Tell Me
Turned away, my lover murmured,
I actually think that others often see us more clearly than we see ourselves.
Into her neck I agreed.
How can any of us do otherwise?
A story is a re-telling, every word a reflection
of something other. Little good it did Narcissus
to stare and stare. And stare.
My lifetime, I wonder, and have wondered
how it shall end. Holding I am lovely!
to a mirror.
!ylevol ma I
Better that someone else should see this.
And tell me.
© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008
Here We Are Now How can I sleep, leaving so much unread. Notice, it’s not a question. How can I leave here with so much unwritten. Again, no one asking. Why should I climb aboard a train I bought no ticket for, clacking toward a stop I want not. I like when my chest goes up, from the down. No desire to leave it there, flat. Porter, tell someone else this is their stop. Or another, “Here we are now.” I’m nowhere near done. In fact, I do not remember agreeing to a single – You know what? [first question] I can carry that, if this is my damn stop. Already the trees that flew past my window for days are missed missed missed. I would climb them. Would. Wood. What I desire. And trees. I recall a lifetime of such speculation, but God, these bags are filled with gravity. And [second question] how far am I to drag them? There were as many books before you were born. Yes, but don’t tell me that, not now. And as much unwritten – oh please, no more questions. Notice, no one was asking one.© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008
Squirrel
Oh, so humiliating, to be reduced
To such – such irreducibility.
To have this one, accentuating feature
so – so – accentuated.
I try to hide it, yet can’t.
It’s there. It’s there, I must admit.
Confounded bushiness,
how I despise thee.
I’d prefer “puff-cheeked,”
“buck-toothed,” or “talon-footed.”
But no. The accursed appendage
shall surely chase me graveward.
Would it help you, dear rodent?
I promise you, I swear.
I shall never once, when referring to you
use the term, “bushy-tailed.”
© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008
She Listened She listened, while I said things. None of them [my things] made sense. Even to me, truth be known [but it wasn’t]. It [my words] made sense, not. But she was listening, so on I went. Out the window, beside her left eyebrow some geese migrated south. I saw them but she didn’t, because she listened. A jet landed. I saw the wheels come out, and the leaves in that tree turned orange. [Still she listened] and on, like bees I droned, making honey. Flipping a page from October to November she fixed her gaze on my babble. I missed not a beat, but many points were lost and the rain barrel filled with cold water. White flecks of ice frosted the pane, and with one breath the chill was gone. It was not my breath, but hers. In back of it was the word, “What?”© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008
Empty Skull of the Poetess What of all her musing if it comes to this? Socket and jaw, lips that shall not kiss beyond the compass of her time and place. Recall the sadness of her thoughtful face, the scratch of quill in candled bliss? Oh, I do, I do. And few knew her my friend as we did. ‘Tis so, agreed! To what end shall we commit this find, will it rest beside that of her husband, but blessed above his station? This, I would intend. Well then, let us carry them to the tomb where they shall forever reside, in whom they have believ’ed. None wrote like her, nor jested as he. But let God himself confer, Yorick’s wife wrote verse when in the womb.© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008
Nomenclature We label a thing and think that’s what it is. Meteor, nitrogen, corpuscles, larynx, God, follicle. The goal seems to be simplifying, acknowledging, and quite often, I fear, dismissing. An agreement of sorts is what we desire, or common currency. Therein lies progress. Admittedly, this is so. But what we name did quite fine before us, and will do well when we are no more. The Earth is not the earth. Blood is not blood. Fire is not fire. We each had a pulse long before we knew of aorta, artery, or atrium. May no words choke us, even as the letters your mother, your father, decided upon -- continue to not be you.© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008
Old Bucket All my life I’ve carried things. So many falls so many springs. Frosty mornings, cooler eves. Boots below me kicking leaves. Crooked handle, dented in. Squeaks against the rusted tin. Target practice, I’ve been there. Years in barns with not a care. Rediscovered, then re-used. Refilled, hammered, and abused. From this truth I have rebelled. I’ve carried nothing. I was held.© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008
Consumed My rough hands across the satin of your back last night. The raspiness was incongruent. You moaned. There were infinitesimal hairs before my lips met your shoulders, that I kissed. My spirit left – me. You have redefined so much. To leave or to continue. My mind has never been so devoid of thought, upon a subject. © Ciprianowords Inc. 2008
What It Is Not necessarily the absence of loneliness but as good a place as any to start. Because it must include this. The bird without feathers does not fly, but put a bunch on me! So it’s more than orgasms, simultaneous or otherwise. Glances, winks and baubles. Should contain all of the above, along with a scent of perfume unsprayed. Edna told us it was going back and forth all night on the ferry, with merriness. Or so I freely interpret. And it is this, it surely is, boat capsize or safely dock. But at the top of the staircase is the landing. Here we stop, and embrace, knowing that none of these pinpricks of light below us hold a mutually beneficial friendship, like ours.© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008
The Rowers
Above the table, a Renoir of flush-faced rowers
Finished rowing, hangs. And he fishes a boiled
Egg from its shell, as she grabs his wrist,
The knife quivering.
