The Syntax of Touch

 

You midnight the room
when you enter,
and I become all window—
all reflection, all dark glass,
watching your shadow
velvet itself across the floor.

Your eyes eclipse me.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
They linger where my composure
is thinnest,
and suddenly I am fevering
toward everything I should resist.

You silence me without speaking.
You gravity the distance smaller.
My pulse drums beneath my skin
as though it has chosen you
for its only rhythm,
as though the body can betray
simply by becoming music.

Come nearer
and mouth my name softly—
let each syllable wine
against your tongue.
I want to hear how you darken it,
how you turn something ordinary
into something I almost blush
to recognize as mine.

Your nearness roses me.
Heat unfurls beneath my throat,
climbs slowly into my face;
even the mirror would betray me now,
misting itself
with everything
I refuse to confess.

And still you do not touch me.
You almost me.
You perhaps me.
You make a beautiful cruelty
of the final inch between us
until wanting becomes
its own form of contact.

If your hand found mine,
I would thunder.
If your mouth found mine,
I would forget every careful word
and let you verb me
into some new language—
something breathless,
something without grammar.

So come closer.
Night me.
Fever me.
Eclipse whatever remains
of my good intentions—
and when I finally gravity toward you,
tell me:
which of us was the temptation,
and which of us surrendered first?

Photo credits: Pinterest 

Posted for dVerse Poets Pub - Meeting the Bar by verbing your verse. Thank you for your kind comments and visits.

Black Olive Appetency

 

I cannot love you gently.

There is midnight in my blood, thunder

in my veins,

intimacies that resemble sunlight

and a sky that weeps in rain.

Tell me what you ache for, as sweet

surrender

of a flame to the waiting wick,

I am fluent in ardor,

I don't believe in keeping intensity in check.

Outside the city is restless, it's

forged in pink profanities and promises

that half deliver—

in the geography of your body,

my longing becomes a river. 

I am not interested in desire that is afraid. 

Before me, black olives gleam like

appetency—

dark, salt-bitten and ripened into want;

a hunger sharp enough to savor,

earthy enough to make the mouth ask twice. 

Meet me halfway, and I will tell you why

olives taste sweeter after salt.

I wear love like moonlight in arteries, 

offer peace

that heart sustains—

I was raised on simple soft flatbread,

I will lose myself

in you and not complain. 

Such a little thing—

skin against skin,

the faint collision of two living silences,

allow me to kiss parts of you

that sorrow stains,

I cannot love you gently—

even the stars

would envy what our darkness contains.

Your tousled hair and stormy eyes,

alluring to the point

that even shadows grow curious,

is a feeling I cannot name—

I am both brazen and reticent,

I would choose your twilight

over a thousand mountain prairies. 

Is it insane to want you 

so much

that restraint begins to feel like a lie?

How many nights 

must I dream of your lips

before I dare to make them mine?

I cannot love you gently—

there is midnight in my blood, thunder 

in my veins, 

intimacies that resemble sunlight 

and a sky that weeps in rain.

 

Photo credits: Pinterest

Posted for dVerse Poets Pub - OLN #418 (and dVerse Live) on Saturday. Thank you for your kind comments and visits.

The Sea, in Chorale Prelude

 

The sea begins in silence—
a breath held beneath the sky,
as if waiting for permission
to sing again.

Its waves roll in,
not with fury,
but with purpose,
each one a chorale prelude,
solemn, ancient,
laced with salt and memory.

The wind lifts a phrase from the surface,
carries it inland,
where no one listens
but the grasses
and the bones beneath them.

A gull cries—a minor chord,
sharp enough to open the air,
and somewhere,
beneath the tide’s patient breath,
a shell spins its echo
like a cathedral holding onto music.

There is no final note.
Only the long cadence
of water falling into itself,
again and again,
until even the moon
forgets
what it meant to pull.

Posted for dVerse Poets Pub - Poetics. Thank you for your kind comments and visits. 

Between the pavement and sky

 

Inspired by Lou Bega - Mambo No. 5

One, two, three, four, five, 

everybody's in the bar, so let us write. 

The air, hums, like it remembers a song. 

not a loud one— but something soft, 
half-sung by power lines 
and the distant hush of tires on wet asphalt. 

 

I move through it slowly, 
as though  

the street might dissolve beneath me, 
the pavement is warm, 
cracked in places where stories seep, 

I am careless enough to try, as you can see. 

 

[Chorus] 

 

A little Bit-O-Honey bars for my pain, 

a little bit of Charleston Chew explained, 

a little bit of poetry is all I need, 

a little bit of lyricism here and there.

A little bit of Milk duds in the rain, 

a little bit of Red Hots, go insane,

a little bit of Twizzlers makes me sway,

a little bit of Snickers to end my day. 

 

Windows blink with silent color. 
A curtain stirs in a building I’ll never enter. 
A bird crosses overhead, 
its wings carve through the stillness, 

men no longer serenade women  

nor make them bloom like amaryllis. 

 

The world feels paused, 
not asleep, 
just listening— 
to the low music in the wires, 
to the gentle weight of sky pressing against glass, 
to the rustle of air remembering, 

I wonder what it takes for a lullaby 

to be woven from the hush of traffic. 

[Chorus (slowed)] 

 

A little Bit-O-Honey bars for my pain, 

a little bit of Charleston Chew explained, 

a little bit of poetry is all I need, 

a little bit of lyricism here and there.

A little bit of Milk duds in the rain, 

a little bit of Red Hots, go insane,

a little bit of Twizzlers makes me sway,

a little bit of Snickers to end my day.

Some days, the air tastes of iron and rain, 
others, of fire and forgotten green. 
Clouds drift like strangers overhead, 
unaware of the hunger down here 
and thirst for space. 
 

I am restless, I drift, unseen, through alleys 

and courtyards, 

between the pavement and sky, 
I exist like a breath held too long— 
 

Hush now, world, in smoke and blue 

the city sleeps and so must you, 

just close your eyes  

and think of something sweet,  

skittles, dots, twix and sugar babies.  

Five, six, seven, eight! 

 

[Chorus (upbeat)] 

 

A little Bit-O-Honey bars for my pain, 

a little bit of Charleston Chew explained, 

a little bit of poetry is all I need, 

a little bit of lyricism here and there.

A little bit of Milk duds in the rain, 

a little bit of Red Hots, go insane,

a little bit of Twizzlers makes me sway,

a little bit of Snickers to end my day.

Posted for dVerse Poets Pub - Poetics. Thank you for your kind comments and visits.