Tabula Rasa

Tabula Rasa

There is no such thing, unless
you actually are a chalkboard.
Even then, two options emerge.
Recently erased, or never written upon.
No one is a clean slate.

If you are reading this, too late.
If you have ever seen lightning
however distant -- wrinkled your brow
before, or even after, the thunder.
Too late. Toolatetoolate.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

What You Gave

What You Gave

One of my gifts to you was macaroni.
I withheld it, as those busy hands
unwrapping the inferior things, tore.
The bracelet you set to the side, and
how it swallowed the candlelight.

The Hotel New Hampshire beside it.
The button-up sweater, the very one
you thought did not exist --
how it kept your other treasures warm
as I reached, and the flame wobbled.

Handing you that rattly rectangle,
the eyes I saw seared my soul.
You were five kittens, and the laugh
that killed the candle between us
I would swim oceans to hear, forever.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Bookmark

Bookmark

The malls, subway tunnels, airports.
All have those curtained booths.
People giggling huddle.
Climbing into the frame, snap, snap.
Tongues out, eyes crossed, snap.
Snap.

So I buy a used book, and you were alone.
Reading Fitzgerald in the park, I noticed.
The strip of photos, it’s just you.
Placed there, in page 123.
No laughter or tomfoolery.
Witchcraft.

Unnoticed, when I paid the $2.99.
But there you are, four times.
A strip of you, smiling, with this book.
Another four shots, in the other hand.
You did this twice.
Why?

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

My Universe

My Universe

It exists for me.
It exists without me.
Key words, for and without.

Let’s start with for.
Was it before me, the universe?
Yes.

Moving on, how about without.
Does it need me?
No.

Maybe we should re-direct.
Focus on the word “my”.
What does that mean?

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Famous Girl

Famous Girl

Guess what. I am famous.
I once used to breathe that sort of air,
the kind you do.
With all kinds of oxygen in it.

It is difficult to remember a day
that was mine. But I have people
that remind me of it.
Almost like having my own calendar.

Tonight I was ushered from a hotel
and fell flat inside, fearing. Will I ever
meet someone like him, again?
Things once left
for nobility to worry about.

Boy in the lobby, leave me.
Please, I am someone different, now.
[Hide me Bigg, from that camera
goddam it, it’s what I pay you to do…]
as many click, and flash –

I am crammed in a car and driven.
Scared of my own image, told, told,
told, told, told, told, TOLD.
But you asked me several things.
You asked me.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

That Branch

That Branch

It was the inauguration of you, perhaps.
Your address to me, so unplanned -- Stealthily
I followed you into that bracken, for kindling.
You thought me the other direction, and soon
I feared my voyeurism would be discovered.

As I was about to deliberately step on a branch
you bent for one. A sacredness descended,
not unlike the second that ticks before the fawn
bounds. Seeing this piece too green, “Fuck”
you said, firing it against a moss-covered rock.

I turned, that branch spinning in slow motion.
Before it landed, I was already back at camp,
stoking my own twigs gathered on the way. You
brushing the forest from your sweater, and me
knowing. This was a fire God could not put out.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

The Real Dream

The Real Dream

I once thought in these terms
which means I guess I dreamed this way,
also. We think how we dream.
The trick is to begin dreaming different,

I guess. Not since the Big Bang
has there been a single living thing that is
black and white. My guess is that
the original mass contained more color,

than any eyeball has ever evolved to see,
yet. That I may transcend that hindrance,
is all I ask. No seagull has ever been
two colors, not while flying against a sky.

Let me see all of that.
No penguin is two colors.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Mother Mary

Mother Mary

It’s incongruent, the amount of unbelievers
that summon her. Mother Mary, they say,
knowing full well that even her own son
thought her but a mother. [Luke 11:27-28].
In other words, nothing special.

No. That is a misinterpretation.
She breathed the breath of God, obeying it.
As did yours.
There is no such thing as nothing special
when it comes to mothers.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Beginning of the World

Beginning of the World

For months I have been such an animal I wish I would see one.
So I could eat it. No understanding of what comes next, the
stuff in stores is rotting. Morning is day, and day, night, no one
is anywhere, and the most useless thing would be a calendar.

