I never knew love,” I echo your teaching as I start brushing undulating dragon tails from the roots of your hair down your neck and all the way back down to heels ending in those divinely shaped toes where adventure was born. “How do I look?” you ask, Your chest a thundering gale. “I don’t know, I am merely a one dimensional painter. How does one describe the countless dimensional depths of beauty?” I answer, My chest a thundering gale. “A single drop of this love in the ocean and the ocean will boil itself dry,” you say, As your big toe wanders purposefully into my mouth. “That’s why no drop of this love will ever touch a thing but you,” I answer, Chewing my way purposefully from the toe up.

• back to list   • back   • next

Letter To William S Little me, Too little to say the right words in the right order to the right effect, When she cuts, she bleeds Were the words said by you, master, Not those but like those, Not about her but about humanity, Not today... I wish you lived today to say these words To sing her praise To see the flesh behind the steel in pain, bleeding, So soft the human on the pedestal, So deep the love encrusted inside the powerful fist, I wish your words were about her Because she is the one to be sung about and praised and remembered in sonnets ageless. Little me, I wish you wrote these lines, master, Because she is worthy of your words and memories eternal.

• back to list   • back   • next

That Raging Kiss Desire crawls to restless sleep Through pulsing burrows tinted red As pollen stars long furrows rip Inside the liquid cotton bed. The silence. Breath entwined with breath, A sleeping breast inside a fist, A moment lost in tender death Time sizzling sweat turns salty mist. The furnace waits, the charred remains Of moans unleashed just minutes old Still smolder, lame, between the grains Of sparkling drops of molten gold. A stir, a piercing ray of dawn Ignites one spot of bluish lip While morning moths begin to yawn And liqueur sighs begin to drip. Upon the skin a ripple’s glide Betrays the end of lovers’ peace When storm’s ascending rolling tide Awakes once more that raging kiss, Desire finds its pace anew Its manner dressing dragon’s flair And lambent flames the flesh imbue With tingles sweet and pleasures bare.

• back to list   • back   • next

Stones I lay on the sand, Naked, After having loved you... No, wrong phrasing, After having loved each other. Hmmm... oops... wrong again, We still love each other... ... after having satiated our carnal desires with quivering chunks of smoldering flesh fanned into glowing red by the sirocco dying slowly inside our lungs... “Too long.” “What was that?” “Too long,” you repeated from your position of superiority sitting cross legged and naked on my chest, Eyes closed, arms stretched to your sides, Morning dew hanging indecently to your nipples’ tips and refusing to part, As you interrupted your mantra’s incessant aumm...ing to cut me with your snide remark. “And they will laugh at it...” “But it is true.” “They don’t know...” the aumm... back in swing. “You are heavy, I can hardly breathe,” I said a few minutes later, Meaning it And meaning also to distract your attention. It was a lost battle, we both knew it, You gloating and I panting. “Too long. And I prefer drenched rather than satiated.” I started rewinding the words in my mind, Trying to fit my text to your command and eyeing worriedly a pair of scorpions approaching, Deciding this was no business of their own And parting wagging their tails dog fashion. Strange dessert. Magical. If it wasn’t for the sharp stone under the small of my back and the thistle stuck deeply into my shoulder blade... “What was that?” you quoted my open question to my hidden thought. “Nothing,” I lied, Refusing to part with the fire of pain and pleasure. “Nice combination, not very original, pain and pleasure.” The aumm... stopped. “Turn around,” you commanded Sitting on the sand next to me Still cross legged and stretch armed... How did you do that, did you float there? I obeyed. You started peeling off sand grains from my skin, Bit out the dry thistle with a bit of flesh attached... ouch... Pulled away a few stones from the small of my back and lay on them motioning me on top of you. “Your turn,” you said, Smiling. “Why?” I asked stupidly. “I want to feel...” you answered not finishing the sentence and pulling my mouth to embrace the sand of your lips. The dew drops were long gone, as was the sun, the scorpions, the pain. The pleasure persisted, unending. I looked around us at the battle field accommodating the thrashing traces of our bodies, Irregular glints reflecting the partial moon and dressing the sand with a starlike appearance. “What is it?” I asked. “Glass puddles,” you answered, Where were you when the fire devastated me?” “Lost?” I dared. “Good answer. Borders on acceptable.” We lay there, hugging, Frozen drops’ glints adding a different hue to the glass glints and a few coyotes galloping by leaving steaming pieces of fog hanging in the air disturbance before floating slowly like fog cotton down to the ground. I picked the crumbs of once upon a time stones crushed underneath us and set them on your belly button between your toes on your forehead. “What are you doing, is it a ceremony of some kind?” It took me some time to balance two pieces on the tips of your nipples, and after finally succeeding I sat down next to you waiting for it to happen. “Goddess...” I breathed watching the seeds sprout and flowers open and moon rays soaking into your alighting flesh, “I love you.”

• back to list   • back