Pumping Water

Pumping Water

Separate buses, but the same stops.
Yours the grade threes. Mine the fours.
The clamor.
We spilled out

between somewhere and other, sweating.
Thing is, right now it is all more real

Your kids surrounded you while mine
ran amok. Always in control, you.
Slapdash, my grade fours were rabid!

Unprepared slavering beasts
to your styrofoam cup-holding charges
drinking in satiated blasts.

than it was then. Me, wondering
for twenty years now...

Morning light is falling upon the shut eyes
once fixed upon a broken pump-handle.

the last word of your unfinished sentence
"Piece of ____."

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

A Wallet Moment

A Wallet Moment

I smashed a car because my arm was around you.
I smashed a car because I did not know how to drive.
I smashed a car because I had never driven one before.

This is my dad's car, you cried, in front of that 7-11.
And the guy was storming out of the place, swearing.
The most honest moment of my life. A wallet moment.

His door looked really pushed in. No. Demolished.
Without leaving my seat, as it got incredibly warmer,
I settled the matter. Will this eradicate the difficulty?

He sifted through some hundreds, peppered with fifties.
And nodded, as I went the extra mile, telling him of my
first night behind the wheel of anything faster than me.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

Dancing Bear

Dancing Bear

Why have we not seen it yet?

It was a whimpering appeal -- not unlike the deflation
of desire. But the pace was maintained, lockstep
we were marching toward an explanation, or not.

Passing The Earl of Sussex, then Nicholas Hoare
you again moaned When and Where? Cried fatigue
if nothing else would keep you from this meeting.

But then we turned to the left and entered a courtyard.
I admit, I was startled when the clanging of my own skull
against the statue rivaled the clamor of your lips.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

Chord

Chord

Not that you could see it, but a heavy snow
fell behind you. Droplets in flake form.
Who would imagine such a thing to exist?

Certainly I, in my current state, winking,
asking as if I knew the right answer
did not. Imagine… or know. Yet asked

you, Chord or individual note,
which do you prefer?

Non-answer, bald as the moon -- and just
louder than the white. The tilt of your head
was the purest of these I have ever heard.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc., 2010

The List

The List

Vern. Vern Twist told me to do it. Make a list
he said. Write all the things you want in the
girl. Make sure you include sizes of things.
Have a look at her mother, she will be that
one day. What are your favorite foods?

Write that down. What you like to eat. Ask
her if she likes that stuff. Can she cook it?

Brown eyes. I would have never written that.
A laugh like a stranded seal. A worried look
when the word kitchen is mentioned.
Running my hands through your hair tonight,
last night, forever.
I am so glad I never listened to Vern.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

death with interruptions

death with interruptions

Shadows in a cave lengthen
an island unmoored drifts
at a red light a man rubs his eyes
in panic unbelief

Jesus tells the real story
while the stones of Lisbon
weep

He climbs a ladder in the archive
hides a phone book [shaking
rain from his hat]
clay dolls harden

Branches bow
pebbles roll forward and settle
no wave will push them further
the sun is dimmed
without cloud

all the words cannot tell it

c. Ciprianowords Inc. 2010

Millennium Park

Millennium Park

My nostrils flare at the scent of dead meat
roasted and ready resting in the cheapest
whitest bread known to human civilization.

Yours have other designs -- sensing sugar
and fun -- pink whims of a child on a paper
roll spun as though invented for you alone.

I let my stomach rumble as I watched you at
those superfluous strands of nothingness --
tearing off your cotton candy -- I fell in love.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc., 2010

The Right Answer

The Right Answer

Once you asked me about when it was
I knew I loved you. Vaguely I answered
citing a time when we danced so close.

I recalled your perfume, what you wore.
The joke of the night, and what you drank.
The song that a wannabe Robert Plant sang.

Truth be known, it was about the books.
If you were locked up for a year, food supplied...
your instant reply, Library, won me over.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc., 2010

Not With You

Not With You

I think it comes from boredom. Or hot weather.
You've probably noticed that I'm not good at it.