I walk. Wondering why I survived, and then sleep, freezing.
Keep thinking that someone has to be somewhere.
Not a moving bird in days, this is why that flicker of white
startled me. Springing to my feet, I crept, crept, half-running –

and then full out, as I rounded that caved-in building. Were you
an Olympic sprinter, when such a thing made sense? All I know
is that minutes from now, we are pulling potatoes from this fire.
And you stand, beautiful, coming over to my side of the blaze.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Don't Wake Me

Don’t Wake Me

Caught between pinch me and no, don’t!
Because if this is a dream, you know the next line,
right?
I came to the conclusion that I prefer this state,
crazy as it is, last night at the tree lot.
Because I knew it. There I was, admiring symmetry.
Full green triangles. You drifting like a snowbank
toward the orphan section of things.
And I saw you ask the guy with the sock on his head,
how much? No mystery that one’s on sale.
It’s worse than Charlie Brown’s.
I knew then, among other things, that very night
I’d set a star on the highest twig, you holding the ladder.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

A Thousand Ears

A Thousand Ears

I lost you in that cavern of a monstrosity, mad as hell.
Me – I was mad. You – you were oblivious.
No, worse, you were the nether side of evolution.
Before sight, when worms in sea-vaults were eating
sulphur, waiting to grow fins that would become legs.
In some Guess store. So I went to the Mall Security.

Announcing your name to a thousand ears, I noticed
the gash in her nylons, and imagined the microphone
recoiling from her breath. At the top of the escalator
I saw you, below. At least one of the thousand ears,
was yours. And two of them, right then, were mine.
I had never been so happy, to know I had found you.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Thirteenth Night

Thirteenth Night

Two weeks in all, to leave now does not seem possible.
These last midnight waves, offspring of that first afternoon.
How they roll within us, anticipation turned to experience,
memory breaking on the beach under a sea of stars.

Tomorrow we shall leave. Tomorrow we take it all away,
because we go together. Nothing will be left behind.
None of these evenings, my love, have been sunsets.
It’s the world that moved and spun as we kicked the sand.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Caw

Caw

Fog of the day in mind, I punch three digits
and leave the building. Alarm set.
Clicking yet another device a lock lifts,
and almost to my car, I stop walking.

So assured of its rightness. Free of constraint.
You will never get from me why I stopped.
But overhead, as black as the set sun
it repeated itself. And looking down, I listened.

I knew what it was, as anyone would, but
for the first time I wanted to know the words.
What sort of declaration was this? Why expend
so much energy while flying, if useless?

For an answer, I looked, but there was only sky.
Now driving, I reach forward to kill the radio.
Oh, to hear that sound again.
We assign three letters to what no book contains.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Her Lips

Her Lips

She was the first person who loved me that did not
bother me. Before ever meeting her lips, my own
existed to do just that. To touch hers.
Not so much kiss, per se. But to touch.

But in touching, a dictionary opened,
and an aged Oxonian, smiling, dipped his pen in ink.
Laughing, he revised a former statement.
It had said, ”to touch with the lips as a sign of love.”

He stroked this out and looked at a wall.
On that wall a scene of an afternoon picnic unfurled.
Barley waving, aspens whispering, a robin hopping,
and a step from a cliff. On his page, with conviction,
he wrote – “undefinable”.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

The Deal

The Deal

Long before we knew what the deal was
we made a deal. Usually two lawyers will be
at each other’s jugular. But there we were,
occasionally - it felt this way -- looking over
at a bewildered jury, arguing the same point.
No-one more vigorous in agreement, than us.
Where is the litigant? What is this about, then?

It’s about something more people should be
shouting about, you railed. I stood, Objection,
your honor, I would say what she said [pointing]
but would jump up and down while doing so!
Sustained, said the venerable old goat.
Did you see me wink [at you?] Did the jurors?
And I gave up my gardening for this? thought one.

True enough, our day in court was a big farce,
the epitome of a mistrial. Mostly for not existing.
At The Pier, dangling our feet in the water, we
agreed on a promise, vowing never to forget
who we were to ourselves, and to each other.
And we kept that promise, not shaking on it.
Just looking into the sunset. That was the deal.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Drummers

Drummers

To believe in a different set of principles.
We say one person is marching this way
and another, that. The while, our self
lockstep with everywhere it has been,
ever seeing all it has seen, walks.

What does the person distant hear?
Too often mere rumble, echoing
through the trees or against the walls.
As rhythmic as anything they’ve beaten,
surety travels. Conviction and loyalty --
Discord, reeking of tribe.

If civilization means a thing, it involves a
heart loving harmony. An ear hearing
that it cannot produce sound. A mind
knowing that all are equally wrong.
Drummers drumming, not in a different way,
but in an other way.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Hopping

Hopping

Somehow we found the place, two immigrants,
a scrawled address, and a "Canadian" cabbie.
Fellow immigrant, all similarity ending there.
And the weather. What sadistic deity approved
of this temperature? Yes, yes, that’s the place.

Crumpling that piece of paper, I settled the fare.
The night took us, and with a slamming door, we
ran toward a promise of warmth, glove on glove.
Everyone was there. Two empty chairs we filled,
cold-rumped and laughing. I unwound your scarf.

