Two Drops

Two Drops

This is not a time for passion. We fought. Or is it?
Afterward you showered. Washing me from you?
The mystery, though, is lying again now, in a towel.
Two drops glistening above your breast.

On a usual afternoon in the Sahara, or hell -- Nevada
these would evaporate for God's reasons in minutes.
But here we are in Princeton, cloudy, drapes closed.
What would even Jesus do? --- Not being Him

I lean in for an answer. Unfold you. And lick you dry.
Eyes closed, you do not see the wallpaper unravel.
Your smile is all I need to know that I said it right
when I said the words before everyone we know. 'I do'.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2013 --

Quake & Context

Quake & Context

Unwrapping a chicken sandwich the floor shook.
Panic is a thing, the unexpectedness of which, unites
everyone -- running like cattle to a burning barn.
Outside we watched pavement crackle open.
Still swallowing my lunch.

Only much later did I realize that there is no such thing
as an earthquake. Other places are quite -- stable.
But where I am is where I am.
And what happens there is quite -- local.
We huddled beside the radio when all was as before.

Laughing as I swept fragments of a broken coffee cup.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2013 --

The Fourth Thought

The Fourth Thought

Looking across to where she sat he thought several things.
Firstly, that surely the intention was a world without options.
A walk-in closet of many garments, and she chose this to stun my planet.

Secondly, his tie knot was off. He went for the windsor, ended in an ascot.
He wanted to cover the wattle. But now he looked frumpy, sure of it.
He was sure.

Then he imagined her lover, wondering how such a man could deserve her.
Had he also seen her sleeveless arms like this? From this angle?
[What single thing from my current vantage point could possibly be unique?]

Yet he gazed, when he could do so. She swizzled her drink.
Lecherous. How he would hate for anyone to think him so.
She holds someone within those sleeveless arms, his fifth thought.

She set some money down, gathered her things, and left.
He returned then to his fourth official thought, which was this:
I am very lonely. I am quite a very lonely man.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2013 --

Battle Cry

Battle Cry

Recruitment denial of reality submission basic training.
Boot camp maneuvers doctrine faux scenario simulations.
Sheets razor straight ship shape look alive. Say sir.
Salute. Buzz cut. Keep that transmitter charged, Eugene.
'Copters dropping in a jungle where we swat mosquitoes.

There was a sliver of moon when you leapt from the trees.
Throw the grenade. Your face was alight and I saw words
gunfire silenced. What can anything mean today my friend.
Or a toast to you recall. Or peace-time full moons flesh out.
When all I will ever hear is that last thing unheard -- Cried. 

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2013 --

Dreams

Dreams

Funny thing about them --
When you are falling asleep they are not there.
Yet without wakefulness they would never arrive.

What does midnight mean when half a world
is eating breakfast and tanning on a beach?
Were we too close to ourselves to hold on to it?

Agree with me, girl. We were the poem rhyming.
The song that sang to an open window.
Two splayed cats in the grass, spent from play.

Dreams do not exist until we're sleeping?
As if the sun does not quite shine today
when all the while it is just moisture in the way?

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2013 --

Superimposed

Superimposed

When I was a child there was a book that showed a human skeleton and I turned the transparent pages as organs were added to the framework until a perfect human body without the skin appeared and I think that this is when I began to envision that life itself would perhaps be a similar process in the sense that perhaps I would merely continue to experience things that were foreordained and pre-printed and ready to be flipped over by either my hand or another hand and all I had to do was the simple work of opening a cover to let it all happen but shortly thereafter I met another person that already had skin on them. 

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2013 --

Barcelona / History

Barcelona / History

Why we chose this I will never know. Nor forget.
Niagara Falls was so much closer.
History, you said, at the travel office.
History of what, I countered. But there we went.

Some say the word means "ninth boat"
but ultimately it is a mystery. Much like us.
As all honeymoons do end, ours did, as well.
I guess I might have been shocked at how sudden

ly it did. All those cathedrals, and monuments
betokening permanence. As one wipes themself
dry of a cataract unseen -- we thought those
separate unspoken thoughts on the return flight.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2013 --

Jesus Saves

Jesus Saves

Holding the life-size cross aloft Sister Eloise fell.
Another swabbed her broken heels as two words
continued to clash with the ritual drumbeats.
Would these have been her last, she would die.

Sweat soaked her habit. An interpreter leaned
toward a concerned chieftan's ear. He nodded.
And running forward, he lifted her, saying words
she could not at all understand --

Why are you killing yourself to tell us this thing?

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2013 --

Passion Makes Perfect

Passion Makes Perfect

Personally, I am not sure about this.
And I wonder if qualifiers are in need.
Surely this is a field with boundaries?
Some restrictions amid the freedom?
I believe the phrase must presuppose
One recipient. One giver. A clause:
No other shall trespass at will. None.

