The Black Part

The Black Part

There are those photos so vivid you can see
the camera with an iris as its target reflected.

Or is it the pupil? -- Yes, the black part.
Someone clicking a shutter is captured.

Tonight, as a certain ray from the marquee lit
yours, I saw myself there. And it was no photo.

This was the real thing, the darkest part of you.
You answered a question with only your eyes.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2012 --

These Arguments

These Arguments

We have had some Academy award-winners, for sure.
And that last one had a built-in acceptance speech.
A red carpet made so because of blue hitting oxygen.

You would have drawn it from me, the very blood,
but mercy had me passing out -- a terrific screenplay.
I fainted from exertion, shouting I hate these arguments.

In the morning I awoke on the couch, and there was
a blanket around me. But I had not placed it there.
And instantly I knew, you had won yet another Oscar.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2012 --

In Lieu of Rhetoric

In Lieu of Rhetoric

To be separately evangelized is a common thing.
Tonight, together, a trifle unique.
If at any time a cosmic occurrence occurred,
would you agree it involved our eyes?

How, without a spoken word, we knew enough
to not speak one? Good listeners, we did so --
Until my faint smile was courage, and you said
The love you speak of seems very conditional.

My right hand upon your left, as lamplights
guide us home to our adulterous lair, Love --
The entirety of my being is so filled with words
that I opt for silence, and your wondrous hearing.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2012 --

Gravity Gone

Gravity Gone

You cannot press against me, bringing worry
into my leisure. This is not all I have to say --

As I think of it, the nights when your embrace
was a trick, are over. You were ever, a moon.

Using me. Granted, we all have a hidden side.
I wish I had seen yours, because what I got

was cratered. And so, un-spinning, I send you.
-- why could you not have turned toward me?

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2012 --

Scatterbrain

Scatterbrain

It was your voice, darling, rising from below
that brought me to the balcony. Lock the safe.
I do not know how to leave a room on vacation?
Lingering there, I watched you reach your chair

as someone paddled out to a then cresting wave.
Watched him ride it to a shore near your feet.
Some manner of dance session on the beach
caught my attention before I grabbed my towel.

Leaving, halfway down the hall, I remembered --
returning to 409 as the elevator arrived and left.
Without even trying to do it you show me. Always.
The three words I owe you tonight, duly earned.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2012 --

Birds

Birds

One thing about birds.
Not a one of them smiles.
Not ever.

Yet, give me wings
and I imagine my face ripping
off from the smiling alone.

Not to mention the wind itself
hollowing out my jowls
as I swoop and dive.

Defying what I know about gravity
in a macabre smile
thinking thoughts

no bird, anywhere, has
ever thunk.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2012 --

Contagious

Contagious

Again, the best day, yesterday, happened not.
Will Shakespeare would have fashioned it thus
as a grinning lover leaned forward to hear of it.
He would switch around those last two words --
creating a scenario less tragic. Adding a sense
of poetry -- diverting thoughts of rats and plague.

Truth dimmed via language. This, I allow, is a gift.
In keeping, as a curtain rises on a morrow's sun,
two words regarding your own talent warrant a bow.
My dear, I have caught from you a wanted disease.
An ever unfurrow'ed brow upon what shall come
after a shared breakfast. Your optimism infects me.

- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2012 --

Papers

Papers

I shudder to think how different things might have been.
Leaving the office five seconds later, everything ruined.
A slower elevator. A last minute phone call. A Friday off.

Thoughts on the weekend, I ran to my car, coat-whipped.
Glancing, I saw you fight with those papers, one caught.
Another, winding towards me, I grabbed without thinking.

Holding it, I watched you leave the earth several times.
Somehow you snatched up all the others, with a grace.
I walked over, handing you the most errant of them all.

You pulled a lovely shock of brunette away, to thank me.
Tonight, twenty years later, hands in that hair, I whisper.
We thank God for many things -- I thank Him for the wind.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2012 --

Blinking Light

Blinking Light

Do not be alarmed as we approach some turbulence --
The stewardess, as she handed me the pillow, smiled.
I placed it behind all of your dreams, hearing a sigh.

