Chimney Puffs

Chimney Puffs

Your fire awakened a thousand moments,
Stranger.
I was walking, cold. Hugging myself
While you sat back, and relaxed in your
Created warmth, oblivious.
The chimney puffing.

There is a smell of March-burnt log that
Summons a raft of living ghosts, while
Dead oarsmen paddle the swirled eddies.
The upward cinders in my mind.

So that I stop and ask them each a
Question.
What makes you significant tonight,
Friend?
What brings you here, to me?

There is nothing important in me,
One by one, they answer.
But each, landing on another as gravity
Draws even the spark,
Remind me that all I have ever
Thought of as warm, involves
Another.

The friction of knowing
Someone.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Skip The Warning

Skip The Warning

A worthy religion
Would come up with a way to do this.

Because what is happening
Is too many people know, know, know,
Know, no. Too much they suffer.

Too much hope. And denial.
Stratagems - oh, the energy - to live.
Only going to other planets and waging
War on our own is more important to us
Than gasping out another day.
Is the blip still blipping? Good.

Am I allowed to wonder why we have
Not long since abandoned all else,
And found a way, a road
To leave ourselves, in dignity?

I am listening to David Gilmour
And just as I wonder how he gets
From this note to that, I feel faint?
No.
Skip the warning.

I close my eyes and hear something
Sounding like my own name, maybe.
And I willingly follow, smiling
Because today is my day?

I would go to a church that promised me
A clean exit.
Leaving the beyond
To what it is.
The beyond.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Frozen Fountain

Frozen Fountain

In that moment I felt that heaps of water
Thrown upward would not fall again. Stay there
Fixed, they would, and hard in the sunlight glitter.
I could have licked these brilliant branches,
Or embraced the columns and shards.
Might feel all melt to the palm, dripping
From the touch of given warmth. But
None of this I did, my steamy breath within me.

Of a sudden, like redless cherries unattached, lone
Droplets fell, scattering with the click of fawn hooves.
Rolled one to my foot even as I bent to pluck it,
And this I placed in my mouth.

And even though each drop to my throat
Brought two from my eyes, I knew that I could
And I might, but I will not, love this.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Ouija

Ouija

So I turned to a road atlas, in lieu of your
Vanilla limbs. My finger along interstates
Ran and I said, These are her veins.
In blue, lakes and rivers showed their wet
Spots and again, my fingers, searching,
Sought.

Where is a park, where we can hide away?
I’m not familiar, I complained, and just then
I felt, Ouija-like, an assistance.
Here. Follow me, and
I followed, sleep-walking but never more
Awake. Here, further a bit.

You and I were in Green River.
I said I am a stranger here.
I asked, Those geese, are they always
So loud?
No, you said.
Only when they are confused, or
Undecided.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

The Way I See It

The Way I See It

They say it’s hard to know someone before they marry you
But here’s a couple things I’ll say before I say “I do.”

Never should you marvel that you buy my time for free
Darling, should the business of this world mean more to me?
And never should you long for what could come with just a touch
For never will you lack, if my own hand could give as much.

You’ll never have to twist my arm to take an evening walk
Nor tiptoe ‘cross the eggshells just so we can have a talk.
Love be our very habit then, praise be our only shout...
You’ll never have to live in fear, such love shall cast it out.

And never should the morning find us all “emotion spent.”
For never should our sun set on the coals of discontent.
And never should your dreams be bottled tight inside of you...
No, never doubt but that I’ll want to hear and dream them too.

Love, never should you shiver for the warmth I can provide
As much as never search for what should never have to hide.
The best part of this whole thing is, we’ll never feel alone...
For though we build the house we know that Love will build our home.

And should the world look on and sneer “Impossible,” so be it...
You’ll be the one that proves me true, and that’s the way I see it.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Waiting

Waiting

Rhymes with weighting, and makes me heavy.
You know I am going to keep believing in you.

The first half-hour I was embarrassed, I guess.
Felt there should be no reason for me, waiting.

I smiled at people, as they passed me by.
An hour passed, and I put a hand to my chest.

Yes, beating, my heart. You know something?
I am leaving our corner now, but not you. No.

Something is wrong. Something is very wrong.
You know I am going to keep believing in you.

I am not embarrassed or scared, I am hurried.
Rhymes with worried, and makes me love you.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

human

human

i looked up.
they had made their webs
in the rafters,
these two silent architects.
so i knocked them into a foil pan
where they lightly clattered.
exoskeletons, spinning
and disoriented.
so i sprayed aerosol on them
in great amounts, until
swimming to the center of the pan
they found each other,
grappled,
and broke their own necks.
i heard it.
two faint snaps.
i did not look up
at the empty webs, but
went my way.
and i am human.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Aneurysm

Aneurysm

This is how I want it to be. While reading Hardy
I turn to her and tell her how good she would
Look in that blue dress she did not buy today.
And I see that smirk, the one that knows
I will get it for her tomorrow anyway. But just as
She adjusts the pillow behind her head, reaching
For her fourth volume of Proust, the same thing
Happens to her. And we lean into each other,
The calico cat not even stirring at our feet
As our books fall forward.
And that candle she lit, flickers.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008