Familiarity

Familiarity

Imagine, if you will, a man and a woman, asleep.
Snoring, dreaming, resting, they awaken
To find another next to them.
Not the one they fell asleep with.

A man, given the right conditions, will, at times,
Find this most agreeable.
A woman, never.
There are no such conditions.

And this, my friends, is the great incongruity.
The very reason the world itself is
Tilted on its axis.

Cyclones, seasons, hurricanes.
All are caused by this.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Looking Behind

Looking Behind

I

Especially on quiet, satiated evenings it will happen.
Walking down the street I will suddenly stop
And turn toward a sense of myself approaching me.
Not of being followed or stalked, but quite the opposite.
The impossibility of pursuit. As though I alone exist
And my steady apparition.

II

Some say this is evidence of a deep disconnect.
Others, of over-connection. Various studies conclude
I exhibit the first sign of lunacy. Bollocks to them all!
Researchers will never understand until they do it.
The looking behind thing.
But they won’t.

III

For the record, my premonition has never proven false.
Believe me, I am quite wary of acquiring
An obsession with emptiness.
Just know that if you laugh I may join you,
Smiling. For I am never looking behind
Seeing nothing.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Snipping

Snipping

Me and Jim Conley in biology class far
More stoned than the frog spread before us
Would peer with the gravity of surgeons
During a bypass and one of us would nod
Absolving the scissor-holder of all malpractice
So that snip snip snip we’d collectively sever
Long tubes and squiggly things quietly laughing
As our teacher droned on and closer to the heart
With a terminal cut we’d stop it and stare
Just like God would or worse yet two gods
Before filing out to our next assignment
As bells rang and nothing had ever happened.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Upon Graduating

Upon Graduating

I hope for you a considered life
In increasing measure.
I hope for you joy in vocation. Calling.
Love.
I hope for you, perhaps above all things,
Love.
I hope for you, prosperity.
The kind that does not trust in money.
I hope for you peace.
The kind that does not depend upon anything
Outside your body. What they call “inner”.
I wish you affluence, based on influence.
I hope for you a life of self-actualization.
I hope that you learn truth as a process.
Your knowledge tentative, capable of displacement.
May regret be the last “r” word in your vocabulary.
I wish you to never harm anyone else.
I wish you recovery, from harm that comes to you.
Joy from a kiss.
Joy from pushing a child on a swing, or throwing
Water balloons.
I wish you a rumpled collar, from time to time.
Bleary, teary eyes, and work.
I hope you no laziness.
A kitten in hand, kissed.
I wish you bills that are paid in full.
And a funeral well-attended.
Aspen leaves, whispering.
And you, hearing.
A life well-done.
A considered one.
Life considered, I hope for you.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Fran's

Fran’s

For the hundredth time over the years
I turn, and say “John.” My friend looks.
We are crossing College, on Yonge.
The name is all that needs to be said for us both
To breathe in a new appreciation for air and afternoon.
Aimless walking and air, in the afternoon.

A favorite place for John, in Toronto,
Was this place.
Or is.
Whichever.
Perhaps he still goes there for breakfast.

Both of us wonder the same, and walk.
Not talking. But farther on,
Or even before the nether curb
We again look at each other.

He is not in there today.

John is not at Fran’s. He is a decade dead.
And there are some chairs that he may have sat in
Still sitting there, as they did,
When he did.

To neither of us, does it seem right
That a chair, or a bench, should be around
And John not.
While we keep walking.
All kinds of other things to think about today.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

John, if you’re out there, click → HERE.

The Extra Ones

The Extra Ones

We are told that he chose five smooth stones.
Young, and ruddy faced, in 1 Samuel 17:40.
I would have imagined jagged ones to cause
greater cranial damage, but who am I?
This sling was not even the type you draw back on.
It was the kind you whirl about your head.
I know, because there was an artist’s rendition
in the book my mother read, as my eyes fell shut.

So an army cowers, as the boy runs forward,
taunting this oaf! This day the Lord will hand you
over to me. He kicks the dirt and spits, And I’ll
strike you down and cut off your head. Shaking,
he shouts at a helmet that weighs more than him,
The birds shall eat you, placing a stone in the pouch.
Philistine laughter shakes the very rainclouds
loose over the heads of Israel, as the air sings.

And what I love most is not the part where he cuts
off the head. Nor even the part where Saul asks,
Whose son are you, young man?
I love the fact that David took four extra stones.
Ones he did not know he did not need.
The scene that is not illustrated in any bedtime book,
and the sound, ping-ping-ping-ping, denting helmets,
as the Philistines run for the hills.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

A Rare Thing

A Rare Thing

On a park bench it happened.
And telling you now seems an injustice.
Yet I must tell it.
Please, it is not at all you, or me, but words
That fail us both.

