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if…

Dear Gentle Sir,

When I say your name, my heart rumbles
much like a lion roars when it knows it’s right.
If only we could know the future, we might roar more.

xo

if freckles were lovely, and day was night
and measles were nice and a lie warn’t a lie
life would be delight
but things couldn’t go right
for in such a sad plight
i wouldn’t be i

if earth was heaven and now was hence
and past was present and false was true
there might be some sense
but I’d be in suspense
for on such a pretense
you wouldn’t be you.

if fear was plucky, and globes were square
and dirt was cleanly and tears were glee
things would seem fair
yet they’d all despair
for if here was there
we wouldn’t be we.

— e.e cummings —

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zero circle…

Be helpless, dumbfounded,
Unable to say yes or no.
Then a stretcher will come from grace
To gather us up.

We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty
If we say we can, we’re lying.
If we say No, we don’t see it,
That No will behead us
And shut tight our window onto spirit.

So let us rather not be sure of anything,
Besides ourselves, and only that, so
Miraculous beings come running to help.
Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute,
We shall be saying finally,
With tremendous eloquence, Lead us.
When we have totally surrendered to that beauty,
We shall be a mighty kindness.

— Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi —

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hours continuing long…

Hours continuing long, sore and heavy-hearted,

Hours of the dusk, when I withdraw to a lonesome and un-frequented
spot, seating myself, leaning my face in my
hands;

Hours sleepless, deep in the night, when I go forth, speeding
swiftly the country roads, or through the city streets, or
pacing miles and miles, stifling plaintive cries;

Hours discouraged, distracted—for the one I cannot content
myself without, soon I saw him content himself without
me;

Hours when I am forgotten, (O weeks and months are pass-
ing, but I believe I am never to forget!)

Sullen and suffering hours! (I am ashamed—but it is useless
—I am what I am;)

Hours of my torment—I wonder if other men ever have the
like, out of the like feelings?

Is there even one other like me—distracted—his friend, his
lover, lost to him?

Is he too as I am now? Does he still rise in the morning, de-
jected, thinking who is lost to him? and at night, awak-
ing, think who is lost?

Does he too harbor his friendship silent and endless? harbor
his anguish and passion?

Does some stray reminder, or the casual mention of a name,
bring the fit back upon him, taciturn and deprest?

Does he see himself reflected in me? In these hours, does he
see the face of his hours reflected?

— Walt Whitman —

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66…

love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail

it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea

love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive

it is most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky

— e.e. cummings —

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scylla and charybdis…

To grip your beautiful hard in my hand is to lick the bottom of an ice cream cone filled with my most favourite flavour. Ever. To watch your head fall back as my fingers disappear between my silky smooth folds is to feel my heart fall soft and free into my throat with each peaking roller coaster dive. To moan our pleasure in unison is to wake to the smell of fresh brewed coffee and bacon on the grill; it is home.  To return your reach and hold you is to dream a dream I once lived.
For a moment.

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love sonnet xi…

love sonnet 1

L
I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

— Pablo Neruda —

love sonnet 2

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my dear friend…

My dear friend
never lose hope
when the Beloved
sends you away.

If you’re abandoned
if you’re left hopeless
tomorrow for sure
you’ll be called again.

If the door is shut
right in your face
keep waiting with patience
don’t leave right away.

Seeing your patience
your love will soon
summon you with grace
raise you like a champion.

And if all the roads
end up in dead ends
you’ll be shown the secret paths
no one will comprehend.

The beloved I know
will give with no qualms
to a puny ant
the kingdom of Solomon.

My heart has journeyed
many times around the world
but has never found
and will never find
such a Beloved again.

Ah I better keep silence
I know this endless love
will surely arrive
for you and you and you.

translated by Nader Khalili

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gate c22…

At gate C22 in the Portland airport
a man in a broad-band leather hat kissed
a woman arriving from Orange County.
They kissed and kissed and kissed. Long after
the other passengers clicked the handles of their carry-ons
and wheeled briskly toward short-term parking,
the couple stood there, arms wrapped around each other
like he’d just staggered off the boat at Ellis Island,
like she’d been released at last from ICU, snapped
out of a coma, survived bone cancer, made it down
from Annapurna in only the clothes she was wearing.

Neither of them was young. His beard was gray.
She carried a few extra pounds you could imagine
her saying she had to lose. But they kissed lavish
kisses like the ocean in the early morning,
the way it gathers and swells, sucking
each rock under, swallowing it
again and again. We were all watching–
passengers waiting for the delayed flight
to San Jose, the stewardesses, the pilots,
the aproned woman icing Cinnabons, the man selling
sunglasses. We couldn’t look away. We could
taste the kisses crushed in our mouths.

But the best part was his face. When he drew back
and looked at her, his smile soft with wonder, almost
as though he were a mother still open from giving birth,
as your mother must have looked at you, no matter
what happened after–if she beat you or left you or
you’re lonely now–you once lay there, the vernix
not yet wiped off, and someone gazed at you
as if you were the first sunrise seen from the Earth.
The whole wing of the airport hushed,
all of us trying to slip into that woman’s middle-aged body,
her plaid Bermuda shorts, sleeveless blouse, glasses,
little gold hoop earrings, tilting our heads up.

– Ellen Bass –