Reading

Reading

You either have it or not, much like vocal ability.
The pulsating love of text, the chemical rush.
The euphoria. Feel of pages, smell of it all.
Endless wonder of next, coupled with who says it best.
You remove a dustjacket -- to see the spine of it.
"X" off certain days on the calendar [local used book sale].
Equate a best vacation with a memorable book.

You either love to read, or have bad memories of school.
Find yourself recalling the exhilaration of an assignment.
Or not. Homework? Involving some quiet time?
Interestingly enough -- this has become my specialty.
A preferred weekend, to be thusly immersed in genius.
Send me to my chamber with a tome. Please.
I put my spine back on, when choosing a bookmark.

You either are innately silent in a library, or are not smart.
Humanity squeezed every ounce of its being onto these shelves.
Shut your gob in that presence, and read something, fool.
If nothing else, re-read the first sentence of this poem.
It may seem at first that I am equating reading with singing.
I am not. A step further friend. 
If you do not read, neither should you speak.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2012 --

Sleeping

Sleeping

The last time I fell asleep I abandoned myself.
Drifting off to something I do not understand, in the remotest sense.
At a certain point, and only for necessity's sake, an alarm bell
wakened me.
I would have chosen otherwise. No alarm.
I had a good movie going on, and much popcorn in hand.
Thing is, it is not so much this falling asleep business we fear.
It's the awakening.

But what if we skip that part? And just keep sleeping.
I'm not sure if I can really imagine a better scenario.
Mind: I've never been a "morning person".
Maybe you like wrestling the day. Me, I like wrestling sheets!
If someone were to tell me that "keep sleeping" = sadness?
Well, I would argue with that person.
Might even hire a lawyer to do a better job of it.

My cat seems to have a better handle on this.
People. What the the hell do you do when you wake up?
Go to work?
What if you could just continue on in the levels of crazy Awareness
of your dreams. [<-- No question mark. No interrogative].
I vote for the endless LSD trip.

So when I die? Please omit the part in your eulogies where
you lament the cessation of my constant struggle with life.
I'm sleeping.
I'm quite sure I've never been happier.

- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2012 --

Fire

Fire

Amazing how our analogies change with time
while time itself refuses all such metamorphosis.
In the early days of our love I thought you a fire.
Now, decades on -- you turn dear -- to water.

I was shamed at first, to think such thoughts.
Finding myself more often than not seeing eyes
deep and clear as a mountain stream, answering.
No. A lake, where the bottom is seen from the top.

None of the blaze is gone, but a desire to drink
seems to replace the need to consume.
Perhaps I matured into what you already knew.
Nothing that burns would exist, but for water.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2012 --

Salinger

Salinger

It's not like the guy wrote 105 books or something.
[Who does?]
Yet just tonight, via a friend and would-be lover
I realized that of all novelists, I want to hear more
from this guy.

A posthumous, as-yet-undiscovered manuscript
would do the trick. Hell, I'd settle for bedside notes.
Scribblings.

What really knocks me out is that a man as reticent
and reclusive as J.D. was, can yet hold me in thrall:
-- ever wanting.
 
Thing is, what he gave us was so good.
You want to call him on the phone and just ask:
Why? Are you holden out? Are you?

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2012 --

300 Othello Avenue

300 Othello Avenue

Perhaps every university campus has a similar thing.
An edifice, a place where everything nightly happens.

Even a compass would be confused, chilly, quivering.
All directions pointing to that table that defies NEWS.

-- where we sat or lay upon it in the kitchen laughing.
Kitchen. Who cooked there? Not a living soul. But ate.

Cried. Hugged. "Studied" quote unquote, snow falling
on a driveway that only dreamed of holding a vehicle.

Simple times and ideals -- sleepy alarm clocks ringing.
Wine and beer in a cellar, and decades to learn things.

Just tonight I walked past, and scratched my bald spot
thinking -- I've never experienced such euphoria since.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2012 --

Respect

Respect

I eschew cliches, so forget opposites attract.
Let us not wink, you were the one for me.
Even magnets come together, properly faced.
We are more than good polarization, tonight.

Unpredictable -- this love like roses growing.
I feel like I am drinking in the sun with you.
Let me offer an explanation that begins with r.
Ending in t, and far better than the word right.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2012 --