Maybe I am old-fashioned about it all.
All I feel is, trust should never involve
Knocking on wood. Hoping for the best.
Every thought can then be directed to a
Sense of forever being too short a time.

People often convince themselves that
Every new possibility is a valid option.
Re-arrange what can be moved unknown.
F * * * with the one that didn't bring you.
Every true love that was ever developed
Came to be what it is on better principles.
The kind of passion that is beyond passion.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2013 --

A Pigeon Strutting

A Pigeon Strutting

It cannot be anything about pride.
The forward thrust with every step.
More about balance. I do it, too.
But it's not seen in my stride. Mind
over matter, as they say. But I walk.

Through this world I put best foot
forward.  And I'll shake your hand -
Ever mindful of falling off a ledge.
Often I will put clothes on, prior to
differing from the pigeon only in the

pecking at the pavement below us.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2013 --

By Any Other Name

By Any Other Name

Far be it from me to argue this point.
Yet -- here go I --

To me exclusivity is key.
Faithfulness more than a virtue.

Trust irreversible.
Honesty a necessity.

Love never in a queue.
Glances not misunderstood.

One lover in one mind.
One name on two lips.

Any rose? Would smell as sweet?
I disagree, Bill.

You need to read further you fool.
Juliet was completely on the same page!

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2013 --

The Author @ Night

The Author @ Night

Surely at some point in the future I will be replete.
Batting at a moth struggling for the same light, he
scratched away the word replete. -- Superfluous.
Adding, In ages hence there will be no such need.

Thoughts will be transmitted in other ways. Faster.
Dipping the quill, his window revealed a lone girl
tossing back her hair, and a soldier approaching.
A discussion ensued. She ran off crying in the rain.

He dipped again and brought forth a new sheet.
Genevieve from that night forward left her harlot life.
And we have every page since to thank that nothing
from the first verse has ever come to pass.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2013 --

What Is Beautiful?

What is Beautiful?

The topic was human relationships. Not sunsets.
Or rabbits. Or cuteness. Or the full moon at night.
One said That surety of each other. Trust. Faith.
The campfire gave a little burst -- as if agreeing.

One looked away. The ability to laugh together.
Far off an owl hooted -- several heads nodding.
Quiet. A ubiquitous goofball mumbled Good sex.
I bent forward to kill flames from a marshmallow.

And I felt it in the exhalation. The perfect answer.
In the distance a clattering train let loose a moan.
Still holding hands when you are old and grey?
Pretty good I must admit. But then I said the word.
Forgiveness.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2013 --

Vacancy

Vacancy

There is a thing that happens when you get out of a cab
blocks before your address so you can walk in the rain
dreaming that the wetness will irrigate your brain toward
clearer thoughts -- a higher level that hopes to displace
what you know to be even truer with every step you take.

Namely that the novelists and the moviemakers wrong
wrong wrong in their assumption that love is the greatest
emotion maybe have not yet experienced the emptiness
of loss -- or never fumbled in a soaked pocket for a key
that cannot possibly unlock the very place you want to be.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2013 --

Lamps

Lamps

Everything is in the pointing I mean this way
and that without one damn for you one damn
Concern for where you were Point over there
so they can see something else A wrench in
the neck Re-direction You do it because you
must And it hurts and you burn and give light
Kick with your tail to get out of that socket
Cause diversions to unscrew yourself Anything
to tell someone you never ever were the lamp
I am the bulb I always have been I am the b--

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2013 --

Atlanta Nights

Atlanta Nights

The days were nice, too. But the nights.
There is a thing about an Atlanta night.
The moon itself [there in the branches]
keeps you talking until morning's birds
chirp you to sleep.
Trust me. There's always an unfinished
topic to be sewn up, on an Atlanta night.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2013 --

Fragrant Shampoo

Fragrant Shampoo

It was not one of our nights together.
I kissed her goodbye, breathing perfume.
My thoughts, squintier than my eyes, never
said a word, but the mind did assume --
 
things that are wrong. Deader than bone.
Like broken glass in a certain slant of sun
will ignite what has no heat of its own
suspicion gave vent to the one

question I should have never asked her.
You're seeing someone else? Tell me who.
Wrong sentences altogether. And we were
never the same since. It was shampoo.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2013 --

Gravitas: A Narrative Pseudo-Poem

Gravitas: A Narrative Pseudo-Poem

In 1990 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wrote a book called Flow.
[Subtitled] The Psychology of Optimal Experience.
By "flow" he referred to a state of intense concentration.
Complete absorption with an activity.
The flow state is an ultimate moment of intrinsic motivation.

The ancient Romans spoke of gravitas, meaning weight.
Seriousness and dignity, connoting a depth of personality.
The image is that of a sculptor, engaged in creating.
The clamour of hooves does not cause a chisel to skip.
No marble nostril falls to the ground. No blemish results.

