Hooks

Hooks

Darkness had not finished with the air.
Cool, it filled our excited lungs as we ran
to the dam. The hum of pent-up power.

Before the floodgates open, all is laid bare.
What was covered, snagged. Revealed.
Hurry, someone woke earlier. See?

Like gulls, we ignore last night’s shoreline
and skip to the treasures. Everywhere.
Each rock seeming to yield shiny tackle.

Laughing, we know that we will catch fish
with these. Look at this new one, David.
The guy probably cast it only once or twice.

Only Jesus could have walked here last night
as the mosquitoes ate us. And we reeled.
With a divine ease now, we free the hooks.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Dog

Dog

Look at a dog.
A dog is thinking. Unlike
A cat, say. A cat is sleeping.
And dreaming of more sleep.

But look at a dog.
His tail is a separate entity.
Unlike a horse.
Horsetail is pragmatic.

Check out this dog.
Not that one, the other --
With the dripping tongue.
There is nothing as salivic.

I knew one named Bogey.
I’ve met no man, smarter.
Even his owner. → Dumb,
Compared.

Ever hear one in October
Barking far away? Yeah.
It chills a part of you you
Knew not was there until.

Look at a dog.
They say a chimp is closest
To who we are. Look at a dog
And say Bullshit with me.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Mars On Vacation

Mars On Vacation

Why do we call it sleeping together
When hibernation is the last thing on either mind?
I slept not a wink.
But I think you did. Or maybe I am mistaken.

You looked so at peace.
And that’s another odd phrase. We say it
As though it is the profoundest mystery,
When the furthest thing from anyone’s mind is war.

I looked upon your eyes and your lips
As you lay in our bed of comfort, with me.
Bed of comfort.
Heaven’s anklet.
Whiskers disturbed from purring.
Mist on Avalon.
Juno satiated.
Jupiter undone.
Mars on vacation.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Camille

Camille

I thought I had a favorite song until
eyes half shut and vodka in flight
a lifetime of longing beckoned me
from the neck up, to the stage.

I turned to see you as oblivious to
my terror as a deer in the branches
pulls leaves before hearing fear.
As though no one’s life was over –

You went on, chorus and verse.
And a piano tried to add a little
something to the perfection of
my demise, my neck-down defeat.

Forgetting you is not the problem.
I have since learned that I must.
But tell me, Camille, how will I
ever remember anything else?

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Unconcerned

Unconcerned

Thirty kilometres a second around the Sun
We fly all of us do. White Black Yellow Red
And Unconcerned.
The Sun nearly ten times as quickly cruises
The Milky Way. Exploding Hot Yellow Bright
And Unconcerned.

Our galaxy two and a half times as fast rips
To the Virgo cluster. Swirling White Dancing
And Unconcerned.
Where anything larger than the Milky Way
Flies we can only guess. Milky Itchy Horny
And Unconcerned.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

A Name In The Sand

 
A Name In The Sand

Your hand once held my own, your
Name, the sweetest note
In a song unfinished --
The reason for my joy. Now,
Sand -- laid out in its infinity
Reminds me of the countless times
My thoughts have held you, while my
Heart was so lonely
That I fell to my knees.

I bend down and write,
Still thinking about you -- sometimes
Love is a hidden message
You find in the first word of each line.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Signals

Signals

What if the lovers were subjected to signals?
No speech. No lips. Armless. What if
Tied up, only the eyes were allowed travel?

Tell me how, across this distance, they would
Convey the most elementary intent?
Tell me how the most elementary --

Stop. I see it now. She tells him with an eyebrow
Lowering, that the fight is over. She is sending
Herself over to him.

The ropes loosen, no one knows how,
Or cares. How. She is untying them.
And this is all that matters.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Old and Wise.

Old and Wise

We link these words together as though
they appear in the dictionary on the same page.
It is impossible to be old and stupid?

I do not believe that years are a constant,
no more than rings on a severed tree
tell anything of height.

Old and stupid is a reality.
As is youth and wisdom.
The difference being how we think,
no matter the current hemisphere
of life.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

22nd Anniversary

22nd Anniversary

You claimed they ate carrots
And I said no the word impossible
In my mind big as a saddle.

City met country as I followed
You from the garden your hands
Orange and green to the wet corral.

Some you gave to me and the fence
Creaked as the warm lips threatened
To pull me to the muddy earth.

I was twelve and you ten that summer
Darling you are the best thing about me
For as many years combined now.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Watching A Boat

Watching A Boat

Upon this pier
the boat becomes
a mirror of emotion.
You are the breeze
trapped in its sails
I, the windless ocean.

And like this vessel
tethered here
yet longing to be driven,
You long to be released
and freed
I long to be forgiven.

Look, these thoughts
lie heaped upon
a heart’s undying embers.
You are forever
Unforgotten
I, one who remembers.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Reindeer

Reindeer

It is appropriate that the name is unchanged
whether singular or plural.
For tonight I saw one,
seeming to bow for all things living
toward the grass.

The Northern Lights and the stars
were together less majestic than the single breath
huffed, as the branch beneath my foot
sent all things living, echoing
over the ridge.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Conjunction

Conjunction

She was the “sun and the stars” to me.
What does that mean, exactly?
I’ve heard it said, now and then.

