Falling In Love, #4

Blue Nude, Henri Matisse, 1952, oil on canvas

The winter slowly melts on the city.

I saw a kingfisher today, maybe for
the first time in my life, and I don't
know which type yet, maybe Alcedo
atthis, but I know it was beautiful,
and trust me I know beautiful when I see it
I know how words are forgotten
                       questions abandoned
                            worlds disregarded
I know how the excitement builds in;

that time you thought you'd pass
the sea all alone, but a friend finds
you out of nowhere, or maybe the
kingfisher, or why not both? And
you think of who's left and what's left
behind, of nights spent thinking on
being thought back, of the mother
that fed first from her stomach and
then fed on. I know how badly I want you
to go to a bakery with me, or to a Pâtisserie
(but do you like French? the stuck up,
the erotic?) or to some other place at the
other end of the world and so on and
so forth. A barbershop would work -- I'd
get a haircut, and you'd wait sitting behind
on sticky leather sofas reading some
magazine, and I'd glance quickly shyly: your face
on a barbershop mirror, and you'd look too,
and our eyes would meet, and then
our smiles, and then your blush, and then
the barber asks how is it? beautiful.

For now, I am content to watch
the cold cracking through the crevices in
frosted windows and through your skin, you
jabbing your chin to the glorious breastbone
and the kingfisher seeking a chimney to
                                                          nestle by.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at Her Lips

The Kiss, Edvard Munch, 1897, oil on canvas

The Kiss, Edvard Munch, 1897, oil on canvas

An ode for the infinite space between

"making love and love made"

I

Of all the things that move on Earth,

and of Earth itself, the only two that         

clung

were her lips.

II

As a body leaning

into another is a sin,

and as the sin is an

occasion of celebration,

if the blood flows to her lips.

III

Her lips, too, fall

yet it’s the common

courtesy of muses.

IV

(Except for maybe when

the 21^st century machinery is too tired

to endure the metallic cry

and our souls like sleek industrial cogs

desire to go up & up & up

o how? how would they know?

of heaven’s rosy and timid gates?)

V

The universe revolves nonetheless,

and with it, us, and with us, our gazes,

and our gazes around her lips.

VI

entangled

he says

entangled to the blood

are the lips

and the hands

and entangled must be

the lips and the hands

too

her lips untangle.

VII

I am of many minds,

yet all seem to flee the brain:

her lips like time.

VIII

Dusk in Canaan,

the dust not yet settled,

my heart:

the oracle of a love

that never yet was

but surely will be.

IX

There are earthlier things

like the stuff that moves

in the hunter’s hands

and breathes warmly;

her lips the beast stripped

of the fur and the fury,

her hips alike.

X

We fall

amidst the leaves of fall,

and cling together: Sun

lights up her lips, the color

that fall leaves have.

XI

Her lips were childbirth,

mortality, endless veins,

the circle of life, the inverted

pyramid of priorities, and

among many other things

herald of something eternal

like the bird that sings the spring.

XII

The spring blooms, and with it

terrible lovers! Terrible lovers

everywhere! Under the trees!

In reflections! Between minds!

Terrible lovers! Her lips alive

through the seasons, except for

maybe the harsh winter that

cracks it open. In those cracks,

terrible lovers! What good

is a lover not terrified?

XIII

And on the eighth day,

they created the dimples,

the smile, the red and the white

and the everything in between

the cheeks, and fields of rye

the color of her hair and the sea

and everything else.

Alternative Perspectives on Blackbirds

XIV

The road curling into
a rosy pastel horizon;
blackbird above,
quest forever strayed.

XV

As a man leaning out
from another is a sin,
and as the sin is an
occasion of celebration,
if blackbird's by the windowsill.

XVI

A wind broke out
from morn to eve,
from eve to morn;
yet with the leaves torn
I heard only flaps.

XVII

Giraffes jumped onto one another,
monkeys with fuss and panthers with
a massacre -- lions were cannibals,
yet the blackbird needed not the ark.

XVIII

For those of us who still read:
Beyond the twenty mountains
which did not move today
moved a blackbird.

XIX

As she decides for the third time,
As the clocks point to the voyage,
As the road is still worn at places,
As the occult still emancipates fear:
She refuses to pick partners --
for there'll always be the blackbird.

XXI

When the day is cold and the night gets colder,
When you know that you'd rather silently grow older,
Toots the blackbird: The words you always hear
"Grass grows green.": a moment away from the bier.

