Category: Poems

Yet I have slept with beauty
in my own weird way
and I have made a hungry scene or two
with beauty in my bed
and so spilled out another poem or two
and so spilled out another poem or two
upon the Bosch-like world.

and…

See
It was like this when
we waltz into this place
a couple of Papish cats
is doing an Aztec two-step
And I says
Dad let's cut
but then this dame
comes up behind me see
and says
You and me could really exist
Wow I says
Only the next day
she has bad teeth
and really hates
poetry

—
Hanging out at Caffe Trieste today and who's sitting across from me but Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

Today a little more than a few hours
a few more than last time
a morning feast near the white house
nestled in the woods and today
we go up until we reach the top.

But first, here is where my body
starts to ache, and here is where
I rest, and here is where my heart
explodes, and to the left we will
find the top of the world, where I will
find you, today and everyday.

All the land between here and there
those three islands, those two bridges,
that ship, my embrace, my kiss, my smile,
my laugh, may I humbly give to you
these are yours today and everyday.

A little more coffee and a few more roses
in a garden locked by a magic gate
unlocked with a secret knock and when
we return may all the roses bloom
to greet you. These roses are yours too.

When at last we must part I only wish
to extend your kiss one more stop to feel
the soft touch of your lips, the promise of
tomorrow the sunset and everyday thereafter.

There was a star that night
did you see it, the brightest one
in the sky.

It sparkles only in the Summer sky
and as I looked I wondered
if you saw it too.

Did you hear the song from the songbird
that night. Did the wind carry it to you,
or my whisper
a crazy man talking to himself
no you heard me twenty miles away.
You felt me shiver and you wanted to keep
me warm.

How many more Summer nights must we spend
apart, how many more will we see
with a million stars dancing away
too hot for blankets, just a sheet will do.

Still Life

I paint your smile
on a canvas that forgets
that you are not mine
and I cannot have you.

My dear cherry blossom
the earth shifts you
closer to the sun
and bees wait
for your command.

Each passing day,
I see you resting on the sand
I shall not wake you
Let the waves crash upon the shore
and the water tickle your feet.
The ocean loves you
embracing your hands
fullness of breath
there is no one else here.

Someday

One day, there will be more somedays.
The somedays when the sun kisses your skin
the cherry blossoms shade your path
and all the world hears my heart beat
with the anticipation of Spring.

The somedays when the bronze lion and heroes glisten
flowers even those that don't usually bloom greet us
in orange and violet and red and pink and blue
a park bench in the middle of the world and an embrace
of rough hands strolling through a park.

The somedays with the blackest coffee or one spiked
with chocolates and almonds,
just enough dessert where old photos smile at us
the right amount of smiles and the right amount of laughter.

The somedays when the stories unfold of fathers and mothers,
how bees carry honey and the burdens of butterflies
whose song fades in the air where we both hear that
one day, there will be more somedays.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

– Pablo Neruda, W.S Merwin translation

Ode to a Cool Sister

Cezanne and his workshop,
two sunny eggs pierced with a fork,
at Pugsleys and "there" killer blueberry muffins
served in a red basket with a large pat of butter.

Across the country and back three many times
I knew I shouldn't have had that pork cutlet
and that cheddar cheese ice cream with corn bits.

An educated fool with money on my mind.
It didn't work out with me an your mom.
Bonjour tous le monde, bonjour. Wait,
I don't speak French. Or do I.
To the East Fabrice. To the tire swings we'll meet.

Those coupons are expired. Fuck, shit,
why don't you go read a book. And while "your"
at it, get me some pudding. And a pair of Doc Martens
with some clotted cream. Is it soft? Peut-etre.

Victoria Falls, Turkey, Israel, Thailand,
well I've been to South Carolina, Myrtle Beach
Damn it, I need to rest. Can you wait?
I'm scared. There are no handrails at the steps
of Rome. Suck it up 'ol man. So how many toes
do you have?

Some birds aren't meant to be caged while some birds
vanish like a fart in the wind. Get busy living. Wish
I could come with you. You're only 34. I think.

Sometimes

Sometimes things don't go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel faces down frost;
green thrives; the crops don't fail.
Sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war,
elect an honest man, decide they care
enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best intentions do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen; may it happen to you.

–Sheenagh Pugh

In the middle of
a chilly-warm Spring downpour,
he blossoms
tall and eagle-eyed in the sky
raining sol onto my skin,
petals of light, licking
the cold bottoms of my feet,
warmth that rises
to heat the wings that lift me up
buzzing, buzzing
near the branches of waking cherry trees.
He tickles aching buds
that burst
with joyful laughter.
His light is the loving kiss
of possession
that turns my breath
to happy song.
More priceless than still life,
precious as once-given gifts,
this sudden shower
of god-like sunshine.

– KA

Number 1

Tell me you love me because you know you do.
Rain reminds me of that night,
a struggle to say a few simple words
the rhythm of your tears on my chest matched
the rain drops on the earth.

Tell me you love me because you know you do.
I see those words etched through the shadow
of my face, behind those brown eyes
Have you not been loved before?
Don't you know what it means?

Tell me you love me because you know you do.
The smell of you gives me comfort.
Inhale. Inhale and breathe you in so there's nothing
left in me. Let my skin smell like you.

Tell me you love me because you know you do.
I shout for the third time. Clutching you safe.
Shaking, trusting, not knowing, out of place.
What's the answer? What do I say?
Say nothing and he will go away. But he's not leaving.

Tell me you love me because you know you do.
I love you. And I love you too.