I was so down, so down.
You know when your eyes are so closed
That you forget your own name?
And then realize that no one is asking
For it?

Feeling a presence, I opened one.
And there it was, a sparrow.
This is not yet the rare thing.

The bird stayed.
Walked to and fro, and chirped once.
To offer my silly hand would be foolish
But I did.

None of this is yet the rare thing, but
Into it, my hand, the sparrow hopped.
And as I encircled its life, closing my fist
It stayed. It…

As I watched, closed its eyes.
It is the one thing birds do not do.
And in shame, I closed mine again.

I knew then that my sorrow had vanished.
Taken wing. But for confirmation,
I raised that sparrow up to my ear.

Will I tell you that it spoke to me?
No, for it did not. But even if the bird had
Counseled me, that would not have been as
Rare as what happened next.

I opened my hand, and it stayed there,
Soon hopping back to its little perch.
Refusing to leave,
Until I did.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

W and H

W and H

I think the sign, on the way in
Said Mello.
Either someone here has the surname
Or a “w” fell off last rainstorm.
Dishwater coffee, chipped ashtray,
And three a.m.
Whatever the case, I feel the latter thing.
Mellow, just as a young whore looks my
Way. Maybe she isn’t one, and again
What’s with the “w”?
It’s not needed.
Why doesn’t it start with “h” and for
That matter why does “why” got one right
In the middle of it? My God. Here she is.

Perfume intoxicating, “I don’t, no…”
I mean, “Know the city,” I stammer.
“I do,” she says. Then, “Heloise.”
I shake her hand. “William,” I tap my ashes.
No silence was ever so quiet.
But oh, the things we exchanged, as I asked
“Where?”
“Here,” she smiled, her eyebrows pointing
To a staircase.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

The Eagle

The Eagle

Remember the paddle-boat and the eagle?
Some people might call it serendipity.
Not me. I call it a memory.
Ours, and no-one else’s.
Serendipity seems to happen to other people, too.
And I don’t like that.
What I mean is I don’t like the equation the word
implies.
As though one experience is as good as another.
Theirs, as ours.

We rented that contraption, not someone else.
We did.
We commandeered the bastard. “Paddled” it.
Got out there and floated.
My Huxley’s “Island” and your I know not what!
But we read, and drifted. Until the thing appeared.
Magnificent as ten kings of Jericho.
I would have capsized the both of us but for your
wise counterbalance.

Leaning out, I wanted to touch the creature
standing taller than eight likenesses of itself.
Gripping that branch, and my heart, before both
things bounced and tossed as thrown about
by the waves I made, ascended
as you, laughing, laughed.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Smaller Doors

Smaller Doors

I’m sitting in Wal-Mart, in the McDonald’s.
So early the parking lot has empty spaces.
You can’t get a Big Mac if your life depended on it
And mine does. I settle for the McMuffin, avec ouef.
Combo. One of life’s mysteries. The coffee here
Is actually robust, and the little baggie of deep-fried
Death tastes as good as the next one. Food you
Don’t need teeth for, just a hole, just a pipe pipe pipe
The ubiquitous sound of beeping scanners beeps
In my right ear. Cartloads of everything taken out
Zapped, and put back in. Plastic, the agreement.

My other ear, the left [there is no other] toward a
Sun-dampened plate glass. I looked on the way in.
Saw that all within is a shadow. And now, here, steam
Rising, all is utterly silent beyond that glass beep beep beep
And cars are streaming down distant Strandherd.
Pushing things on wheels to their car-trunks flipping
Open in anticipation, to their homes, big doors welcoming
As they arrive, to swallow vehicle and all. An inner door
Shall open, leading to smaller doors, places to put things.
So silent, so silent beyond that glass, one unasked thought
In every head answered, I don’t really want to die yet.

Not quite yet.

Later, buying a Penman golf-shirt for $9.99 [and I
Don’t even golf] I will think back to how robust this coffee was.
I mean, is.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Impossible

Impossible

If you knew this, it would be a miracle.
No.
An impossibility.
How could you remember the rusty chains
Of the swing that held you aloft when I pushed
Your entire history upward, squeaking.
Higher and higher and higher and higher until
Giggles turned to a delighted terror, and the complete
Apparatus itself threatened some sort of collapse as it
Bounced and skidded and thudded about in the sand and
You very nearly wrapped around the upper bar for a second
Revolution.

