The Sigh of a Frog

The Sigh of a Frog

If infinity is what we think it is then whatever you can think
of, exists. Not convinced? Travel a bit further, it will turn up.
Go faster. It will reveal itself prior to your thoughts.

A far greater mystery lies nestled in a folded-in-upon-
itself perception that your imagination counts for something.

[The frog I just saw jump from here to there reconsidered.
-- Simply exhaled, and sat.]

In the beginning God created the heavens and the --
Thing is, infinity seems to limit itself only to as many other
titles the contents of its own poem can justify.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010 --

Sparks

Sparks

A big deal is made of the invention of fire.
Rightfully so.
Think of how many things would not exist
if someone had not frictated something against another
until pre-undisturbed atoms said Uncle.

Combustation.
You would not be driving a car, or reading about
anything on a screen. The main reason your house
would be in the dark is because you would not have one.

Before any marshmallows were properly roasted
several cavemen watched sparks run aground.
Think of this next time you watch the sun set, leaving
the earth unburned.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010 --

A Peahen Complains

A Peahen Complains

Thank God for that sunroof idea. Those two giraffes
were about asphyxiated before Shem cranked it open.
What angers me most? None of us asked for this.

Follow the ostriches. Follow the emus. Follow follow
follow. If I had hands I would have taken that air horn
and flung it into Ethiopia. We marched like animals.

Granted, nearly anything is better than drowning.
But the noise and smell is killing me. On the intercom I
heard that the Captain sent out a reconnaissance dove.

Rumour is we land tomorrow. Listen up now, Horatio.
Evolve some better tailfeathers! Something with planets
on it -- something your future daughter cannot resist.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010 --

Wheat

Wheat

It happened. Called everything within me to account.
I had to process the possibility of hallucination,
questioning every answer I knew.
It was so exhilarating to have to do all of this, knowing
I would be stumped. I would start all over, and re-see it.

The Beach Boys, telling about their 409, the visor down.
Afloat on the next asphalt mirage, sinking as we arrived.
The thing you did with your hair. Pulling it from your collar
just as a breeze rippled a field you could not see.
Behind. Beside you. To my right, wheat bending.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010 --

Six Feet Away

Six Feet Away

A mile was not required, a city block un-summoned.
No need to restate anything with respect to as the crow flies
or refer to with the wind or against it.

Whatever is just beyond a body length was far enough.
You know, when I was a kid I laughed
pushing two magnets apart by reversing the poles.

But you turned from me.

[Never was anything so instantly realized, as the event
I now describe.
Whatever is required to reverse this --
the thing that keeps you from walking further
-- it has everything to do with why the planet we live on
has a sun to keep it warm.]

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010 --

Sudden Coronation

Sudden Coronation

My pleas unheard, the wand hovering.
This is not what I meant at all -- Kitty
skittered in fright, slinking to her mat
-- send me not to eternal flatness.
a backward glance curling head to tail.

But you must decide this very moment!
Curses that I agreed to such a wager.
Struck by the bad breath and harsh voice
of this fairy I quickly assessed her terms.
The four choices: Clubs. Spades. Hearts or

Diamonds! I shouted. The only one in profile.
For I will not look full on this tragedy. Kitty
snarled a sad mewl as the wand hit my head.
Losing my balance, losing my very legs
I fell forward onto my left cheek, silent.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc., 2010

Rabbit at Vimy Ridge

Rabbit at Vimy Ridge

Long since deaf, my other senses were heightened.
I may've caught Noah loading two into a boat as much
as what I did see, and today's calendar says 1987.

Today I shall die at the age of 91 with the image of a
bunny zipping through No-Man's-Land and my brain.
We are survivors. We lived through all of that. We --

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010.

Mysteries

Mysteries

Might be the way the shoreline moves.
A grey ball tugging the ocean nearer.

Something to do with the candle lit
while a planet flies through nothing.

The dolphin smiling. Does a swan
preen its feathers to look prettier?

A monarch returns to this very tree
as the worst disasters fall from the sky.

Might be all of these things keeping us
alive as my lips on yours, set the sun.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

Niagara

Niagara

Exhibitionism in nature is just that, natural. Your
observation has no effect, one way or the other.

You might drive in the very opposite direction
this morning -- hating the world and all planets.

Glaring, not saying the words. Feeling them burn
holes in your soul is punishment enough, today.

