Bulb

Bulb

There is that chalky, abrasive, granular sound
As you scrape it in. Those old ceramic sockets
Say it best.
If hanging, you dare not let go too soon
But twist into the thread. Pause and hold.
Wiggle, palm ready to catch.

If upright, the tentative factor yet remains.
How can you be sure? So, fingers a canopy
If the first turn misses, you are there.
Bless God, you are there for the bulb.
And not the other way around, until
Twist
Turn
Tighten
Click. Death.
It lives for you, on fire.

And for all of that, you look away
To see only other things, clearer.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2007

Just Listening

Just Listening

For hours now, you’ve told me how
your life has been so rough…
And it’s been draining, and maintaining
silence has been tough.

I want to get involved and get it solved
and see you freed…
But I sense my advice, though nice
is not quite what you need.

No, I believe that sharing is repairing
you in a way…
That my words merely, though sincerely
chosen, fail to say.

For sometimes listening is the glistening
thread we can extend…
There love is known, and hurt is sewn
and friend is bound to friend.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2007

Shakespeare & Jesus

Shakespeare And Jesus
(A Summary Of Perspective)

Shakespeare said our last scene would be
A type of “second childishness,” senility
Or Futility personified... And to oblivion
“sans everything”
we’d go.

“Not so,”

Said another Man (more distinguished than he)
Who spoke of a “second birth,” immortality
Or Purpose glorified... And of a kingdom
where everything
was so.

Said one, the world’s a stage
On which we slowly die...
And One, the world’s a cage
From which we soon... fly.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2007

Epiphany

Epiphany

You can look at your sister’s shoe and have an epiphany.
Especially if you do not know what the word means.
I know.
I did. And did not.
I looked at the tread of her shoe.
It happened when I tripped her just as she was entering her classroom.
I thought it would be funny.
Trip.
Fall.
The whole process quite simple.
I am a year older than her.
But it was not! Funny.

Something in the way her notebooks fell forward.
Splayed.
It just was not right.
Something about the nakedness of the look she gave me, as she collected herself.
And no words.
Would have been more OK if there were words, but there were not any.
So it was not OK.
She just looked at me, collected her stuff, and that was enough for me to see God.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2007

Lilacs

Lilacs

Our neighbor, Dr. Daniels, ran. But I was nimble.
Over my wee shoulder I see it, the flashing rake
Waved like the vanquished telling surrender,
Yet longing to kill. Oh, I lived to see him so.
Such a mischief was I. Such.
As the sparks fly upwards, so did I vanish.
Peering between slats at the fool. The Fool!
Panting. This way and that. Sprouting three hairs grayer.
Defeated. Foiled, once again.
My own chest rollicking, silent.
Wait. He will tire first, again.

Wait. He…

He is long dead. And I, more alive
Than ever, walk along a street. Sussex, by name.
Thousands of miles away, near a half-century hence.
I am accosted by the scent. Literally frozen, and warmly so.
For here it is. My own chest… filled with everything
That ever I was, and have ever known. Been.
He had these. Over the fence. He did.
And we spent ourselves, running from each other.
Neither knowing that we were each as young, once.
Never once stopping to grasp. To breathe the message.
Every act of wanton menace carries within it the scent
Of lilacs, pleading innocence.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2007

They Played The Part So Well

They Played The Part So Well

‘Farewell’ said she, and I felt sure… my heart about to tear
In two… thank God ‘tis only one part of the tale I share…

Our fated lot, the leading parts in one of Willy’s plays
(A fairer acting partner I’d not met in all my days).
And I the more enthused as we together read the script…
Kisses here and there ‘I’ll take it’; she remained tight-lipped.
The morning she consented was a day I’ll not forget…
The day I claimed the part of Romeo… she, Juliet.

Reviewers touted our first night ‘a stunning great debut!’
‘They played the part so well,’ and oh, the half they never knew.
For who were we to alter script that called for lips contacting?
And who were we to tell the Guild that we, no longer acting
Would linger in those moments, and begin to know for certain
Our tendrilled hearts would beat the same, no matter where the curtain!