No.
Even I find it difficult to recall. But it is there.
How could I expect you to remember the time
I swung you ‘round the carousel until east was west and
North was south and my hand, catching on one of the bars
Flung me whole, into the Earth?
You, your wobbly tooth wobbling.
Laughing like the end of the world, and your mother falling over,
Holding her belly and pointing?
My dirt-filled eyes checking to see you unkilled by centrifugal forces…
Finding you safe, kissing your sweet face, engulfed with one thought,
You are my daughter?

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Knowing

Knowing

You entered a different time zone,
This is without question.
Different everything. You "slipped the veil,”
Yes, but not over you. Over me.

You left behind a lot, agreed.
But went toward so much, I think.
You, the knight riding on, and I
Lingering, afraid of the night…

Sometimes wonder if you will return,
Knowing you won’t.
Wondering is different than knowing.
It’s the knowing, hurts.

I guess if I could only be assured
That you think of me now, as I do, of you,
Peace would ease me, on my pillow.
In the silence, I feel slighted.

Does moonlight even fall where you are?
I ask because it was you who died,
Leaving me alive, covered in hell.
It’s the knowing, hurts.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

No Explanation

No Explanation

I will tell you what is wrong with evolution.
It involves the vagina and the penis.
It involves the penis and the vagina.

These are serious issues for me, and I admit
I do not understand them.

The reproductive properties of each?
Did Mr. Darwin?
Does anyone?

How can any two things
So wonderfully outfitted
Evolve?

Before you start talking about something else
Can we just stay here for a bit?
No?

Two fedora-hatted ostriches are discussing
Procreation in the savannah. In….. Africa.
No gas station for three days.

Let’s make it feel so good
No one can resist doing it.
Agreed. [They shake wings].

What I don’t get, is how it feels so good.
And how it makes baby-uses.

Tell me that, Mr. Ostrich.
No, never mind the sand,
Look at me.

[Too late…….]

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Surrogate

Surrogate

Anyone who believes in an afterlife, as I do,
has to believe that all poets are still writing,
but cannot. Because they are dead.

They find it hard to hold pencil or pen,
But to make me do it? This is not a problem.
And they succeed, from time to time.

The best poets are dead, we know that.
But one came to me just this morning.
Saying, “Write this down, you idiot.

None of us are dead, really, but live,
And are alive in every awareness - every
hummingbird over a flower, today.

Tell it, for me."

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Saramago

Saramago

Here is a test for lovers Read Saramago.
If one says Why doesn’t he punctuate
And the other cares not this is a sign of
Incompatibilty.

If one meets him and is enamored while
The beloved sees nothing but an old man
Write this down → This is my first sign of
Incongruence.

If you read The Cave and one understands not
The clay dolls nor their shadows on the walls
For the love of God a favor is due One is
Incomprehensible.

Having worked through the corpus if a
Blindness persists consult not a physician
But conclude with no commas or line breaks
Impossibility.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

To My Princess

To My Princess

I’ve heard he rides quite well, and in the sun
his armor gleaming
Would blind you if it wasn’t for the fact
that you were dreaming.
You’ve pictured him a thousand times
and when he calls, you’re ready.
(He seldom thinks of you… and when he does
you’re one of many).

Now I’m not one for armor, and my horse
is prone to shyness…
Yet every thought of you contains the words
“Your Royal Highness.”
Let someone else daydream in vain
for Kings they’ve never seen.
Woman, you have a man that loves you
…let someone else be queen.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

The Good Ones

The Good Ones

There is something about a cathedral
that an atheist would admit to.
The good ones, mind.
With stone and spires. Ones with
big bells that ring you awake.
Symmetrical, and full of candles within.
Hooded people mumbling helps.
The good ones have stained glass, and unreadable
things written, these are the ones that inspire
mystery, and a sense that God should live here.
You need smoke from an unseen place.

What are these other buildings made of wood?
Trees. Did Moses ever strike a tree to make
God talk? No.
He struck a rock.

A cathedral is what you need.
What you need is a place so ominous
that you fail to realize that God is indeed there
only because you are.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

'Never Again'

‘Never Again’

These feelings can’t reach the frozen core.
No, chilled and shaken… you turn from the sun
And I cry, and I wonder how one
Lengthy coolness can come from so brief a storm
You never feel warm
anymore.

These feelings don’t end where they begin.
No, spilled and taken… they never flow back
And I die, and I say for the lack
Of a better word ‘Why?’ This one way emotion
Like river to ocean…
‘Never again.’

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Chimney Puffs

Chimney Puffs

Your fire awakened a thousand moments,
Stranger.
I was walking, cold. Hugging myself
While you sat back, and relaxed in your
Created warmth, oblivious.
The chimney puffing.

