W and H

W and H

I think the sign, on the way in
Said Mello.
Either someone here has the surname
Or a “w” fell off last rainstorm.
Dishwater coffee, chipped ashtray,
And three a.m.
Whatever the case, I feel the latter thing.
Mellow, just as a young whore looks my
Way. Maybe she isn’t one, and again
What’s with the “w”?
It’s not needed.
Why doesn’t it start with “h” and for
That matter why does “why” got one right
In the middle of it? My God. Here she is.

Perfume intoxicating, “I don’t, no…”
I mean, “Know the city,” I stammer.
“I do,” she says. Then, “Heloise.”
I shake her hand. “William,” I tap my ashes.
No silence was ever so quiet.
But oh, the things we exchanged, as I asked
“Where?”
“Here,” she smiled, her eyebrows pointing
To a staircase.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

The Eagle

The Eagle

Remember the paddle-boat and the eagle?
Some people might call it serendipity.
Not me. I call it a memory.
Ours, and no-one else’s.
Serendipity seems to happen to other people, too.
And I don’t like that.
What I mean is I don’t like the equation the word
implies.
As though one experience is as good as another.
Theirs, as ours.

We rented that contraption, not someone else.
We did.
We commandeered the bastard. “Paddled” it.
Got out there and floated.
My Huxley’s “Island” and your I know not what!
But we read, and drifted. Until the thing appeared.
Magnificent as ten kings of Jericho.
I would have capsized the both of us but for your
wise counterbalance.

Leaning out, I wanted to touch the creature
standing taller than eight likenesses of itself.
Gripping that branch, and my heart, before both
things bounced and tossed as thrown about
by the waves I made, ascended
as you, laughing, laughed.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Smaller Doors

Smaller Doors

I’m sitting in Wal-Mart, in the McDonald’s.
So early the parking lot has empty spaces.
You can’t get a Big Mac if your life depended on it
And mine does. I settle for the McMuffin, avec ouef.
Combo. One of life’s mysteries. The coffee here
Is actually robust, and the little baggie of deep-fried
Death tastes as good as the next one. Food you
Don’t need teeth for, just a hole, just a pipe pipe pipe
The ubiquitous sound of beeping scanners beeps
In my right ear. Cartloads of everything taken out
Zapped, and put back in. Plastic, the agreement.

My other ear, the left [there is no other] toward a
Sun-dampened plate glass. I looked on the way in.
Saw that all within is a shadow. And now, here, steam
Rising, all is utterly silent beyond that glass beep beep beep
And cars are streaming down distant Strandherd.
Pushing things on wheels to their car-trunks flipping
Open in anticipation, to their homes, big doors welcoming
As they arrive, to swallow vehicle and all. An inner door
Shall open, leading to smaller doors, places to put things.
So silent, so silent beyond that glass, one unasked thought
In every head answered, I don’t really want to die yet.

Not quite yet.

Later, buying a Penman golf-shirt for $9.99 [and I
Don’t even golf] I will think back to how robust this coffee was.
I mean, is.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Impossible

Impossible

If you knew this, it would be a miracle.
No.
An impossibility.
How could you remember the rusty chains
Of the swing that held you aloft when I pushed
Your entire history upward, squeaking.
Higher and higher and higher and higher until
Giggles turned to a delighted terror, and the complete
Apparatus itself threatened some sort of collapse as it
Bounced and skidded and thudded about in the sand and
You very nearly wrapped around the upper bar for a second
Revolution.

No.
Even I find it difficult to recall. But it is there.
How could I expect you to remember the time
I swung you ‘round the carousel until east was west and
North was south and my hand, catching on one of the bars
Flung me whole, into the Earth?
You, your wobbly tooth wobbling.
Laughing like the end of the world, and your mother falling over,
Holding her belly and pointing?
My dirt-filled eyes checking to see you unkilled by centrifugal forces…
Finding you safe, kissing your sweet face, engulfed with one thought,
You are my daughter?

