A Puff of Steam

A Puff of Steam

I've never eaten one of these, until tonight.
If it were only that walk through Lannis Park
where we heaped leaves in a pile, and fell,
kicking like kids. If it were only that look.
The bug-eyed one when your steak arrived.
I told you, at The Mill, rare means raw!

If it were only the way you let me lick the salt
from your fingers at the movie. How you cried.
And then, remember that nametag? When I
touched it and said, "Isaac, she said Tic-Tacs!"
You spit several, later, in perfect trajectory,
to my mouth. If it were only this. Only this.

We had walked until the Earth threatened to
return us to our origins. All the while laughing.
Loving. I removed my right glove, you, your left.
You exhaled the moon. I sucked every molecule
into my lungs, and I would have willingly fallen
backwards, nothing but air to not catch me.

-- c. Ciprianowords Inc. 2009 --

Crumpling

Crumpling

You and I have never gone for forgiveness purely
for the sake of morality. And I am thankful. It's less
confusing this way. But God, we like writing, huh?

How many have I received from you? Hundreds?
Notes threatening everything -- murder to suicide.
Historically, you have had better subject matter.

So, of course, your stuff will be getting good reviews.
Now, I've just fashioned a bestselling little diatribe.
But, planning to leave it here, the walls become thin.

Between this and the next room, I hear a weeping.
Crumpling what I've written, I quietly move myself,
and at that doorway, resolve -- to never write again.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2009

Gold and White

Gold and White

Tell me two true things my dear, and we heard a flapping.
Well, the water is gold and those darlings are white.

Au contraire, said I. You speak of solar reflection.
And no bird was ever all white, it is but their feathers.

This is when you, pulling a clump of sod, fed me it.
And I rolled you off the blanket as those wings beat the air.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2009

Flipping The Pages

Flipping The Pages

Concentration level. Lack of distraction.
Both of these factor into the final equation.
Mb + Hb = Siadf. And "b" is a constant.
We are reading the same book!

I lower my sunglasses and do that lateral
eyeball roll, trying to see her page number.
Good Lord! It's not possible. 135?
We've only been here on the beach an hour!

Let's see, that guy came around with drinks,
and then, oh yes, I snoozed a bit, but still!
How can I only be at 35? Without the 1 in front!
My book + Her book = She is always done first.

c. Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Outdoing The Moon

Outdoing The Moon

Walking from the theater, the wet asphalt glistening
under our shadows preceding and receding, streetlamps
outdoing the moon. You, waving that persistent cabbie
on – there are others, needier than us Ishmael. Find them,
and God be with you – spoken in faux bigotry only I heard.

You are someone always on stage, yet never. Being
more than a self, the star opts for understudy, or prompter.
The person that draws, closes the curtain. How lovely
to walk beside you and know who you really are, this night.
This damp, glorious encore. Not an opening scene, but a bow.

I refer to the light now falling from the hotel window, onto
your sleeping face. Earlier, when Gavroche was shot
you reached over, and catching my tears, ate them --
Never once taking your eyes from the stage, nor caring
that I saw it all -- How then, am I now supposed to sleep?

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2009

Plus Sign

Plus Sign

In a minute, I will tell you why I smiled.
Suspicion aroused, you asked me
What are you laughing at?
Oh, there’s a great magnetic gulf between
hilarity and smiling, I replied,
[heavily committed to the latter thing].

Cells assigned to memory, recall.
Weeping inside, I conjured the image.
You, reaching up to write our names
on the wood. I focused then on one thing
joining us, as you fell dizzy, into my arms,
tossing your balance to the four corners.

Here we are again, decades later.
I smiled just now, knowing that nothing
would ever erase your graffiti.
Trust me, as I live. All our fridge magnets
will fall clattering to the linoleum, before
that one plus sign will ever erode.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2009

Clink

Clink

-- our glasses met with that noise, following.
Two glaciers colliding would sound the same
if they weren't made of millennia-old ice and
six miles fucking wide full of frozen tons of
scraped tundra, rocks and -- fossil-garbage

-- mastodon scrotums, and half-digested shit
of things that died while eating whatever it was
they caught that flew too slowly and low, before
we filmed a single beast catching things.
All of this raced through my synapses --

-- as our glasses met with that distinct and final
sound. And raised to the level of yours, through
the cubes, I saw your eyebrows. All distorted.
As wonderful as anything I have ever seen or
imagined to have existed on this orbiting ball.

c. Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Click

Click

It's killing me slowly.
Affording an appreciation of now,
then. What was, is, makes sense
only through this lens of ending.
What had a beginning must have
closure -- Snapped open, shut.

