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

Chimney Puffs

Chimney Puffs

Your fire awakened a thousand moments,
Stranger.
I was walking, cold. Hugging myself
While you sat back, and relaxed in your
Created warmth, oblivious.
The chimney puffing.

There is a smell of March-burnt log that
Summons a raft of living ghosts, while
Dead oarsmen paddle the swirled eddies.
The upward cinders in my mind.

So that I stop and ask them each a
Question.
What makes you significant tonight,
Friend?
What brings you here, to me?

There is nothing important in me,
One by one, they answer.
But each, landing on another as gravity
Draws even the spark,
Remind me that all I have ever
Thought of as warm, involves
Another.

The friction of knowing
Someone.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Skip The Warning

Skip The Warning

A worthy religion
Would come up with a way to do this.

Because what is happening
Is too many people know, know, know,
Know, no. Too much they suffer.

Too much hope. And denial.
Stratagems - oh, the energy - to live.
Only going to other planets and waging
War on our own is more important to us
Than gasping out another day.
Is the blip still blipping? Good.

Am I allowed to wonder why we have
Not long since abandoned all else,
And found a way, a road
To leave ourselves, in dignity?

I am listening to David Gilmour
And just as I wonder how he gets
From this note to that, I feel faint?
No.
Skip the warning.

I close my eyes and hear something
Sounding like my own name, maybe.
And I willingly follow, smiling
Because today is my day?

I would go to a church that promised me
A clean exit.
Leaving the beyond
To what it is.
The beyond.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Frozen Fountain

Frozen Fountain

In that moment I felt that heaps of water
Thrown upward would not fall again. Stay there
Fixed, they would, and hard in the sunlight glitter.
I could have licked these brilliant branches,
Or embraced the columns and shards.
Might feel all melt to the palm, dripping
From the touch of given warmth. But
None of this I did, my steamy breath within me.

Of a sudden, like redless cherries unattached, lone
Droplets fell, scattering with the click of fawn hooves.
Rolled one to my foot even as I bent to pluck it,
And this I placed in my mouth.

And even though each drop to my throat
Brought two from my eyes, I knew that I could
And I might, but I will not, love this.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Ouija

Ouija

So I turned to a road atlas, in lieu of your
Vanilla limbs. My finger along interstates
Ran and I said, These are her veins.
In blue, lakes and rivers showed their wet
Spots and again, my fingers, searching,
Sought.

Where is a park, where we can hide away?
I’m not familiar, I complained, and just then
I felt, Ouija-like, an assistance.
Here. Follow me, and
I followed, sleep-walking but never more
Awake. Here, further a bit.

You and I were in Green River.
I said I am a stranger here.
I asked, Those geese, are they always
So loud?
No, you said.
Only when they are confused, or
Undecided.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

The Way I See It

The Way I See It

They say it’s hard to know someone before they marry you
But here’s a couple things I’ll say before I say “I do.”

Never should you marvel that you buy my time for free
Darling, should the business of this world mean more to me?
And never should you long for what could come with just a touch
For never will you lack, if my own hand could give as much.

You’ll never have to twist my arm to take an evening walk
Nor tiptoe ‘cross the eggshells just so we can have a talk.
Love be our very habit then, praise be our only shout...
You’ll never have to live in fear, such love shall cast it out.

And never should the morning find us all “emotion spent.”
For never should our sun set on the coals of discontent.
And never should your dreams be bottled tight inside of you...
No, never doubt but that I’ll want to hear and dream them too.

Love, never should you shiver for the warmth I can provide
As much as never search for what should never have to hide.
The best part of this whole thing is, we’ll never feel alone...
For though we build the house we know that Love will build our home.

And should the world look on and sneer “Impossible,” so be it...
You’ll be the one that proves me true, and that’s the way I see it.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Waiting

Waiting

Rhymes with weighting, and makes me heavy.
You know I am going to keep believing in you.

The first half-hour I was embarrassed, I guess.
Felt there should be no reason for me, waiting.

I smiled at people, as they passed me by.
An hour passed, and I put a hand to my chest.

Yes, beating, my heart. You know something?
I am leaving our corner now, but not you. No.

Something is wrong. Something is very wrong.
You know I am going to keep believing in you.