XXII

Blackbird, too, falls
yet 'tis the common
courtesy of muses.

XXIII

Your hair and eyes are
better off not existing,
for it allures all the gaze away
from the blackbird.

And the blackbird is jealous.

XXIV

To crown the perception with thought:
Human acuity.
To tread into dewy winter air, unspotted:
Blackbird promiscuity.

XXV

A universe of him is still a universe.
A universe of her is still a universe.
A universe of them is still a universe.

A universe with them and the blackbird:
that just might lie somewhere farther.

XXVI

entangled
he says
entangled to the blood
are the lips
and the hands

and entangled must be
the lips and the hands
too

falls a blackbird
unentangled.

XXVII

A sound far away
amid two oceans:
Asks of the daily routine --

what good are routines
when the blackbird sings
whenever he wishes?

XXVIII

Here's a problem
blackbird never had:

what would
adam and eve do
if genitals didn't fit?

XXXIX

For we still rejoice
a good story under the sycamores,
dozed off by the midday sun;
and for the song of the blackbird
is still a story worth hearing

we live.

XXX

A busy spring afternoon
by the sea -- no glare,
no fire and no flare:

blackbird winds by the city:
oracle of a love that
never yet was
but sure will be.

The Delicate Interior of the Everyman's Mind

like clocks that need readjustment
yet are too good to drop off
into a trash bin right outside a mall
where the wrappers of yesterday's burgers lie

like clocks that wait until the night is heavy
heavier than your eyelids
and acts at the deepest point of your dream
to not show the correct time anymore

or like that one clock
whose second hand stops on the 57th twice

the boy now wants to be a poet
but oh lord cannot put two words three words together

you should have seen him
swirling on grass
as if tomorrow was granted
and today already past

you should have seen him
dreaming of talking over coffee and cigarettes
wondering if she also dreams
the tale everyone is so fond of telling

the one that where you were supposed to be together
into and after death
like stars that refuse to fall from the ever-growing space

or that one tale that they keep to themselves
hushed mute like a stopped clock
that men, like wrappers end up
with stubs of cigarettes, the thought of smoke
and the cold remains in the cup

you should have seen her
translucent like a greasy wrapper
slowly planning her fall

What the Telegram Said

Now when the days pass around

the corners of stars behind clouds

and the sun levels outs its corners

to make the message more clear

I remember that I've forgotten names

Memory is lucid: faces without names

names without faces, enemies, loves

and what I really meant when I swore

to Edna that her infatuations were

safe enough to hold on while crossing

to death. Prayers are feeble under light

whether the light of Hell or the light of

the levelled-out Sun, and disappointments

are easier with every lonely second in bed. 

But are resurrected ambitions vivid as were

the hopes of salvation of love and do

we forget what we've sworn or prayed

for every time we look into the sun

as does Edna with hers?

Ode to Half Cups of Tea

I have of late
pondered: when did I stop wanting to be president?

when was I from my mother womb untimely ripped?
was it ever timely? how much do you want for bliss?
how much for solitude? how much for the feelings
emancipated from spring clouds after a day in the park?

listen: the silence of things that are bound to happen!
spring comes screaming downhill! terrible lovers! terrible
lovers everywhere! spring blooms everywhere, and with it
the terrible lovers: under the trees, on the hills, in the mirror!

think: what good is a lover who isn't terrified? what good is
a love that does not incur thirst for more? articulate:

words leave your lips, and from your lips into eternity, and
from there into mortality, and from there into the beloved's ears,
and words for a lifetime: for a minute's kiss.

conceive: leaves fall, fall leaves. I saw a street once,
ironically named Heartfelt, just know: there are no Heavens
on Earth -- especially not in apartments. Lenin was fond

of systems; our systems are fond of antitrust; your system
of tender turbulence. Just know: for everything

you do, and I do, there'll be a partner, but
two are done alone:
death and porn.

Life on the Slow Lane

A detached life is a thing of

meritocracy: None inherited it,

and no father was cruel enough

to pass it in primogeniture. Think:

It is about earned solitude,

wishing the unwished, submitting

in caution until all surprise is lost.

A detached life is a gift, not holy

like the smooch of the Virgin on Joseph's

consolatory cheeks, not unholy

like the thought of masturbation

on an arid August morning. It defies

divinity, borders on the blasphemous,

yet is such detached not to do it

with any sacrilegious intent. The detached

life is not aware, and the whole effort

of cognizance is directed towards reserving

the numbness. However, it is no lethargy:

the detached is in constant struggle to

connect, to hang onto, to dangle from;

living it is no virtue. There's nothing

virtuous or moral about liking to detach 

or discontent thereof. It is a matter 

only realized when reflected, and the 

reflection is the illusion of attachment. 