There is a smell of March-burnt log that
Summons a raft of living ghosts, while
Dead oarsmen paddle the swirled eddies.
The upward cinders in my mind.

So that I stop and ask them each a
Question.
What makes you significant tonight,
Friend?
What brings you here, to me?

There is nothing important in me,
One by one, they answer.
But each, landing on another as gravity
Draws even the spark,
Remind me that all I have ever
Thought of as warm, involves
Another.

The friction of knowing
Someone.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Skip The Warning

Skip The Warning

A worthy religion
Would come up with a way to do this.

Because what is happening
Is too many people know, know, know,
Know, no. Too much they suffer.

Too much hope. And denial.
Stratagems - oh, the energy - to live.
Only going to other planets and waging
War on our own is more important to us
Than gasping out another day.
Is the blip still blipping? Good.

Am I allowed to wonder why we have
Not long since abandoned all else,
And found a way, a road
To leave ourselves, in dignity?

I am listening to David Gilmour
And just as I wonder how he gets
From this note to that, I feel faint?
No.
Skip the warning.

I close my eyes and hear something
Sounding like my own name, maybe.
And I willingly follow, smiling
Because today is my day?

I would go to a church that promised me
A clean exit.
Leaving the beyond
To what it is.
The beyond.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Frozen Fountain

Frozen Fountain

In that moment I felt that heaps of water
Thrown upward would not fall again. Stay there
Fixed, they would, and hard in the sunlight glitter.
I could have licked these brilliant branches,
Or embraced the columns and shards.
Might feel all melt to the palm, dripping
From the touch of given warmth. But
None of this I did, my steamy breath within me.

Of a sudden, like redless cherries unattached, lone
Droplets fell, scattering with the click of fawn hooves.
Rolled one to my foot even as I bent to pluck it,
And this I placed in my mouth.

And even though each drop to my throat
Brought two from my eyes, I knew that I could
And I might, but I will not, love this.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Ouija

Ouija

So I turned to a road atlas, in lieu of your
Vanilla limbs. My finger along interstates
Ran and I said, These are her veins.
In blue, lakes and rivers showed their wet
Spots and again, my fingers, searching,
Sought.

Where is a park, where we can hide away?
I’m not familiar, I complained, and just then
I felt, Ouija-like, an assistance.
Here. Follow me, and
I followed, sleep-walking but never more
Awake. Here, further a bit.

You and I were in Green River.
I said I am a stranger here.
I asked, Those geese, are they always
So loud?
No, you said.
Only when they are confused, or
Undecided.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

The Way I See It

The Way I See It

They say it’s hard to know someone before they marry you
But here’s a couple things I’ll say before I say “I do.”

Never should you marvel that you buy my time for free
Darling, should the business of this world mean more to me?
And never should you long for what could come with just a touch
For never will you lack, if my own hand could give as much.

You’ll never have to twist my arm to take an evening walk
Nor tiptoe ‘cross the eggshells just so we can have a talk.
Love be our very habit then, praise be our only shout...
You’ll never have to live in fear, such love shall cast it out.

And never should the morning find us all “emotion spent.”
For never should our sun set on the coals of discontent.
And never should your dreams be bottled tight inside of you...
No, never doubt but that I’ll want to hear and dream them too.

Love, never should you shiver for the warmth I can provide
As much as never search for what should never have to hide.
The best part of this whole thing is, we’ll never feel alone...
For though we build the house we know that Love will build our home.

And should the world look on and sneer “Impossible,” so be it...
You’ll be the one that proves me true, and that’s the way I see it.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Waiting

Waiting

Rhymes with weighting, and makes me heavy.
You know I am going to keep believing in you.

The first half-hour I was embarrassed, I guess.
Felt there should be no reason for me, waiting.

I smiled at people, as they passed me by.
An hour passed, and I put a hand to my chest.

Yes, beating, my heart. You know something?
I am leaving our corner now, but not you. No.

Something is wrong. Something is very wrong.
You know I am going to keep believing in you.

I am not embarrassed or scared, I am hurried.
Rhymes with worried, and makes me love you.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

human

human

i looked up.
they had made their webs
in the rafters,
these two silent architects.
so i knocked them into a foil pan
where they lightly clattered.
exoskeletons, spinning
and disoriented.
so i sprayed aerosol on them
in great amounts, until
swimming to the center of the pan
they found each other,
grappled,
and broke their own necks.
i heard it.
two faint snaps.
i did not look up
at the empty webs, but
went my way.
and i am human.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008