Telling the waitress your favorite, then mine, I
turned to see you kissing Jill, in greeting. And
something I know not what, told me, that instant,
that I had never seen anything more lovely than
your five skipping hops, to my one stride, tonight.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

The Hunny Jar

The Hunny Jar

The hunny jar had only so much of an aperture.
Wasn’t made for big heavy paws.
So here was this bear whimpering –
and for all I am worth, I swear, a piglet
elbow-deep in the jar.

They spoke to each other, but my heart
drowned them out, and not in fear.
This bear had a red demi-shirt on.
And he was curling his toes, his paws,
as the piglet-thing squeaked and laughed.

Drawing forth a hooflet, the bear’s tongue
lashed out, in a murmur of delight.
You tickle, you tickle, the piglet falling
from the tree stump giggled, and
unbelieving, I stumbled into the bracken.

Bear and pig froze, wide-eyed, as I crouched,
holding my breath, and a dollop fell, uneaten.
Could it be, do you suppose, one of the humans?
whispered the bear. The pig was silent,
but his eyes. Oh, how his eyes changed.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Large Tree

Large Tree

I hugged it, and not for
conservation purposes.
No desire to tie myself to the thing.
Just wanted to listen to lungs
expand as mine did
- in, out, in -
my foot resting on a gnarled
protrusion. So far down that death
cannot breathe, the large tree
sucked wet into itself.
Eight hundred years before I cried
this beast hugged earth
waiting for me.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Window

Window

Sand, of all things, melted.
Poured.
Cooled.
A significant stage in our evolution,
dividing in from out,
allowing a vision of the latter.
Invisible, until you tap on it.
Cold is held back, to an extent.
Wind, insects, rethink a flight plan.
No oceanview without this.
It raises rents. Lets you drive.
De-prisons a wall.
God looks at one, seeing us.
Incubators, the room they are in.
The opposite of a mirror.
Eyeballs.
Sand, of all things, melted.

I breathe on this one,
writing your name in the steam.
This is what I first saw you through.
And ever since.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

One Good Reason

One Good Reason

One good reason will suffice -- with that
I’ll shelve my query and retract everything
spoken, before the wine. I want to know.
Is it simply busyness?

Or the cares? The worries of the day?
I will yet recant, before pouring another.
But tell me, Love. Observe, if you will
the inclination of her head.

Does it not appeal to you?
The veiled light? The gown itself, how it slips
from her shoulders? Yet, she is enwrapped,
Oh – oh, my heart.

I shall pour us each another of this shiraz
while I wait. And you do look thoughtful.
There is no wrong answer my dear. My
true love constrains me.

My own thought is that you would rather move
the hands forward than hear the clock tick.
But we have all night. One good reason,
and I am in no hurry.

Do you not at all envy the ease of the right
knee upon the left? Let me repeat for you
the original question – Why have I not once
seen you in such a state?

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Peeling Away

Peeling Away

As you were talking, I looked up.
It was when the waitress brought the shooters.
Some wallpaper was liberating itself of the wall.
Peeling intent. Determined.
In all of its paisley-glory --
I
am
not
sticking
to
this
damn
thing
a
moment
longer –
Coinciding with the end of your harangue.
And for the love of God I nodded at you
and agreed most vehemently. But, to the
same God I swear --
I was really nodding at that wallpaper.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Me + You = Us

Me + You = Us

To say “you are the other half of me”
is incorrect.
I am whole, without you.

And you are, too. Whole,
without me.
But this is the key to the equation.

Only when it does not need to,
does the equal sign crawl
from its hiding place.

Half of one, and half of one,
will never be two.
Only one plus one.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Constellation

Constellation

There were dots on her shoulder, more than this
I cannot say. In that moment I closed my eyes
and leaned into her
constellation.

Any scientist will tell you that no one has ever escaped
such a journey. Gravitational forces are too great,
and at that speed you are
light.

In that moment, time itself reconsiders, and yet
cannot do anything about its current direction.
Everything you have ever wanted to do, you are
doing.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

No Question

No Question

Anyone ever ask you who you would rather be?
Than you, as in?
The person that asked me, was me,
and repeatedly so.

Here’s the weird thing.
Who are the most revered among us?
Jesus? Buddha? Mohammed? Gandhi?
Would you want to be any of these guys?

My answer is David Gilmour, the guitarist.
He’s quite good-looking. To my knowledge
he is healthy. And here’s the best part:
His wife writes his latest lyrics.

He makes his living filling in blanks
that have long since been filled in.
When it comes to alternate realities,
this is what is known as a no-brainer.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009