I am not embarrassed or scared, I am hurried.
Rhymes with worried, and makes me love you.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

human

human

i looked up.
they had made their webs
in the rafters,
these two silent architects.
so i knocked them into a foil pan
where they lightly clattered.
exoskeletons, spinning
and disoriented.
so i sprayed aerosol on them
in great amounts, until
swimming to the center of the pan
they found each other,
grappled,
and broke their own necks.
i heard it.
two faint snaps.
i did not look up
at the empty webs, but
went my way.
and i am human.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Aneurysm

Aneurysm

This is how I want it to be. While reading Hardy
I turn to her and tell her how good she would
Look in that blue dress she did not buy today.
And I see that smirk, the one that knows
I will get it for her tomorrow anyway. But just as
She adjusts the pillow behind her head, reaching
For her fourth volume of Proust, the same thing
Happens to her. And we lean into each other,
The calico cat not even stirring at our feet
As our books fall forward.
And that candle she lit, flickers.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Cranberry Lake

Cranberry Lake

An August sun baked our canoe
Where we had beached it, in the sand.
And, taking your small hand
Toward shade, I led you.

Or was it you, me,
Who followed, who led,
When gaily laughing, you said
This bunch here are portabellini?

This bunch of what? said I
Dumb as three brooms.
These here, see the mushrooms
‘Neath the tree where they lie?

How do you know this?
When I stopped you were shaken
Thinking me angry, mistaken
By my horrified bliss.

I have studied them, learned
What they are, from a book.
Now walking with you, I but look
And they appear, as if pages were turned!

Just then the chirp of a squirrel
Awoke us, for a silence had come
Upon your words, and by some
Strange magic I knew you were my girl.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

I Do It Again

I Do It Again

The toe pads of my cat are pink as a fairy gown,
And sometimes I tug on the tufts of white hair
That emerge between each, and he looks at me
Thinking thoughts in English, lacking the vocal
Ability of course, but the message could not be
Clearer, Must you do that?
I do it again.
A twitch. Narrowed lids.
No, really. I can be just as comfortable over there.
I do it again.
Over on the couch as here on the bed with you.
I do it again.
A swat. And something like a sneeze.

Now he gets up and I anticipate the rejection.
The disdain.
Pretends he is stretching, but I know better.
He is leaving. Fake yawns. Oh, that is so fake.
There are other places, in this place, for him.
I hug my pillow, and we both sleep, apart.

Amazing though, how the clatter of food in the dish
Makes his morning. And the splatter of filtered
Water grants me that plaintive meow, Oh, I am
So dependent on you, Father.
I would tell you, but I am too busy eating.
Chewing.

And I bend to the very last moments
In my own home, cleaning my cat’s bathroom.
I do it again and again.

Knows nothing about give and take, my cat.
Only take. He is all about taking.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Let Me Kiss Your Tongue

Let Me Kiss Your Tongue

What happened next, I love.
No questions. You did not hesitate.
Someone may have had something to ask.
But, oh. Dearest.
In that certain darkness, my eyelashes playing horizon
Drinking, drank up the spectacle of that glistening muscle
Emerging from your full-wet lips,
On my sentence. No clarification.

The tip of it.
There on the atlas of you.
And I wrapped my lips on it.
Drawing off, to full blindness.

You, as sightless as I then, moaned.

Funny, something so concerned
With a certain sense, one of the five
Knocks out others, so essential.
And blind we rolled.

You are not someone.
You are you.

It was a test, by the way.
One which you could not have failed.
And did not.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Toilet Paper

Toilet Paper

This morning, elbows on knees
I gazed at a roll of it,
Wondering what the ancients did.
Long ago. Way before toilets even.
And which came first, the toilet
Or the paper?

All we really know is that
Everywhere, ubiquitously,
There is some -- or so we hope.
But it is even beyond hope.
We know it is there, it has to be.
Because we know that the need is.
Our own rumblings churn out
The evidence of things unseen.

Look at where it is perforated.
Who ever takes just one square?
Has even one human, done so?
Yet mathematically, design-wise
Let none tamper with perfection,
Nor alter the exquisite roll.
It should be on someone’s flag.

Today I looked upon civilization’s
One big unanimous agreement.
When it comes to this stuff, we
Are all fundamentalists.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Rare As Rubies

Rare As Rubies

See, my dad would have said
He sold money to people
When they needed it most.

He never called it insurance
Because he knew that no one
Believes in their own death.

But how many times he passed
A widow the cheque that mattered.
Or to a widower, handed it.

How many? Countless.
And then even he, as salesman
Went to be with his clients.

I remember him today as
The most honest man I yet know.
A seller of truth, rare as rubies.

I believe in my dad.
He promised no one insurance,
But assurance, yes.

He bought what he sold.
He sold what he bought.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Two Decisions

Two Decisions

Look. I walk towards you, and the
World gets closer. Or further away.
Which is it? Did you take a step
Back?
See. I look up as I approach
And the clouds scatter. Or form.
Which is it? Did you take a step
Back?
Hear. There was a bird that sang
Just then. Or there was silence.
I am not sure now, did you
Hear it, too?