Learn from photography.
Existing -- click -- preserved.
Nothing changes the mid-moment,
and nothing can. What we are
is no movie but a snapshot. And
movement? Repetition of a singularity.

If you are reading this, you are alive.
This is all we know. Not quite. A writer
wrote it. Beyond this, we guess.
[Who took this? Are you trying to drown that beach ball?]
What is it that's killing me slowly?
Oxygen. Living.

c. Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Fall Leaf Falling

Fall Leaf Falling

There was a big fall maple leaf on your back.
Orange. You thought it was the last thing you said.
I was just a little bit behind you, and I still am.
Four seconds ago you turned with your cute What?
And I said Nothing, watching that thing crabwalk
down your black fleece vest -- down down.

And in that interim, between its life on a tree
and its journey on you, I saw everything. My
own fall for you, so similar -- Upside down.
Right side up -- upside down -- right side -- and my
little chuckle had nothing to do with your wit. Funny
as you are. I laughed because this is exactly --

c. Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Hyperbole

Hyperbole

I think of you a million times a day.
Your eyes, how they dripped with the words.
I would swim the ocean for you, came later.
If my love were the sand of all shores
every grain -- it's too painful to recall this.
Kissing you means I shall never kiss another.

Ahhh. Have I interrupted your day, lately?
Turning around in the bathtub would be a chore,
and any hourglass fifty-nine minutes too full.
No, all that we shared together was interesting
even true, perhaps. But not possible.
And where, where are your lips, this night?

c. Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

The Same

The Same

Didn’t believe it. Neither would I
have. But the question is why?
Why.
Why.
Why.
I feel this way and there is no
Why.
Why.
reason why I do, I just do. Now,
Why –
Why –
No, shhhh – quit shivering, tell me
Why –
Why –
do you feel the same about me?

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2009

After Dying Elsewhere

After Dying Elsewhere

Love gone,
and I the poorer
walk on. Slower now
through forest shadows
where crunching autumn
leaves a cricket song
undone.

Not long ago
this same pathway
upheld spirited lovers.
Careless, led along
by the murmuring
of a stream
and a dream
that loneliness would never
wound them.

I stop
as moonlight finds
the old tree stump -- a
cenotaph in honor
of all that I am -- the
living part missing
and all hope
of resurrection... gone.

The cricket resumes,
and I the poorer
walk on.

c. Ciprianowords Inc. 2209

Different Shelves

Different Shelves

Brown cried out, Hey, I'm a movie all of a sudden,

did you hear? Heard, saw and slept it, said Rowling,

adding, Sorry Dan, but the popcorn was more exciting!

They never quite translate, I find, opined Patterson.

Bug-eyed and scary slick, King shouted from a stack,

I am still the king, you fuckers! Hah, sneered Clancy,

prove it, Bangor-boy! A grinning Grisham asked no

one in particular if they had ever seen a 1990's hit-list.

Meanwhile, filing her nails, Danielle Steele turned to

her right and quietly vomited something green onto the

left shoulder pad of an unsuspecting Anita Shreve.

Three aisles down, a peace was in progress.

How happy is the little stone that rambles in the road

alone, and doesn't care about careers, said Emily to

Edna, who agreed, adding, Life in itself is nothing,

an empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. Browning

looked to them both, nodding, That damnable racket

yonder causes me to rue my birthday, girls. Just then,

as Rupert Brooke was about to speak, a hush, allowing

only the hum of a ceiling fan, fell upon everyone --

listening. How can my Muse want subject to invent

while thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse

thine own sweet argument, too excellent

for every paper to rehearse?

c. Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Round

Round

I was thinking it could have easily been a cylinder.
Three of the hundred clouds parted and there it was.
Round as hell, bright as four ghosts, and sucking the
ocean like an Amsterdam whore would gobble a guy.

Or a square. Why not a fucking rectangle or something.
Orbiting like an old fridge box the derelict runs toward
in too much of a breeze, Holy shit, I could live in that!
But no, somehow this dusty beachball is opting for --

A triangle could have called the whole world to lunch.
A trapezoid remind us of acid trips in high school. But
this perfect circle? Every night screaming that I'm
standing, every day, on something even more perfect?

-- a message.

c.Ciprianowords, Inc. 2009

Her Floor

Her Floor

A less romantic word than olfactory does not exist.
But it was the way that the curtain moved after she passed.
[As though following her was the thing to do, and it was...]
A scent, and her simpering at a joke I never heard.
The combination of it all, and the clack of those shoes
against what I immediately knew was worthy of groveling
before. The floor -- her floor.