I too, am connected now.

to the Apple

For you we were
from heavens banish'd,

and with only just sex
I am content -- but that is
not what i look for.

Yes, they know me,
and yes, I know them back.

An Elegiac for the Sight of New York City from Jersey

for Charon, and a preemptive mournful cry for Alperen Elibol  
On the day he died
they served no dry rice
and I decided that
I would stop eating
corn flakes for breakfast;
the captain's children looked
unhappy - never were too happy -
and the rest of the city
decided 'twas a good day
to sleep in. Not a tear was shed:
no drum-rolls, no bangs, no whys,
no exclamations that scrape
the ears -- only whimpering
reservation. I took a look
at him, and at my father, a dry
man in his dry years with a dried
out brain, and the notion that
everything was meant to dry
and no wetness reserved, not
for the crying eyes, not for
satisfied vaginas, not for seaweed,
not even for the lilacs. I was wet
but only merely, and on the day
I took a look at my hands,
and the death that lied between
the lines of my hand -- within
the palm, troubling the cells.

On the day he died, everyone
took a look at death, none cared,
as if death was a parent that would
come and pick you up and you
were the lonely boy at the
school's playground waiting
shamefully for your parents
to pick you up, who are so very
loveless and so very biological.

On the day he died, or passed 
away, for those of you who are
politically correct and fundamentally
wrong, the museums were closed --
young girls' lips and laps alike.

On the day he died, he did not
cease to be, and I realised that
never was existing such a hefty
task. Life on the other side of
Styx was no different than the
animated. I could not keep it. I cried.

Couronne Cinquain de la Société

They do

take what you love the most away

only to leave you with

a memory

of grief.

No one

ever stood a chance, nor detest

the confiscationists,

of whom many

were blind.

It is

not the eye that demands, but the

intestinal movement

and the stomach

skirling.

Take the

advice if you will, and get laid

before time gets to you,

and beds too old

for crunch.

Hail me,

for I am the Saint of things lost,

of the dreams abandoned,

and I will not

ring twice.

An Introduction

He was going about the place, barely skimming at anything for more than two seconds, his mind splendidly isolated from any thoughts with good or bad implications. There was a certain constant shifting of states, between a relaxed, lethargic dormancy and a self-enforced cognisance. He submitted to the sleep that offered content and salvation, but his apathy brought an ironic counterpart of guilt, and he suddenly found himself questioning his relaxed state. However, this empowering consciousness was so plastic that it was only a matter of minutes before he was sucked up in what seemed like an unending sleep. A sigh led to a dilation of pupils; the blood rushing towards his brain kept changing mind. This recursive state shift, which he regarded as a social behaviour, was independent from the physical reality: he felt the flow through sleep, breakfast, commuting, work, chatter, flirting, lunch, poetry, masturbation, TV-gazing and what not. Now, he was relentlessly circling about the house, catching a glimpse of the wearied wallpaper, the storied walnut furniture, and the bathroom door. Every now and then a part of the parquet under his feet would let out a squeak of a third state of being, but it was so ephemeral that he did not want to go mad in the pursuit of breaking out of his dual existence.

All in all, Crosby was a regular man.

He was named Mobius Humphrey Crosby, and neither Mobius nor Humphrey offered practical labels. He never adopted the idea of being called Crosby, but as all inherited features, this one was not to be trifled with.

Notes for the Day of Judgement

When William Carlos Williams wrote,
"Of the air of the coldest room it will seem to
build the hottest passions."
he was talking about it.

This is not to be withstood, for
the hottest of the days will be fiercely cold,
and there won't even be a last day
after all because the end will arrive
with night, and the sun will be
forever upset, and even then,
in the coldest of the heat
you can find inspiration. Fear not,

do not expect, and let your
greatest expectation be not expecting.

Impatience is a virtue in that it
allows the end to be pointless, and finding
the passion to fight the end 'til the end
is only existing in an endless pit of impatience.

The end is only good as long as
there's being, and ceasing to be has
no meaning without being in the first place.

So, when T.S. Eliot wrote "not
with a bang, but with a whimper"
he was talking about it. Don't
mind me talking about it. I'm
barely humanesque.