Rather than saying, What? Now, at breakfast?
Or, I just had a shower! he sets down the knife.
Takes her face in his hands, and kisses a similar
Ruddy blush. Toast can be re-toasted.
Sweet Lord, you cannot hear the sounds from a
Room down the hall, nor see. For your ears,
Your eyes, are not here. You are there.
Only these two, are here.
© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008
Initiative I have seen that eyebrow raised just like that before.
If I’m not mistaken, back then it led to good things. Why is it now I wonder? Why is it now I hope? I never wondered or hoped before. Back then I knew. Now you have cut silence in half with your eyes. With a flicker, two letters vanished from impossible. Come to me. Let me add to your initiative.© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008
Earlier Speak to me like you spoke nuzzling as the fireworks quit echoing and the smoke cleared. Tell me what you said when the ducks paddled toward the bread we threw. Whisper what I felt when your soft hand on mine, squeezed. Shiver like you did before I wrapped your own jacket ‘round your frame. Feel what made you throw it from you Earlier. Tell me again, how Hopper speaks to you. Show me that shadows are what words want to be. When I take that book from the shelf, recite to me the first sentence as you turn to the night and lift a glass to your lips. Tell me what I already know but want to hear now, and keep hearing, until I am long dead.© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008
Victoria I will walk you, I will love you. I will kiss your trees, roots to branch. I will savor the flavors of Pagliacci’swith my love. Together we will browse Munro’s followed by a diet-ending visit to Murchie’s. A stroll along the harbor, drinks at Charles Dickens or The Sticky Wicket. Endless are the joys you bestow, Victoria. That same night we will tell certain buskers to get a real job, and throw change to others. Laughing, let me thank you in advance. Yes. Yes. I’ll bring an umbrella. No. No. We will. We will walk love kiss savor you, Victoria.© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008
Like Clove
Around one I hoped you would be the last to leave.
I had never talked to anyone like this, like we did,
and you were still there at two. I watched as you
quickly gathered your things, girlfriends tugging.
Longing in your eyes as we shook hands?
A feeling of not wanting to open mine ever again.
When I finally did, there was your scarf left behind,
and me wanting to hang myself with it. Fearfully,
the myth of you mingled with this scent of clove.
Thread and fiber I shall keep, one day wrapping
the back of your neck and drawing to my lips
yours. Giving to you what is not mine anymore.
© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008
Dripping Cheapest frame in the world. Hanging that new Renoir print gave me a sliver. How something so small can hurt so bad I’ll never –never mind, I need the tweezers. There’s you singing, singing something, splashingand me fumbling in the cabinet. Where in the hell are those damn –never mind, I found something else. I found myself arrested, seeing younot seeing me, watch. You cavorting with innocentdevilry, behind that frosted door --never mind, I quickly forgot my pain. You slid it open and groped for the very towel,my numb self handed over. You drippedfrom your hair drops I would drink, and did –never mind. This was all a century ago.© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008
Hum and Thrum I first heard the phrase in Sandburg, who claimed that a singing copper wire, in a gerundive fashion, used these words to summarize its purpose. Love, war, money, fighting, tears, toil, desire, death and laughter, all crowded the passageways and left in their wake, this electric noise. Since first reading his Under A Telephone Pole I cannot tell the times I have stood, hand on chest, marveling that all of these pass through me daily -- “In the rain and the wet dripping, in the dawn and the wet drying,” while no one, myself included,from Galesburg to Chicago, hears a thing.© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008
When I Kissed You I thought I knew soft. Knew what it was. How my cereal Gets when milk stays too long. How Earth becomes mud. Or decisions Falter. How the stock market collapses. Things we thought solid, evaporate. But then -- No. Before that. Your eyes. There is no calamity your gaze Does not correct. Your intention, harden. As I lean towards you, do not move away. This is meant to put a platform under me. When I kissed you on the lips Several newspapers stopped their clatter.© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008
Blackness Black’s got to be the most serious color. Is it a color? And I don’t mean skin. I mean existence. Existence, whatever the hell it is, Is black. Take away the planets. Stars. Suns. What’s left? Whiteness? Are you retarded? → BLACKNESS! Existence is either a giant eyelid Or [what is more likely, and what I Suspect is closer to the truth] B L a c k n e s s.© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008
Wallpaper The wallpaper saved us. I suppose we have never argued, like tonight. There were times when you may have had a point, But mostly no. Or, I cut you off mid-yap. But my God you were a grizzly with threatened cubs. My fingers, tapping the table, were all I had. You stormed off, as you should have. At that moment there was not much more to growl, And the windows were fogging up. That slamming Of the bedroom door made me writhe in my skin Till I faced the wall. And my proof-reading mind Found the out of sync fleur-de-lys. Or whatever they are called. The paisley things. They do not match.
