you should know
scattered light could not define
your eyes, the depth
which draws reflections
in my drifting soul,
pulling back the beauty
of this living
presence–
yours and mine, ocean tides
moving us in ways
we could not manage
on our own.
Romance
Our Corner
A man hangs his hat in that corner
where once we slept together
an ignorant or discontent foreigner
to our dislocated nether.
No one knows what happened
to the images our jury pardoned.
It was not always rainy when you came.
There were moments, tucked into our night
we found shelter in our tender shame
knowing neither would ever fight
for all the stories Donne read within
that little corner of our skin.
No one forgets—
not even the man, uncapped, in grey
strolling through space time bid offset
frustrated and sweating through the summer decay
praying for the breath that weaves
through the door, but out the window leaves.
Gravity
(Pow, right in the feels. And using space, too.)
English: Moon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A saturation of forces holds us,
pirouetting through the possibility of darkness
probing the field in yearning steps.
Many partners share the floor,
but in restraint, the tidal pull of our
reservations tickle together
timeless revolutions, sun-bleached
for the final, shaking breath when time
skips, us tipping into the hooded sky.
Poetic Spotlight: Alas, so all things now do hold their peace
Portrait of Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374), Italian poet and humanist (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
One of the great wonders of the poetic world–at least in the western tradition–is the centuries old figure of one of Italy’s most interesting sons: Francesco Petrarch. A poet and scholar, his was one of the voices most sought after in the Renaissance–that great pinnacle of western revival in the arts.
For good reason, might I add! Not only was he considered the father of the humanist movement (which would eventually change the face of Europe in a great many ways, I might add–Reformation, anyone?), he gave birth to what is now known as the Petrarchan sonnet, and his works serve as some of the models for lyrical poetry as a whole. You may recall in a previous post I mentioned the Italian sonnet? In some cases, it is another name for these–but on the whole, Petrarch’s words served as the basis for those Italian forms to come.
His brand of poetry was not typically weighed with politics or the like, as seen in many cases today, but rather with the matter of the heart–or to be more specific, the concepts of unattainable love. Beneath many of them lie a great pining the poetic heart too easily recognizes.
Italian, it is often said, is a language of love, and if that’s the case, you might consider thanking Petrarch for the pleasure–the model for the modern Italian language is actually based of a mix of Petrarch’s, Giovanni Boccaccio’s, and Dante Alighieri’s works.
So let us indulge now in a sample of the master’s words, with one of his iconic sonnets…
Sonnet 12–Alas, so all things now do hold their peace
Alas, so all things now do hold their peace,
Heaven and earth disturbèd in no thing;
The beasts, the air, the birds their song do cease;
The nightes car the stars about doth bring.
Calm is the sea, the waves work less and less.
So am not I, whom love, alas, doth wring,
Bringing before my face the great increase
Of my desires, whereat I weep and sing
In joy and woe, as in a doubtful ease.
For my sweet thoughts sometime do pleasure bring,
But by and by the cause of my disease
Gives me a pang that inwardly doth sting,
When that I think what grief it is again
To live and lack the thing should rid my pain.
~By Petrarch, translated into English by Henry Howard
The Chase
It is a blind chase–
the riddle of a woman’s grace.
I would name myself a statue
but this stunted face could not construe
the subdued motion of my growth
through softest bond and yearning oaths.
A Haiku Afternoon
Tomorrow, a more fantastical post. Today, a short dose of the poetic:
Rose petals drift
perilous bedside seas–
her breathless touch.
—
Night gown nonsense–
heat beckons through wood and wind
wild by moonlight.
Note: Don’t forget to check out my guest blog appearance on Jessica Kristie’s “Inspiring Ink” segment today! I may be talking fantastic tomorrow, but today, I’m delving into the imagination…
To lie in Auburn Summer
Dawn-lit lovers tell of Indian summers,
the name and shape of which are lost
to caresses of cabaret visions,
the Auburn night that host
beach-born indecision,
the look that chains that sky unto the post
between grains of fleshed collusion–
she sings still in toast,
to the figure of our delusion.
Bedside
* A work in progress – critique welcome!
Broad strokes, bedside
broached the topic of
wedded blasphemy,
through bygone whispers
renovated in bravado,
battered with the blue breeze
bloody braggarts call carnal bastardization.
An immigration of conscience
instituted something like incontinence.
Winged Aphrodite pulled hormones
through the shaft of her soul,
but ringed Bast barred in gold;
lovers circled bane and bust,
but the band bonded true—
like a shadow, lust, pulled
through the needle of love’s eye.
Her #Haiku
It is dew I drink
Mere drops of her spirit fall
Yet it is all world.
When there is nothing
Before abyss come the clock-tower.
The little boy by midnight asks—
her look, lost in the candlelight—
the nature of empty books lain dormant,
the moonless night above a bridge
when there is nothing left to lose—
in sedimentary smiles she sighs:
when there is nothing
there is love.
The Waking Den 