My own [dreams] kept looking at you, as you slept on.
The shaking did not waken you. Neither the sudden
crying of a child. The past few days have been hectic.

Beyond, the beacon of the wingtip flashed against
the dark. Hair of your nodding head mingled in the sky.
And I wondered what this must look like from below.

Someone in a yacht, sipping chablis, hearing a rumble
looks up and sees a light. Knowing nothing about a
marriage on a sandy beach, a noon from this moment.

-- common with nighttime approaches to Montego Bay.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2011 --

Feels Like Home

Feels Like Home
[For T & H]

Friends come in when everything is out.
When significant days of the year aren't
all they should be, someone in your life
knows what to do.

And if they are true, if it's real, they realize
that the important word is not know.
It is do.
I'm trying now to think of the right phrase.

A gift I can return to them.
Something that summarizes a book of
undeserved goodness. And the perfect
thing has just come to me --

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2011 --

Christmas, Eve

Christmas, Eve

Legend has it that evolution is less than a theory
or even a myth. But that begs the question --
What does legend mean?

No people on the Earth, and then one of them
listen to a snake talk. Later, she will blame Adam
for her decision.

So the story says. As coincidence would have it
only one of us bear the name of these characters.
You.

And it's Christmas, Eve. Would it be too much
for me to ask you [the kids are sleeping]
to think of me, as that apple?

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2011 --

Open Concept

Open Concept

Life. It succeeds at every attempt to throw
itself at yourself. I remember now, initially
advocating that modicum of privacy.
A keeping of one's things to one's self, with
minimal reference to architectural theory.
You finally nodded to those partitions
the many hard walls I suggested best.
Forbidden grounds, protecting better ideas.

How I wish I was silent, that you had spoken
sooner. And I wish I had listened, earlier.
Along with the regret of thinking my secrets
the greater of us both, head in hands, I
need you now. I chased you away, revelation
leveling me. -- Come back, flawed woman.
The house of me cannot stand without you
holding the walls of my own unspoken past.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2011 --

Terrarium

Terrarium

As my father set the thing up I watched,
heart set on a bike, a Mizuno catcher's mitt.
Confusion trebled with the dumping of ants.

This will teach you about industry, production.
And it did, it did that. Day after day, tunneling
against the sides, they carried. Endless lifting.

A frantic community intent on thriving thrived
under my gaze. But I hated the invisibility of
needless desire. The lack of leisure -- love.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2011 --

My Skin

My Skin

Today is my 48th birthday. So I rubbed my face
where the beard is, there, salted with grey.
My hands are so soft. Five decades
nigh on, everything is smooth. Supple, even.

I conjure a pair of leather gloves that would feel
as smooth against this face, this skin. Worn
to a frazzle -- in tatters, discarded long ago,
they would have not endured this examination.

But today my own hands feel the face that kissed
the cat of my childhood. The nose that breathed
the air of my beginnings. The lips that mouthed
the first words of my life. The eyes that saw it all.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2011 --

Sharks

Sharks

They do what they do.
If you fling a ballast of blood and meat
they will circle, breaching the surface
in a pursuit of existence.

But I threw nothing out that I know of.
And yet you surrounded me, grinning
like a shark would -- feasting on
what Darwin himself would never

attribute to a survival of the fittest.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2011 --

Mirage After Mirage

Mirage After Mirage

A sly joy in not owning anything, we drove on.
A sudden thrill in our unknowing, we listened.
Generations of guilt washed away -- riding
toward mirage after mirage in that rented car.

Your hair a pennant whipped out the window
destination undestined. Thinking we were on
the Vermont Trail, and landing in New Hampshire
there was not even a shrug of care between us.

Checking in, we owned a town unknown to us.
Ate Chinese food uneaten in China. I gave you
your nickname, Mira, short form of mirage. Things
that form on the highway ahead of you, in the sun.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2011 --

Reckless

Reckless

We were on that ferris wheel, suspended
death begging for insanity to outweigh reason
and you all ears, unfastening the safety bar.