Correction. I am a professional. The best. But
not with you -- no. When you drop the gloves?

I want to pick them up for you. I'm not there.
Bareknuckle fisticuffs? All the more, I'm undone.

It must be so difficult for you to fight with me.
To argue with someone while they eat your spit.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

Further Than The Garden

Further Than The Garden

Just beyond it are deer. Two of them, munching
what is rightfully theirs. Defying no fence, and
asking for nothing more, making no sound.

They were doing this before either of us noticed.

Where are the binoculars? No, the camera! I said.
And you slapped my arm, Shush! Let them be!
Ouch, I fell upon you laughing, as they looked up.

We were doing this before either of them noticed.

Ciprianowords, Inc., 2010

Two Drinks

Two Drinks

There. The deck chair and the blue towel. Your book.
Isabel Allende. But [he sets them down] you. Gone.

And scans everywhere at a glance. Paba Tan spf 15.
Cap open. Guy selling hats. Calypso music. Sand.

You should be -- you should be -- she should be --
And a sound, a laugh he knows in the ocean, laughs.

The sun clips the water, the very wave swallowing her
promises him. She is here. She will drink this, with me.

c. Ciprianowords Inc., 2010

Your Book

Your Book

Reading two different ones we leaned against
the root-entwined trees. Under the same sun,
different branches, shading.

I asked if you were enjoying yours. You nodded
without turning to me. I set mine down. A cloud
just then, reminded you of me.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc., 2010

Ceremony

Ceremony

During a certain portion I fell out of my depth.
It was not only how the fans were waving
or the foreign gibberish. I could deal with that.
Two things threw me further than I was able
to reel myself in. Your scent and your eyes.

Something like lilacs would smell to someone
who had never been near any. And above all
more than anything, the way you turned as the
tea was poured into my cup. The host asked me
to stand, but I was falling, shoeless, face-first.

Onto a planet
where no lilac, pink-purple, ever bloomed.

c. Ciprianowords Inc., 2010

Moth To Flame

Moth To Flame

The hinge of his mind a rusted gate latch
scratched shut as the moon drew his eye.
Hand in hair, the swaying branches push
him from his table to let the wind twist the
empty page. Wax fell -- and is still falling
from the near side of the candle. This one.

This fire that struck the moth, fluttering in.
Window opened, his muse was not long
in the telling -- What we most desire shall
consume us, and the having take us whole.
This he wrote, newly inspired. An unhinged
man, turning vellum o'er the charred wings.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc., 2010

I Lost It

I Lost It

He runs, tipping the backyard garbage pail.
In the kitchen, mom is peeling a carrot.
Knife clanging in the sink, he grabs her leg.

[A robin hobbles on the neighbor's lawn.
Last look at own entrails… open beak.
Worms underground crawl heedless.]

Darling, darling, she bends and lifts,
wiping away his tears --
Where is your new slingshot?

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

Coffee Forest

Coffee Forest

Pretty sure it does not grow like this,
I kept dreaming. Trees like sequoias
dangling coffee beans.

Men on scissor-lifts hacking at vines.
The berries falling as I strangled
my pillow.

Other men, side-spike boots, climbing
and cutting as they got higher,
tossed a branch or two, to me.

All of these characters I forget, recalling
your brown eyes, Evita. Recording names
and activities in your ledger.

Following your calves into the quonset
where I pretended to know why I was there
as the sun was setting.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

Poems

Poems

Listen to me because I am not saying anything.
Every day of your life is a minimum of twenty of these.
Or thirty.
Or more. No less than ten, if you made it from bed
to toilet. And then drove a car.

Or rode a bus.

Or got back in bed.

So quit asking me things. Quit trying to say stuff.
All the time, yammer, yammer. Is the world so quiet
that you must elaborate?

And yet --
when your lapel caves in because your ribs are dust --
someone will be writing words you cannot fathom now.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

Sweat

Sweat

Horizon to horizon, it melts me, the sun does.
Sunday to Sunday, I bend to gather what will
never
belong to me or mine.

