Welcome To Her World

Welcome To Her World

Every astronaut should quiver.
Entering a spaceship, you have every right to ask:

- Will I need an alternate oxygen source?
- When will I be back?
- Are the locals reasonable?
- Have others made this voyage and lived?
-………how many?

- The raised eyebrow. What does it mean?

Every astronaut should quiver.
Entering a spaceship, you have every right to ask.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2011 --

The End

The End

It was the walking away.

The footsteps of it all, the sound
heels on floor, steps, street, clouds.

A sorry kiss on your knees, ankles
toes. Soul. I realized.

North and south can meet again.
East and west -- never.

It was the walking away.
The setting sun.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2011 --

Perfect People

Perfect People

Spent a night in a forest
looking for a flawless tree.

Somewhere around three a.m.
I wondered about criteria.

Height? Girth? Bark texture? Leaves?
Root dispersion? Affinity to others?

Does this tree provide a natural habitat for animals or at least timber for homes for animals that pay taxes?

I got weary, and fast.
Leaned against one that made me sleep.

My last thought? The next time I do this
I'll set out in the daytime.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2011 --

Bethany

Bethany

I know Bethany gets Hamlet in much the same way that I do.
Downward cast, possible tears. Book open, she followed
every word in the movie. Forefinger on text
she stayed, lingered as the bell long past wrung
faded. Footsteps in the hall.

This is not just a part, but all
that matters. For every word spoken, another sung
caused a living Ophelia to dread the next.
And an English teacher, for lack of them, swallowed --
I know Bethany gets Hamlet in much the same way that I do.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2011 --

Promontory

Promontory

Through a sliver of eyelid I felt you shiver.
Not from wind or cold -- it was fear I saw.
Waves in your eyes, mist at my back.

Rocks and fish below, arms the horizon.
Quit it you pleaded as I blinded myself
abandoning my birth to your friendship.

My birth, life, and death, at a promontory.
An uncaring sea slapping in approval
of your decision to hug me closer to you.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010 --

Untitled

Untitled

Face a fretboard he knelt, fingers webs
spun of pain.
A songbird on a tuning peg would bow
when the old guitarist was done

-- then fly away.
The piazza rang with children
scrabbling for the coins left behind.

For at a certain moment each day
the old guitarist would simply vanish.
No one having heard knowing why
-- he played at all.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010 --

Homonym

Homonym

Matter.

In the first sense, not what is thought or felt.
Rather that which is held, seen or smelled.

In the second, everything physical scatters.
Add an "s", and only what is invisible...

© Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

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