Act 3, Scene 5, ‘Farewell, Farewell! One kiss and I’ll descend.’
And she’d reply ‘Art thou gone so, love-lord, ay husband-friend?’
The more she called me ‘husband’ ah, the more I wished I were…
And with each ‘Farewell’ I said, the more I dreaded missing her.
For now by Shakespeare’s hand my role would be to Mantua banished;
Knowing that when next we meet my Juliet will have vanished.

And one night, in the final scene I touched her lifeless eyes…
‘Good Lord’ I thought, and listened… watching for her chest to rise.
She lay so still, so spiritless, I felt my ghost take flight…
I gladly gave my soul to her, so loved her I that night.
‘Thus with a kiss I die’ I fell… and laying there I knew
Tomorrow I would ask her to become a Montague.

The next night with the curtain I too fell on bended knee
And with a rose I breathed it ‘Juliet, wilt thou marry me?’
Blood pounding in my heart and ears drowned out the crowd’s ovation.
We stood, we kissed, I waited for her word in rapt elation.
And then with trembling lips ‘Oh sudden love… I cannot tell…’
She turned and ran off with the rose and left me with ‘Farewell!’

So cold that icy word had dropped… so cruel and firmly placed.
‘Did not her heart beat fast as mine each time that we embraced?’
She left the play, the town, my world… and vanished as though dead.
Alas, with broken heart I played the part again that said…
Act 2, Scene 2, ‘Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books;’
(And here was I) ‘But love from love, toward school with heavy looks.’

I have no way of knowing just how long I wandered thus,
Bleary-eyed and lovesick, wishing her and I were ‘us’.
Till one night at a Masquerade I spied her ‘mongst the crowd.
I knew her eyes through her disguise, and called her name aloud…
‘Where dwells the rose I gave thee when we in the last scene kissed?’
Said she, ‘Tis in my heart and lives in amaranthine mist.’

We married then in haste (I’ll say, almost not quick enough)!
And folks agreed, we looked the part of fairy-tale stuff.
The lesson here? Do not lose heart if first you have been spurned;
In asking women for their hand, here’s something I have learned…
These fickle creatures who can tell, no more than predict fate?
But when love’s dagger sinks, true love is always worth the wait!

‘Tis here the tale ends my friend, the rest too good to tell.
I hear my Juliet calling now… to you I say, ‘Farewell!’

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2007

The Road

The Road

Do you remember when we walked the road, Latangi?
I do.
The two shikras in the tree, ‘cross the ditch?
We heard them. And looked. We saw
‘Cross the road they sang, and were as soon
Them both take wing. They left us.
Gone?
I remember.
Soon, farther on, I took your face
Like it was yesterday, I remember.
Into my hands, and kissed your cheek.
I am weeping.
And I asked you to not leave me?
You asked, yes…
And you promised?
Yes, like yesterday I remember.
Did you lie to me, Latangi?
No.
Did you?
No.
Did you lie to me? I am eating this dust?
Look to your left.
I am squinting. I am crying, Latangi!
To the tree.
Where?
Higher. Higher.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2007

I Am An Orchid

I Am An Orchid

A girl told me, so it must be true
And I told her she was a peach
I said, “When I look at you
I think of how a man will preach
until he is black and blue
and never know the half of who
God is”, and she said, “Teach
me the way that I may eschew
all others, and preferring you
above them…” just then I reach
her lips with mine, and two
and two is one and each is each
and we, no longer on the beach
with juice and petals slipping through
our hair and hands, are lost to view.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2007

Lines

Lines

Do not like ruled paper.
Give me the blank white page.
Do not want lines.
Much moreso do open spaces
Appeal to the thinker in me.
Would sooner write through them
Than on. The lines I mean.
Whiteness. So if I veer, I veer.
Untracked snow for highway.
It is cold to explore. To write
Is to make my own lines.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2007