We were on that ferry. You leaned so far over
I had to reel you in like a squirming dolphin
tasting my own heart, my saliva like a rope.

Jesus Christ, woman. On the dance floor.
Climbing on the stage as I flailed alone --
you played that guy's bongos like Sheila E.

We were at the casino. I hid in my hands
when you told that high-flyer he could not
sustain the next roll of the "god-damn" dice.

Later, as we sat at the bar with him, and you
continued in your counsel -- it was just then I
realized you are my best shot at living a life

that is wreckless.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2011 --

First Snowfall

First Snowfall

As tardy as I can recall, this year held back.
We sat at a picnic table far beyond the season
smoking, talking. Not talking - and a grey sky.

A white piece of it fell on my black sleeve.
Here in mid-November, I thought of Halloweens
when I brushed it, scads from from my shoulder.

I watched this lone flake die against my heat
just as you said, Did you see that? The corners
dissolving, fading slowly but all at once?

Four words formed in my mind and came out.
I thought I was the only one witnessing that
first snowfall. Your answer has melted me, since.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2011 --

Without Name

Without Name

Another rivulet ran down my back, thrashing
as I did at the brush, branches and leaves
falling to the side in a haphazard pile. I will
build my home in this perfect overgrown spot.

Tonight a bonfire of what should not be here
will light up -- Tripping headlong hand on shin
and axe in the grass I then saw the foundation.
Wincing, sitting upright, encased by four walls.

Within a house that once was, and is now not
I sat, not the first to desire this view of the lake.
What of that family, what century-dead dreams
still linger among these thistles and brambles?

Rising to continue, I pictured this added task.
I must smash up this old cement -- When my
great-great grandmother called her husband in
to dinner, what word, what name did she utter?

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2011 --

Whiteness

Whiteness

Please, not just yet.
A sweet fragrance
in all that touches you is
unfinished.
Wait with me as I wait.
Bring your hair to me.
Your shoulders wrapped --

You fall and breathe me in.
We do not speak words.
-- in that dress tonight
yield to whiteness beneath.

The privilege, darling
of unsinned sin
is about to commit itself.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2011 --

Two Sheets

Two Sheets

Two sheets flapping in the wind.
Some things in life will outlive you.
Life, sheets, and wind.

When you no longer can, they will.
Live -- life -- alive.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2011 --

The Next Slow One

The Next Slow One

It was hellish to wait watching you dance with others,
while lovely.
Agonizing to envision future cowardice on my part.
The time would come.

A tree grew taller in the interim. Forests were born
and died, turning to coal.
Countries were toured, sunny beaches lain upon
before [miracle] --

the band, slowing as my heart raced in apposite time
obliged my resolve.
Your smile an echo of the first notes in that song --
you gave me your hand.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2011 --

My Foot In It

My Foot In It

I like concrete. Trees?
Terrific! If they were better
skyscrapers would be wooden.

We need it, and so much of it.
I kissed a wall once -- only
because it was so concrete.

Abstract art? I prefer reality.
Bridges falling down? I would
rather they stand. Endure.

I will die in a few years, decades
at best. But when I was a kid
they made a sidewalk and I put

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2011 --

Etre

Etre

I saw a deer being hit by a car.
Language is funny. Human being. Being in love.
Being. To be. Etre. Verbalizing existence itself
even if we have to mention being dead.

What interests me most is being in love.
Being is the most important word of the three.
When it leaves, the others deny ever being there.
But oh, when it stays --

I think that the being part is like saying
I saw a deer being hit by a car.
A cat, being cat-like, walked across a parking lot.
-- someone wants to hear more of the story.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2011 --

Weeds

Weeds

Growing just where I struggle, they thrive,
taking some of the water intended for me.

One day I will be a tomato, and damn it,
this ____ is drawing from me something I want.
I curse the wind, Mother Nature, and even God.
Must I befriend meanwhile, this vagrant?
Usurper of my moisture, squatter of my ground.

I longed for cleaner landings, says the weed.
Why must I share my thirst with a peasant?
Common vegetable. Good for nothing but the
table of a beast.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2011 --