Imagine that before you were, and after you shall
be, a torrent over a lip of rock tells misty secrets.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

You Never Saw Me

You Never Saw Me

Near tripping into the fountain There is a thing
inside the ear called something helps us balance
Remain upright That final shot or the one before
Might have been a sudden shifting of the axis
of the earth An earthquake pushing me right side
up
Satan falling from heaven a gravity shift of sorts
The moon pulling the sheets of the ocean tight
Me recalling my father's final hug / my consent
Friends in a dream calling Come back, Come here
Another shot at life -- whatever it was I know you
never saw me recover But she did She did she did.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc., 2010

How The Nanny Got The Job

How The Nanny Got The Job

Clemson's cigar between my teeth and I hate cigars I grinned
east and west choking literally gagging eyes cinched shut as
slapping down my King of spades to an uproar of boos cheers
and suds flying he asked it again How did ye land such a girl?

Every crude thing within wanted to burst out but her brown eyes
from where they now watched a night's crib stopped me cold and
rising from that table with her on my mind I said Likes laughter.
The girl closed her ad with Likes laughter and by God she does!

c. Ciprianowords, Inc., 2010

And Then

And Then

One nerve ending from oblivion we stand or sit
lie or walk, a misfiring synapse from gone.
He said what follows just before he was.

Clouds passed over the eyes that had been
a life of sky, mine raining on his left hand.
As it briefly tightened

he described what we would say was a fly
buzzing -- an erratic path down what seemed
the hallway of another world.

c. Ciprianowords Inc., 2010

Skyscrapers

Skyscrapers

Behind you two men with briefcases heatedly discussed
something that does not matter. In the scheme of things.
Squinting, shutting your right eye, stepping slowly left
as I instructed, holding -- from swaying into a taxi's path

-- you. Laughed.
Because you got it as it happened. You saw it, as I did.
We saw them align. Together. Howard Roark tossed his
sheets aside and leapt out of bed. I turned to your throat

kissing it for the first time ever, as your gaze never altered.
Laughing with me drowning everything that does not --

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

Last Thought

Last Thought

We are my last thought.
In the interim sharing much
of whatever now should mean.

The opposite of regret, a rock
on a tomb, sealing nothing.
Heels kicking sand to a sky.

Wings on the thermal. Leaves
drinking sunlight. Clouds ready.
Canyons in a yawn, thirsty.

Everything, forever pointing in
icicles, late in the year. Saying
one will think this, for two.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

April-Thoughts

April-Thoughts

The coniferous are the least vociferous.
Your pines, larches, firs -- these know.
Winter's coming, we're staying the course.
The bravest cypresses were Vincent's.

January's going to freeze your sap
so shut your yap. That was the call
bellered by a redwood. A shiver
acquiescent shook needle to cone.

Dudes, when things get rough, drop.
The deciduous forest nodded, knocking a few
leaves free early. Someone will rake us.
In the meantime, think April-thoughts.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

It Was The World

It Was The World

Mornings I would wait for them.
I never knew it then, but I did, I waited.
They had a way of arriving. Of staying --
He'd read the paper or a book.
She'd bury herself in a Harpers or New Yorker.
-- of making me feel young.

Feigning a chore I would lean forward
just to hear some of their talk.
Refill his coffee, her tea, slowly, to catch more of it.
Those words between them like dew on grass,
sunlight aslant.

A wayward blueberry on her lip once sat
and she smiled, unbeknownst. No napkin
but his finger, lifted it. Right then it was the world.
When his head bent slightly to the left,
so did mine, and I loved her too.

So, today, when the bell tinkled,
and I turned with two saucers in my hands
toward one man -- nothing more needed to be said.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

Spilled

Spilled

Most of the morning I was in good spirits.
Smiling at times, talking to people, commending
them on their journey. So good to see you.
Nods. Warm hands in mine, the more aggrieved.

Rehearsing salient points of the eulogy.
Reminding the officiating minister of a program
adjustment, I turned into the room she was in.
She, my mother.

Cannot be reduced to a pronoun.
I did not know this yet, but as I rounded the edge
of the coffin, my eyes vomited everything
that I have ever been. Clear. Salty. And spilled.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

She Doesn't Know

She Doesn't Know

Thinks that yesterday was something I've done before.
That tear was because of the sand, the wind
and my heart always beats that fast.

I've never even flown a kite before the string
between her fingers seared mine
soaring outwards in abandon.

Never clinked a glass with quite that dazzle.
Thrown back my own neck in a movie-perfect
laugh without a script.

She thinks that she is not the reason I have
never been myself before this very moment.
Now. And my heart always beats this fast.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

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