remembering Florence

I thought of Florence yesterday, listening to a song I must have listened to a hundred times while I was there, walking in the February street before they flooded with eager springtime audiences. Walking by the lumbering silence of the duomo, I remember every shop that filled the arches of Michelangelo's workshops. I remember every turn of the walk, the placement of every curb, step, gypsy, and haphazardly placed masterpiece. I remembered how alive it all made me feel, how wonderfully alone. How each footstep felt as though I was sinking deeper into the cobblestones, how each footstep seemed to irreversibly change some part of me. I remembered the way the cold white marble felt in my hands, the weight of its fragile opportunity. I remember how aware I was of the river no matter where I was, and how easily a bridge over its waters went unnoticed as an ordinary street. I remembered feeling lucky every single day and thinking endlessly about how I could feel that way everyday from then on. Yesterday for a moment I wished I had written every second down. But I remember every heartbeat, every brushstroke, every turn of the wheel, every chip of marble that hit the soil.

street walkers

in the shadow of the sun
I walk into the city's symphonies
a purple coat a broken window
a sky lost on too many busy people
a girl walks, without looking
mind blank of a destination
void of purpose or parameters
in her eyes there exist no curbs, nor walks
nor streets, nor racing cars
only forward motion
noise is endless, watchfulness leaks into every corner
tainting nay pocket of silence that boils up
out of unbearable frustration
the winter noon sun sits distractedly on the shoulder blades of the buildings
nudging the chimneys in boredom
the sky is the color of dirty ice
its spittle settles in every crevice
a man with no name pulls his collar over his jaw
and he cries for the cold
in the long game of dress up, this woman runs in every race
and her cashmere tissues float to the ground behind her
in chronic dramatic finales
the stories are endless and they float around each person
possessing the qualities of smoke, wind, tentacles, and cacophony
the stories breed disillusion, chivalry, intimacy, luxury, and isolation

fairytales

How is it that the many men and women penned the many tall tales and sweet stories to be read by ours with the tiniest hands and the largest eyes with out any of the heavy remnants of guilt? How did they allow their words to arrange themselves falsely upon the pages? Lies from beyond once upon a time and grave misrepresentations that resonate long after happily ever after. How do we let our children rest in ignorance of the fragmentation to come, and the destruction that has been? Is it because we envy their innocence? Is it that what we long for most is to have no knowledge of the massive atrocities of man, the faults in our friends, the disappointments we discover in our parents, our abandonment by our Gods? But to this ignorance of evil, clings an inability to bear the weight of the great joys of life. What it feels like to be loved implicitly by another human being, or perhaps, only the luxary of believing this is possible. What it feels like when physical calescence between lovers suddenly becomes visible in the night. What it is to stand alone. What it is to stand with someone. What it is to know that your physical being can create life, and in that act, redeem the reflection God had hoped to see of Himself in man. What it is to surrender. What it is to struggle ceaselessly. What it is to have the choice. What it is to sleep in the arms of your lover, and have your hand meet warms flesh when it reaches out, imploring the night. What it is to be able to map another’s bare skin. What it is to know that the love of God is conditional, and to choose whether or not to live by those conditions. What it is to have all the words you need to say what you want. What it is to know that you’ll never have all the words to say what you need.

erin

i believe there is a great expanse between our external selves and our deepest constitutions. our constitutions can be enriched or depleted, but remain mostly solid and permanent. here-in lies the difference between friendships and loves that burn and fade and those that simmer infinitely. rarely can one be sure of a person's constitution, or even sure of their own, but when the exteriors shift or disperse, and a person's constitution is realized, it shakes one's soul to find that a connection exists at that most fundamental level.

the first love poem

paramount
poised on my horizon
imminent, evident in your effects.
ever-present in your portioned ire
preponderant
on my collarbones
along my earlobes
beneath my chin
smiling from the creases by my eyes
sinking between my lashes and my lips
laden with wonderment
wandering
with determination
laughing at my loitering with lunacy

warm and fade

i'm neither numb nor knowing. i have no words appropriate, no sentences that seem to reflect my insides. i have little elbow room, and the ceiling is upon me, but my expectations are endless. i can only write circles around the things that have corners, and i can only palpate that which has no substance. i'm neither floating nor grounded, but i'm where i should be. i can't exactly find your face in my charcoal, but its painfully clear in my head. i've written all of my questions down, but i want none of them answered.

i just roll them around in my palm, until they warm and fade, and return at a later time.

february

rising unimpassioned from the snow
the unclothed trees tremble in the chill

each arm bearing the weight
of a winter copious and cumbersome

a vibrant hush floods
the breadth between branches

only interrupted by the impertinent sound
of footsteps in the snow

the stillness envelopes all motion
encapsulates all time. seconds slow.

exhalation pauses, stumbling on the lull
and then erupts in a puff of frosty steam

up into the caliginous sky
glass-like in it's spherical expanse

the conscience clears, open as the night
lit by icy points of unhindered perception

the mind yawns open
made navigable to all the honesty of the evening

revelations skid across the psyche
and truths emerge from the wind-tossed snow.