When I think of a modern-day equivalent to these terms
I envision John Mayer performing his song Gravity, live.
He is doing something that never existed pre-moment.
And in such a fashion, it was not imagined, even by him.
A stream that cannot but fall downhill, due to angle.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2013 --

The Talking Salmon

The Talking Salmon

What if there was a salmon that could suddenly speak?
Express rather clearly what it was experiencing.
And not salmon plural -- but just one salmon.
The first thing he would realize is that water, the medium itself, is not conducive to the verbalization of anything.
Secondly, he experiences loneliness. Try as he might, every other salmon only notices an uncommon amount of bubbles.
Thirdly, he finds that certain words are not pronounceable. His salmon-lips cannot form them, yet he longs to say them. For instance, he wants to tell other salmon 'This is water' -- and the last word cannot be formed. His brain has evolved beyond his lips. They do not bend, yet.
He swims. He wanders a bit, from the group. The sheer anxiety of knowing something foreign to others bewilders him in that moment. The current is calmer under a large rock, and there he finds himself -- swaying -- struck by an unfathomable thought. 
And yet the words are so clear:
Animals on land.
Never before has such a thing occurred to him. The words have created it. Surely this must be.  Else why would I be thinki…?
The salmon digs his snout into the riverbed, grains of it in his mouth. He scratches onto the stone - images of what he is imagining. And the others swim past, some casting a brief glance, but none really heeding the message. At least for the time being. At least for now. But a few, they do seem to linger a bit longer, before moving upstream.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2013 --

I Don't Want To Live Without You

I Don't Want To Live Without You

One thing I do love, is your disdain for clichés.
The trite, simpler words, and repeated phrase
fail terribly when it comes to specifics. Agreed.
I feel the same - so much like borrowing need.

I committed the crime minutes ago, on a street.
You surely saw my eyes well up? It was sweet
to not question me. Those seven words I said? 
They mean to me that without you I'd rather be..

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2013 --

The Camel's Back

The Camel's Back

Eyes that could never drink enough sink
to the floor and walls wandering in thirst.
Longing for second thoughts -- each first
one is swallowed in far too much to think.

When it comes to forgiveness - it is there.
That is not even the issue. The sunkissed
months will never be so easily dismissed,
nor problems alter the way they still care.
 
But widening occurs when unparallel rails
begin to consider the spreading distance
favorable. So has it been in this instance.
Two hearts beating upon mutual betrayals.

Oh, two minds silently screeching until raw,
the sparks flying through black in the night.
Indeed, seldom was seen so quiet a fight
and lost chances, last looks -- Last straw.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2013 --

When Stars Answer

When Stars Answer

Do you remember the first time I said it?
Calling the heavens to reply for you, we
looked up as a white streak burst across
the night. Falling, laughing, lips, tongues.

And you whispered, Does it hurt, I can't
say the words yet? My mouth was on your
lovely ear -- No. And by the way, that was
not a star but a jagged chunk of flying rock.
 
And then you said it.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2013 --

Atonement

Atonement

No reins on forgiveness / reeling in or pushing
-- futile. Both. We found ourselves at Argonne
walking and waiting for it to happen, in a field.

How far from the road we were, and alone.
Rounding a copse of trees a factory loomed.
-- smoke. Silence. Nibbling herd of fallow deer.

Gripping my hand then / a finger to your lips
-- crouching. Both. Our lack of words that day
becoming a roar, an antlered head turned.
 
And as one over a fence they bounded, a fawn
stopping. Looked directly at me / kicked a post.
There, you said -- squeezing my hand. That's it.
 
Walk back to the car different. At one moment.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2013 --

Sex

Sex

In the beginning there was an expanse, a firmament.
A void, and it wanted to be against something softer.
This will aid in procreation was neither a before or after
thought. When it comes to thinking, we were haunted.

Forever. By desire. The greatest mystery does not even
call a Creator to the stage. Everything, the very reason
you are reading this, has most to do with one word
-- fourteenth from the top. Survival of the wanted.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2012 --

This Meeting

This Meeting

_____ must have expected nearly nothing.
Overlooking what I looked like, she asked me things.
After a fashion, we already knew each other -- but
I had always feared the fleshy part of it all, very much.

How would she react to my… under-stature.
My imposture, my lack of looking or acting my age.
The irreverence I am prone to exhibiting.
I had rehearsed certain anecdotes and mannerisms.

For this meeting, yes, I did. I had been in rehearsal.
She healed me with a story about a horse named Bree.
Her lips moved, and I heard many things, but her eyes
-- her eyes did things to me that made me grow up.

I had never known a horse more clearly. More horsely.
Tasting her skin with every word I leaned into a tornado.
A hurricane of desire. I followed up with a tale of my cat.
By then there was no table between us. I blame her.

I will always fault her for the sudden lack of boundaries.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2012 --