While that fountain played with us
And threw us in and out, I made
What is known as a decision.
Reaching to a peeling arbutus tree
I ripped a letter from it, and it
Tore and it tore clean in a strip.

Against my thumb, the underside
So smooth, nodded to me, and I
I looked into your two wet eyes.

I will write everything on this, I said,
As I handed you that bark.
And a bird we both heard whistled.
Did you take a step forward?
You did.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Apostrophe

Apostrophe

Life’s one.
Remember how long we were confused about it?
Do you? I recall asking
Your opinion of the Fall.
You argued for myth, and I stuck to
Fact. So much, I damn near convinced myself.
The serpent was not even a snake, you said.
And I asked how you knew this.
I was there, you said.
You bit the fruit?
It was not a fruit.

And what’s so wrong with wanting to know?
This was you, and I, donkey-like, replied
Some things are a violation of the --
You lovingly stopped me, with a finger on
My stupid lips, and you whispered,
A violation of what?
Knowledge we were denied access to, I breathed,
And knew I was wrong.
Always, had been
Wrong.

Listen, dear -- you began. But I stopped you
A finger to your lips.
And just as I said We are God’s,
You proved to me that we are gods.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Worms

Worms

We went worm-hunting, we did, me and you, we did.
Thing is, when a man is to go fishing, he needs the worms.
And so, my great God, I dug ‘em as though my last three lives
Depended on a damn-good basketfull right now.

I dug, and scraped, and so did you.
Until we found a few, curling and lost. Disoriented worms,
We needed these, and more.
And you said, you looked up at me
And your breaths were little marshmallows puffed out
‘Gainst the night. Goddamn it, those breaths, all over me.

Saying, “Don’t do it.”
“Put ‘em back,” you said, and further, “Let these live.”

“Will you tell anyone I am putting these worms back into the earth?”
I asked you, and you said into the Northern Lights,
“No.”

And what was I to do?
I tucked them back into the night.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

I Know Her

I Know Her

Because across the room I know her.
A glance, just one, tells me we are on the same page.
Once someone spoke badly of her, in my hearing,
and everything within me knew they were mistaken.
She lives in a place that is beyond proving
or improving herself, to me or others.
And I would jump a cliff for her wink.
She derails me. Oh, makes me angry, yes,
now and then, but that is because I am learning
her. Learning me. I have looked at water
thirty feet down, fish oblivious ‘tween boat
and sand. She is clearer than that.
Her laugh ignites every best thing about me,
and when she arrives, I am more happy.
Than I was. Before.
It was not always like this. My life was not always
like this.

Even now, there are times, and they are frequent,
when I feel in a dream. I doubt.
And I believe that none of this should happen
to me.
But that is when I read what I have written above
and know that I am awake, and that across the room,
or across ten time zones,
I know her.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Your Love For Me

Your Love For Me

If you the hills chant and me in them run
to find naught but tree and shadow
conspiring, and an owl hooting ridicule,
What will touch my face, then?
If the moon alone lightens my retraced
sorrowing footsteps, and leaves waft
clues my beaten mind cannot discern,
What will whisper then, in my ear?
When I emerge to remember the old fears
that sent me stumbling into the darksnapping twigs and biting wind,
What will give me hope, in that moment?

What will tell me that everything
and the breeze was you, knowing sooner
to make your own way from the far side
that you might gain the clearing as I went in?
What will tell me this as I twist now,
bending to pick the burrs from myself?
What will cause me to come into the open
where you and your smile
are brighter than the moon ever was?

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

The First Time

The First Time

What would you say to my
I love you?
For the first time.
We once wondered.

Tell me to take it back?
Rewind the tape? Or
Say it again? Louder?
As I recall, there was indeed
An echo, but never louder.
Not once did you hear it
Louder, than the first time.

When the rock goes in
The splash comes.
After that, the ripples, silently
Move outward, trying.
Failing, as they thin and flatten,
To make sense of the intrusion.
They never do.
And ever, the rock sinks.
The commotion settles.

With indrawn curtains as witness
We know that something
Something that never said
A word, spoke three.
That best time.
The first time, when, flung
From me, they came to rest.
Drowned, on your bed.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2007

Trill

Trill

Never…. Ten lifetimes from now
Will I forget the smoke trailing
To my eyes. When I could not
Move, nor take the cigarette
Away as you played on, and
There was a moment. You
Hit a trill and it was not
The notes, as much as
The way your fingers
Moved that I hung
On to the edge
Of the earth
Spinning
Away
And I
Knew
It, I
Kn
ew
it,
I
f
u
c
k
i
n
‘
k
n
e
w
i
t
.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2007