Month: April 2019

Broken corollas

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For D

Pressing flowers between the pages of
stolen poetry books,
                    not knowing
or caring
how long the process took,

if it would work or just cover us
in the evanescing colours
of broken corollas…

Gladly wasting away the day
we’d discussed stolen poetry books &
                    plucked flowers;
distinctions & equivalence;
the thrill of transgression,
the ambiguity of possession.

Currents of nuance ran through us
as consequence of curvatures
            in time;
of our spines &
            invisible lines

where the light bends, blends & divides.

When the flowers faded &
                    dried,
we knew wasted time is not a wasted life,
only
that our ideas about true beauty
make it hard to live…

but if you promise to stay
I'll promise not to leave.

“I remember when we were young”*

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“With rebellion, awareness is born.” – Albert Camus

When we were young
They told us
“Never look directly at the Sun”.

& for a while we didn’t.

Not from deference
to the authority of parents,
but out of reverence
                for the warmth:

It was the animal – the It
& not the I – that compelled us
to wear the warm veil of our eyelids
when we dared to approach the source
of all light & benevolent warmth…

…but we’re not young anymore, so
we looked & what we saw
changed us forever.

                Now
we stand before ancient energy,
a violence our gaze can never meet,
as small animals
                lost
in a fatal & final ecstasy
of rebellion:

to close our eyes,
stunned & waiting
for the after-image to fade

Afraid of what will come after.

“But I remember
                when we were young”.

*Insight – Joy Division

The Gaze

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“That which is light looks at me,
and by means of that light in the depths of my eye,
something is painted.” – Jacques Lacan

The gaze contains a curse & a gift, it
turns us into an object yet
confirms that we exist.

The vision of the other can either
become a prison, a figment
of our imagination, or
the one & only means of escape:

take your pick, because either way
it's not what you think;

the light decides
between a painting or a stain,
between pleasure or pain…

everywhere & nowhere but
                always outside,
it will eat us alive
from the inside:
                a black hole
into which we sink
as comprehending apperception
& thoughts of what the others think,
twist the thread
again & again…

                …until the light fights back,
& unties the knots:

                there is not (yet)
an answer, only the fantasy of two dancers
moving slowly then faster,
both tragic & absurd,
as an audience laughs
& cries as they turn.

Here in the Light

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Here in the light
that forever fights the darkness,
we exist. Incomplete
            objects;

nothing more than sentience yet
always there’s a surplus;

effervescence of neurological excess,
&
the contingent biological flesh
            deceived
by the thoughts that haunt us
&
always finding ways to evade our gaze.

We call this thing our Self.

We can never own it, never know it,
by demanding
                    or calmly asking

but we can find it,
                    sometimes,
in other eyes.

Mi fea, eres una castaña despeinada*

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For S

Far above us

the Sun burns
                
fierce & uncaring;

a soundless scream of light
in infinite darkness….

but down here,
                        where we’re hiding,
the firmament of our world
is the bedroom window
& the Sun has become
lambent limbs of gold,
                        reaching out
to garland us
                        with sepia tones…

…but then
biology disrupts this reverie:

you need to piss.
                           
If, in this poem
I wanted to make you a goddess;
                        an image
that could represent everything from blue
                        to red,
I wouldn’t include your need to piss,

but I did it anyway because you
asked me to, in your humble &
                        beautiful way,

not to make you poetic & perfect
but instead
write about you as you really are,
complete with all your flaws.

This is the best that I could accomplish.

Do you like it?

 

*Sonnet XX – Pablo Neruda