And I remembered not only the laughter,
But how the whole sheet fell on us as we placed it. Back then when Love usurped the tornado warnings And we lost our patio furniture to the vortex. When your breath was lilac and wonder of wonders, Mine, too. When we both thought us attractive. When our square words fit the round holes, and I am Walking toward that door you slammed, minutes ago. I am going to love you tonight. Some things Do not line up, but goddamn it, they stick!© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008
Inscription Who was more startled, the old cat or myself? We both awoke as the door chimes let me in. I am escaping rain. The cat, jaw on paws Too tired to yawn, glared. Fabulous used bookstore. Truly serendipitous. Look at how this Daniel Deronda yields itself. Falling open, and staying there. Inviting. Taking nothing, it shared. That frontispiece, oh sacred title page. I read, To Christine, Merry Christmas, 1983. I know at once, a non-smoker, not Jewish. Perhaps twenty when I was. I buy the book, this talisman. What do I know? Tired of George Eliot. Rhymes with “pristine.” The rain has stopped, so I leave with her. A green eye winks, jaw on paws.© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008
The Up-Arrow It was the click of your heels on the marble foyer floor and the whole open-concept ocean breeze wafting through that first threw me off my mark and then I pressed that button that lit up. I spread wide the curtains to the night. Open the balcony door you said, and we watched a cruise-ship dock while laughter floated up from our very chairs below, still warm. Turning, I realized one should be at least alive or dead because in the few seconds it took you to throw your blouse on that chair, I knew my ghost was not going to survive. Later, in your arms, I turned your face to mine and just then felt for the first time in my life that from the clicking to the pressing and the spreading and the dying, that all of this – All of it, was why I first breathed.© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008
Pointing Suns and moons weaker getting always. Once faster than me ran. Then my walking I look back to her. Three suns she fall not moving and wait. Small one, no white water and wait. We wait. Three moons now I know and draw. When not move ride on this. Flapping. I see and now draw. And I know. After hunt, when fire move and heat and moon I bring here and will point.© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008
Carvings Here is the rain-eaten picnic table where we carved our names. You carved yours and I, mine. While I cut, you told me that forever, as long as gravity rained drops on wood, for that long your true love would continue, eroding things that were neither you nor I. Seasons would cease to divide years before the half of your love would trace a circuit of a quarter of the heavens. One-tenth of what either of us felt would cease to matter at all were we to remember but this minute. But I have remembered. And I am rubbing my hands across your promise, which clouds have eaten so thoughtless. Your name lingers, mine is less carved now, and chipped. I sit here and wonder. Where are you today? And how did we believe that time so favored us that we’d be exempt from what all lovers’ tables have known since knives were held in lovers’ hands?© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008
Hooks Darkness had not finished with the air. Cool, it filled our excited lungs as we ran to the dam. The hum of pent-up power. Before the floodgates open, all is laid bare. What was covered, snagged. Revealed. Hurry, someone woke earlier. See? Like gulls, we ignore last night’s shoreline and skip to the treasures. Everywhere. Each rock seeming to yield shiny tackle. Laughing, we know that we will catch fish with these. Look at this new one, David. The guy probably cast it only once or twice. Only Jesus could have walked here last night as the mosquitoes ate us. And we reeled. With a divine ease now, we free the hooks. © Ciprianowords Inc. 2008
Dog Look at a dog. A dog is thinking. Unlike A cat, say. A cat is sleeping. And dreaming of more sleep. But look at a dog. His tail is a separate entity. Unlike a horse. Horsetail is pragmatic. Check out this dog. Not that one, the other -- With the dripping tongue. There is nothing as salivic. I knew one named Bogey. I’ve met no man, smarter. Even his owner. → Dumb, Compared. Ever hear one in October Barking far away? Yeah. It chills a part of you you Knew not was there until. Look at a dog. They say a chimp is closest To who we are. Look at a dog And say Bullshit with me.© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008