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Knowing

Knowing

You entered a different time zone,
This is without question.
Different everything. You "slipped the veil,”
Yes, but not over you. Over me.

You left behind a lot, agreed.
But went toward so much, I think.
You, the knight riding on, and I
Lingering, afraid of the night…

Sometimes wonder if you will return,
Knowing you won’t.
Wondering is different than knowing.
It’s the knowing, hurts.

I guess if I could only be assured
That you think of me now, as I do, of you,
Peace would ease me, on my pillow.
In the silence, I feel slighted.

Does moonlight even fall where you are?
I ask because it was you who died,
Leaving me alive, covered in hell.
It’s the knowing, hurts.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

No Explanation

No Explanation

I will tell you what is wrong with evolution.
It involves the vagina and the penis.
It involves the penis and the vagina.

These are serious issues for me, and I admit
I do not understand them.

The reproductive properties of each?
Did Mr. Darwin?
Does anyone?

How can any two things
So wonderfully outfitted
Evolve?

Before you start talking about something else
Can we just stay here for a bit?
No?

Two fedora-hatted ostriches are discussing
Procreation in the savannah. In….. Africa.
No gas station for three days.

Let’s make it feel so good
No one can resist doing it.
Agreed. [They shake wings].

What I don’t get, is how it feels so good.
And how it makes baby-uses.

Tell me that, Mr. Ostrich.
No, never mind the sand,
Look at me.

[Too late…….]

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Surrogate

Surrogate

Anyone who believes in an afterlife, as I do,
has to believe that all poets are still writing,
but cannot. Because they are dead.

They find it hard to hold pencil or pen,
But to make me do it? This is not a problem.
And they succeed, from time to time.

The best poets are dead, we know that.
But one came to me just this morning.
Saying, “Write this down, you idiot.

None of us are dead, really, but live,
And are alive in every awareness - every
hummingbird over a flower, today.

Tell it, for me."

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Saramago

Saramago

Here is a test for lovers Read Saramago.
If one says Why doesn’t he punctuate
And the other cares not this is a sign of
Incompatibilty.

If one meets him and is enamored while
The beloved sees nothing but an old man
Write this down → This is my first sign of
Incongruence.

If you read The Cave and one understands not
The clay dolls nor their shadows on the walls
For the love of God a favor is due One is
Incomprehensible.

Having worked through the corpus if a
Blindness persists consult not a physician
But conclude with no commas or line breaks
Impossibility.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

To My Princess

To My Princess

I’ve heard he rides quite well, and in the sun
his armor gleaming
Would blind you if it wasn’t for the fact
that you were dreaming.
You’ve pictured him a thousand times
and when he calls, you’re ready.
(He seldom thinks of you… and when he does
you’re one of many).

Now I’m not one for armor, and my horse
is prone to shyness…
Yet every thought of you contains the words
“Your Royal Highness.”
Let someone else daydream in vain
for Kings they’ve never seen.
Woman, you have a man that loves you
…let someone else be queen.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

The Good Ones

The Good Ones

There is something about a cathedral
that an atheist would admit to.
The good ones, mind.
With stone and spires. Ones with
big bells that ring you awake.
Symmetrical, and full of candles within.
Hooded people mumbling helps.
The good ones have stained glass, and unreadable
things written, these are the ones that inspire
mystery, and a sense that God should live here.
You need smoke from an unseen place.

What are these other buildings made of wood?
Trees. Did Moses ever strike a tree to make
God talk? No.
He struck a rock.

A cathedral is what you need.
What you need is a place so ominous
that you fail to realize that God is indeed there
only because you are.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

'Never Again'

‘Never Again’

These feelings can’t reach the frozen core.
No, chilled and shaken… you turn from the sun
And I cry, and I wonder how one
Lengthy coolness can come from so brief a storm
You never feel warm
anymore.

These feelings don’t end where they begin.
No, spilled and taken… they never flow back
And I die, and I say for the lack
Of a better word ‘Why?’ This one way emotion
Like river to ocean…
‘Never again.’

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008