Poetry two

Sky Bones!

in perfume of yellow-
first summer defiant flowers-
of earth mineral
and watered air molecules
I sense the pungent smells
of your sweat
and salty flesh-
green vegetable
and blood garlic,
bone of fruit sky.
Through these gifted days
of sacred blooming mystery
my body breath and skin-
distanced objects to comprehend-
focused back toward this self,
is meaning constructed.
Building this I,
fabricating this you,
as you raise your I
to some created me.
how crowded this meeting
of feelings longings uncertainties.
We craft friendship and communion
across the pains and joys
of days and nights- alone, separately,
trying to avoid the crumblings
of doubt and suffocation
as palaces of human dignity and honesty arise-
fall, rise anew.
With what relentlessness of effort
do these wild flowers
suffer the waiting of rain
and death-
extending deeper,
roots of being-
exhaling scents
inhaled by insects and lovers
initiating thought fluids and pollinates
of (universal) desiring substance.
And these bones....
sky bones!
Don’t I see your feet are large.
So I will have loved
and lost
and cherished the loss
of your bone smile
in the clear flowing residue
of folded brain memories,
etched from some protean template
on the changing timescape called self.

Sadali, Italy June 14-19, 2002

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Little Old Town

Today in this little old town
I saw your back with desire.
Today I made a wish at the well
to kiss your neck.
Today we laughed together
while I fumbled words to you.
Today we talked to an old man
in this little old town.
I only understood “dolore……contentezza…….
Paradiso…..O la vita!”
I looked at his wrinkles of time worn days.
I looked for his death.
I looked at your living.
I saw my own limit- my end.
Today in this little old town
we saw buildings fading,
heard of days separating, growing in distance.
We heard of stories and memories passing.
And then, in this town the crisis of a moment:
Passion renewed, yet, also passing, lost.
And as others still leave,
as I leave alone again,
always in this little old town
is echoing: “Ti volgio bene…Ti volgio bene….”.

Asti, Italy June 1996