Water to water, from my brow to this leaf.
Cell to cell, soaking. I am crumpled, working
ever
thirsty, dripping wine.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

That Tree

That Tree

I think if we lived to a million we would know it.
Not much different looking than the others, but
it's the feeling.

The knowing that of all these, it was this one
holding the back of your head, that night.
That first kiss.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

Between One and Two

Between One and Two

To do this on a lunch break -- it's Hoover Dam
functional on Tuesday, first blast after the weekend.
But it's what we've got, so look at me. Look

with your eyes closed. I will hold your hand, so
thankful to you, for keeping yours there, in mine.
Now listen to what is passing, without words.

To achieve it on a lunch break. I will take this.
Listen to the electricity telling you that we are
a complete, mathematical number that does not exist.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

Beckonings

Beckonings

I've lived a life of simple excitements.
Walked streets where a low branch
struck me in the hair. No obstruction,
a beckoning.

Have heard drops, looking up.
Icicles, for the life of them, struggling
to be what they are, in the sun
melt.

Leaves and water droplets. Hopping
birds, grey as mud. In a perfect world
this hunter after waiting forever lowers
a rifle.

And a deer, fawn beside, munches
chlorophyll. There I am, using past tense
in the first sentence. Knowing it
now.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

Grumpy Bastard

Grumpy Bastard

You and I watched him talk to someone.
Maybe himself. Possibly someone else.
The inner layer of his Egg McMuffin?
Certain communicable properties of his
klondike mustache? The guy was upset.
He had already had a bad day, at 9 a.m.

Basically, don't give him a gun.
It's a Monday morning. He doesn't go to work
today. Nor any day this upcoming week.
But do not prolong your gaze. He will
tear your eyes out, and shit on them.
Because you looked at his.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

Hailstones, Finn Field

Hailstones, Finn Field

A modern car would have folded in on itself
an empty Evian bottle pelted with meteorites.
But I had that '72 Pontiac Ventura. Blue, yet.

Those were days when we ran to all storms
craving proximity to anything unpredictable.
Lusting about the possibility of devastation.

Wanting floods floodier, quakes quakier
hoping the news was worse, we watched.
You gave me the look, I grabbed a jacket.

A tornado in a western county, moving east.
Does anyone need to know more? You
tossed me the keys as we both jumped in.

We reclined on that windshield, waiting
as lightning flashed horizontal. Finn Field
never housing more astute, hometown fans.

Bring it on, suck us on up to Kansas! Do it!
And the first one hit you on the second
exclamation point. And the next, my knee.

Heavenly Top Flites unleashed, we rolled
in opposite directions, laughing, screaming
Lock the doors, you yelled, as we cowered.

Something neither of us imagined, fell down
from somewhere, and we laughed. We knew
then, that moment, that we had done it all.

Tonight, it seems I am dying in this bed.
And the thing I know, as I leave all, is that
your hair is wet, and you want me to Lock --

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

Shift

Shift

I always slow down for the orange
so I can stop at the red looking up.
Look up and see the inner blue glow.
The flower pots hanging still moist
from times we watered those plants.

You lifted your arm once to throw an
empty wine glass but I saved you from
your own eviction. You stumbled back
backwards hitting your sweet head on
that very pot the one that is - Red

light - Was a time I had a key to
that glow. Dangled from this ignition.
I had a key and I would park there.
Right there. I accelerate. Driving on
for the red has now turned to green.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

Pleiades

Pleiades

Who drives 50 miles to see kittens? We did.
You recall, I even packed a sandwhich or two.
The superfluous "h" denotes extra ham.

Admittedly, a bit of a whim. Who needs a cat?
We did, apparently. If your left eyebrow was
13% more plucked I would've missed the hint.

You wanted a male, and he was the only one.
Seven sisters squirming. Driving back, that
cloudless night in May, the name came to me.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010