She made everything hers.
Including
me.

c. Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Sand

Sand

No one ever sees one. You only see billions of it.
Trees, rocks, clouds, almost anything stands alone
allowing a naked judgment. That there is a tree.

You go into the forest and hack a Christmas one.
You load rocks into a wheelbarrow, and move them.
You spot an odd fishhook in some wandering cirrus.

But on the beach you lay on uncountable sands.
Not one. There is nothing to say about one sand.
And yet how important many of them can be.

It may be the most socially dependent object known.
And yet it seems insistent on covering what’s under it.
I saw an abandoned doorway, the threshold buried

in what sand does.

c. Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Our Daemons

Our Daemons
(dedicated to Philip Pullman)

When we fought, they cringed.
We didn’t always notice, we were busy,
otherwise engaged.
Caught in the jaws of our arguments.

But in the corners, and opposite, shivering,
quivering, pupils darting, our essences,
looking this way and that, the best
things about our Eachness, our Dust --

Oh, how I was adept at conjuring
greater sins than the current. And you.
How you glared, causing me to wonder
at the origin of the moisture in your eyes.

-- committed murder or love.

c. Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

My Spiral

My Spiral

Can I tell you the problem I have with concentricity?
No matter how far inward you go, it's still another circle.

When I think of what we are, and have been, and will be
I envision a terminus. A focus. A drain, even.

Where we stop spinning, being separate. Orbiting
endlessly, the other in sight, but no closer.

I guess I just believe in this other thing. My spiral.

c. Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Righteousness

Righteousness

Undoubtedly, by definition, if nothing else,
the most righteous are the most right.

If not the greatest problem the world's ever known,
this is arguably that second, and the first remains,

that there is no second,
if the first.

c. Ciprianowords, 2009

Honesty

Honesty

It's one of life's conundrums, like standing outside Carlsbad,
watching the bats fly out.
A scientist, furiously tabulating. Wingbeats per second,
multiplied by square footage of cavern-entrance-hole.
Jesus, no. There cannot possibly be that many in there --

And so you are telling me stuff, and to the very degree my
ears hear, my eyes shut, and I keep saying [to myself]
"It's not possible" and you're not at all finished, while I'm
thinking "You could sell tickets to such an event."

-- And one, honest to God, got tangled on my head.
While I flailed about and screamed, Professor Angstrom
assured me, "These are not rabid or poisonous at all."
But you know what?
I did not care. I just wanted the damn thing out of my hair.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2009

The Promised Land

The Promised Land

I did not ask for this. Nor did I question
my role as ladder-holder. But I now fear
my eternal destiny.
If Motive be judge, I am safe.
Innocent as yesterday's sparrow, hatched.
But let Desire hold the gavel.
This wizened vulture did not circle twice
before descending in his spiral,

toward that which was above.

For as you climbed the steps, so did I.
My wayward gaze fell upon that which
should not be seen unless shown.
The land of milk, oh yes, and honey.
My trembling hands upon the rails shook.
And my eyes, longing to weep,
seemed [wickedly] unable to do so.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2009

Not In Me

Not In Me

It's not in me to win a bout, my Love.
Your eyebrows, or how you say chocolat
as if you know other words in French.

The little chirping sounds when you're hurt.
Your unique al dente rules for spaghetti.
Your sock-folding ways and love of oral

hygiene. The way you floss, and toss.
The gloss on windows when you're done.
It's not even fair at all you should know

when it comes to anything knock down -
drag out, the referee will be slapping the
mat thrice, and holding your left arm high.

c. Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Due

Due

Wind blew in today, a bad one.
Some said twister.
I was playing snooker at Sing-Loo's.
He sells cigarettes to all ages, for 5 cents.
We heard nothing. No ripples in my draft.

Three blocks over, Mrs. Ludder's roof left town.
And the cross on St. Brigid's skewered
Jim Blidwort's Holstein.
Rack 'em up, Eddie.
That cow was due for the abattoir.

c. Ciprianowords Inc. 2009.

Proximity

Proximity

In the crotch nearest our head we rub a stick
hoping that later that day the nearest person
will not notice that unless they did the same
we will proportionately move away from them
at a rate consistent to that in which we now
experience them maintaining a safe distance.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Her Cottage

Her Cottage

She said that I had the key to her cottage.
So I checked my own array, no, all of these are mine.
Car. Apartment. Mailbox. Work door. Bike lock.
I’ve really only got a few.

But she’s the opposite of flippant.
As I am, also, so I knew that something else was said.
This is not about steel on a ring, or a wooden door.
It’s something pumping.

Pulsating, I realized that cottage is the wrong word.
And here is what I know. If I had such an access,
privilege, I would never press something so hard,
against her heart.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009