She was my heat and my light?
Her nearness was far, yet closer than it might have been?
When she shone, I felt warm?

Too bright at noon?
Just right at night?

Astronomically speaking, one thing is sure.
The person who says it
Has no idea that the sun is a star!

My guess is that, since the whole phrase
Is housed in the past tense,
The speaker would rather she had twinkled,
Than burned.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Balder Every Morning

Balder Every Morning

Like he does not have enough of his own.
He’s covered, from ear to claw with it.
And wants mine.

I cannot tell you how many nights
I’ve awakened to this chewing, gnawing
Saliva-filled, purring feline in nirvana.

My cat is eating my hair.
Nocturnally. And it feels good, to me.
I would not tell that to everyone.

It’s all I can do to make him stop.
I say, “Jack! NO!”
But I mean, “Yes!”

And I think he knows it.
Something so therapeutic about it.
He was born at night, but not last night!

I cuddle him close, so our noses touch.
And tell him to behave.
And fall asleep again, hoping he forgets.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Dvorak

Dvorak

How can someone dead six decades before my life
Move me so? How can his decaying tympanis
Cause my heart to quell its perturbations
With a conductor’s descending baton?
Tell me that no genius burned
Within the flags and dots of
Each five-staffed page.
And I will mention,
You do not know
My composer.
My Dvorak!

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

We Know We Love

We Know We Love

We know we love, when, if the coin was ours to toss
We would have it land in our disfavor
Rather than someone else’s.

We know we love, when, drinking what is absorbed
By our beloved, we ask,
Is there more?

Tonight, on the way back to the car
I turned toward the misty walls of the hospital
And closed my eyes.

We know we love, when the coin is caught
While ascending. And the question is answered
By something other than gravity.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Wildflower

Wildflower

Nowadays, no walking is needed.
Plastic numbers will send tame ones
Around the globe at a click. Try it.
Think of someone in need, first.

Potted, wrapped, still dripping of dew.
Carded and be-ribboned, only idiots
And madmen sidestep such efficiency
Or walk somewhere.

I thought all of this before yesterday,
When… on a hillside I knelt as though
The world were a cathedral. And knew
That I can only enjoy this, by staying.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

We Didn't Start The Fire

We Didn’t Start The Fire

We would all meet at Tony Jaro’s and someone would start it.
The talking, the topic, the joke, and never a dull moment,
Elapsed. The time I most remember is one I cannot forget.

We were sitting there and as I reached across three shoulders
To grab a fresh Samuel Adams from Gordie it seemed as though
Even that wretched Billy Joel song clamped itself shut and...

It was always burning since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire
No
We didn't light it but we tried to fight it.

And David said, “You know, nothing has been the same since
We learned to talk,” and instantly I was dizzy with a feeling
Neanderthal and prophetic. And I recalled how goddamn...

1953 Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc. 1954 Roy Cohn
Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron…

How goddamn difficult, how difficult it was to tie this tie
Around my neck tonight, before I came here. Before. Long
Before I met with my friends.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

we grow up

we grow up

when I was a kid it would rain and earthworms
would come from somewhere and be everywhere.
by the thousands at the drains, my sister and I
would run as the rainbow came out to the curbs
and gather them, worms for the helpless taking.

in our hands, a living spaghetti of fun would coil
and fret, as we laughed, kneeling. no conquering
knight proud of plunder ever rejoiced as we did
after a thunder. and I wonder, I will tell you what
it is I wonder. I ask where have the worms gone.

tonight I walked home in a downpour and I felt
my entire childhood a farce, a false history. there
are no worms in the curbs, drifting anywhere and
no one running. sadder still, if worms in squiggly
mountains squirmed, even I would keep walking.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Aging

Aging

White at the sides, above the ears
I noticed them today. Whispy hair
Like snow fresh fallen appears
To have rested, unmelting there.

Should I fight it or become forlorn
Will neither matter, bye and bye.
I shall not fret nor have it shorn;
Shall calmly age, and never dye.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Lanolin

Lanolin

For eighty feet or so we are together, mere seconds.
She hobbles in, cute as a sheep, and I smile.
Her gnarled finger illuminates the “L” on the panel.
Our eyes meet, and “venerable” unbidden springs.
I sip at my coffee, glancing at her silver slippers.
…From here to the moon those feet have walked.

The door opens and a clink of keys breaks my reverie.
Ahh! She is going to check her mail, a wink as we part.
In that final descent to the parking garage, I move to
Where she stood, and breathe in six distinct thoughts
Of my own grandmother. Scenes, words, stories.
As I walk to my car, several more arrive… memories.

And three questions, as I drive to work bug me.
What is that smell?
What is that the smell of?
What is that smell called?

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

The Shape I Gave You

The Shape I Gave You

Water looks like what it’s in.
Else it’s flat, and spread too thin.
The shape of you is much the same.
It needs a cup, a house, a frame.

It wasn’t long before I knew
The very curve and slope of you
Belonged in me, to never part
My ever loving, beating heart.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

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