Fall Leaf Falling

Fall Leaf Falling

There was a big fall maple leaf on your back.
Orange. You thought it was the last thing you said.
I was just a little bit behind you, and I still am.
Four seconds ago you turned with your cute What?
And I said Nothing, watching that thing crabwalk
down your black fleece vest -- down down.

And in that interim, between its life on a tree
and its journey on you, I saw everything. My
own fall for you, so similar -- Upside down.
Right side up -- upside down -- right side -- and my
little chuckle had nothing to do with your wit. Funny
as you are. I laughed because this is exactly --

c. Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Hyperbole

Hyperbole

I think of you a million times a day.
Your eyes, how they dripped with the words.
I would swim the ocean for you, came later.
If my love were the sand of all shores
every grain -- it's too painful to recall this.
Kissing you means I shall never kiss another.

Ahhh. Have I interrupted your day, lately?
Turning around in the bathtub would be a chore,
and any hourglass fifty-nine minutes too full.
No, all that we shared together was interesting
even true, perhaps. But not possible.
And where, where are your lips, this night?

c. Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

The Same

The Same

Didn’t believe it. Neither would I
have. But the question is why?
Why.
Why.
Why.
I feel this way and there is no
Why.
Why.
reason why I do, I just do. Now,
Why –
Why –
No, shhhh – quit shivering, tell me
Why –
Why –
do you feel the same about me?

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2009

After Dying Elsewhere

After Dying Elsewhere

Love gone,
and I the poorer
walk on. Slower now
through forest shadows
where crunching autumn
leaves a cricket song
undone.

Not long ago
this same pathway
upheld spirited lovers.
Careless, led along
by the murmuring
of a stream
and a dream
that loneliness would never
wound them.

I stop
as moonlight finds
the old tree stump -- a
cenotaph in honor
of all that I am -- the
living part missing
and all hope
of resurrection... gone.

The cricket resumes,
and I the poorer
walk on.

c. Ciprianowords Inc. 2209

Different Shelves

Different Shelves

Brown cried out, Hey, I'm a movie all of a sudden,

did you hear? Heard, saw and slept it, said Rowling,

adding, Sorry Dan, but the popcorn was more exciting!

They never quite translate, I find, opined Patterson.

Bug-eyed and scary slick, King shouted from a stack,

I am still the king, you fuckers! Hah, sneered Clancy,

prove it, Bangor-boy! A grinning Grisham asked no

one in particular if they had ever seen a 1990's hit-list.

Meanwhile, filing her nails, Danielle Steele turned to

her right and quietly vomited something green onto the

left shoulder pad of an unsuspecting Anita Shreve.

Three aisles down, a peace was in progress.

How happy is the little stone that rambles in the road

alone, and doesn't care about careers, said Emily to

Edna, who agreed, adding, Life in itself is nothing,

an empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. Browning

looked to them both, nodding, That damnable racket

yonder causes me to rue my birthday, girls. Just then,

as Rupert Brooke was about to speak, a hush, allowing

only the hum of a ceiling fan, fell upon everyone --

listening. How can my Muse want subject to invent

while thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse

thine own sweet argument, too excellent

for every paper to rehearse?

c. Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Round

Round

I was thinking it could have easily been a cylinder.
Three of the hundred clouds parted and there it was.
Round as hell, bright as four ghosts, and sucking the
ocean like an Amsterdam whore would gobble a guy.

Or a square. Why not a fucking rectangle or something.
Orbiting like an old fridge box the derelict runs toward
in too much of a breeze, Holy shit, I could live in that!
But no, somehow this dusty beachball is opting for --

A triangle could have called the whole world to lunch.
A trapezoid remind us of acid trips in high school. But
this perfect circle? Every night screaming that I'm
standing, every day, on something even more perfect?

-- a message.

c.Ciprianowords, Inc. 2009

Her Floor

Her Floor

A less romantic word than olfactory does not exist.
But it was the way that the curtain moved after she passed.
[As though following her was the thing to do, and it was...]
A scent, and her simpering at a joke I never heard.
The combination of it all, and the clack of those shoes
against what I immediately knew was worthy of groveling
before. The floor -- her floor.

She made everything hers.
Including
me.

c. Ciprianowords Inc. 2009