"Bitter-berry daybreak"

Bitter-berry daybreak
bitter-berry sun
a mirror has broken
between me and him

I try to find the highway
perhaps to run away
but everywhere the footpaths
of his words lead me astray

Pinewood remember
pinewood forget
however much I lose my way
I step on my regret

Parrot-coloured echo
tricks me tricks me on
until I turn beguiled
to retrieve the mocking song

Echo gives no answer
he answers everyone
bitter-berry daybreak
bitter-berry sun

Ingrid Jonker

wanna play fire with you

if only my words 
could create a tiny universe 
for you and I 
a deserted beach 
a sand castle 
a song to dance to.

Paris bleeding

my arms with a single embrace

would speak more eloquently

of my desires

my lips silent on yours

would reason

that the words you bestow

upon me

should be devoured

with gentle urgency.

fingers like little cameras

are taking photographs

of our profane celebration.

la turista of truth

ever wished you lived inside a song?
all the senses stimulated by a rhythm
a long train ride
shared in a wagon lit
searching for the land where desires were born
small innocent children
scratching the earth
like a lover's back
feasting on forgiven fruits
no regrets
no memories
small genuine notes whispered
no different than clouds 
before rain.
overwhelmed I am 
by the volume and beauty of the poetry
I read in your eyes.
devastated by your absence.
wishing we lived inside a song.

p.s the song is "do you want what I need" by Milosh

diagnosis

I don't miss you
it's your afterimage that haunts me
that's what the doctor said,
like the canary
in the cage
over the kitchen table
that used to sing
while I had my coffee-and-cigarettes breakfast.
the canary died last August
I quit smoking in September
everytime I walk in the damn kitchen
I can see the canary
yellow like a tiny standing banana
an apparition imprinted in my retina
as I still smoke in my dreams
and curse myself for starting again
we are prisoners of our habits.
I don't miss you
it's your absence inflated in my head
almost the size of a zeppelin
floating over the neighborhood
casting an ominous shadow on the buildings
like a spider's web dripping blood
on the furniture
on my books
on my clothes.
I don't miss you
you are only a volcano
in my nightmares
trying to burn me and drown me at the same time.
it's your laughter that invades
my house like a storm of razors
like distortion from huge amplifiers
of a rock concert
of the previous century
reverberated in my mind to levels of insanity.
I don't miss you
your only strength is my obsession
with your myth
at the expense of truth.

Youngsea

I gaze at the horizon
that hides the ocean
an ocean that keeps us apart.
knowing that beyond the seas
but not beyond my senses
your quiet breathing
is a melody
a painful instance of absence
that will be remedied
by the boundless waters
that will carry you
to familiar shores.

ode to an odalisque

you and I
have no memories
no broken down promises
no glasses of half-empty dreams
we never made plans
to conquer exotic islands
to ride whales
in underwater rodeos
I sacrificed no flowers to decorate your hair
no fingerprints of mine
can be found on your skin
the radio never played songs
to make us reminisce
moments on top of a hill
with city lights below.
in a parallel universe
in a cheap motel room
a couple with similar features
as ours
is sweating break-up sex
you and I will meet 
tomorrow
for the first time.

the unicorn lived in a lilac wood ...

Unicorns are immortal. It is their nature to live alone in one place: usually a forest where there is a pool clear enough for them to see themselves for they are a little vain, knowing themselves to be the most beautiful creatures in all the world, and magic besides. They mate very rarely, and no place is more enchanted than one where a unicorn has been born.
The last time she had seen another unicorn the young virgins who still came seeking her now and then had called to her in a different tongue;  but then, she had no idea of months and years and centuries, or even of seasons. It was always spring in her forest, because she lived there and she wandered all day among the great beech trees, keeping watch over the animals that lived in the ground and under bushes, in nests and caves, earths and treetops. Generation after  generation, wolves and rabbits alike, they hunted and loved and had children and died, and as the unicorn did none of these things, she never grew tired of watching them.

Peter S. Beagle
The Last Unicorn

thank you, Youngchae

olfactory carnal knowledge

I know everything
about you
except your smell
until I have rested
my nose
on your inner thigh
after you have danced
I will not be able
to discern
if you are a paeonia
or
a
lilac.

Joë Bousquet in Bed

οil emulsion in water on canvas. 1947

Paralyzed during World War I, the poet Joë Bousquet was bedridden for decades until his death in 1950. Dubuffet depicts him in bed with two of his books, a newspaper, two letters addressed to him, and a package of Gauloises cigarettes. 
The abstract rendering of Bousquet's face and surroundings deliberately rejects physical exactness. Dubuffet championed graffiti and art brut—his term for the art of children, the insane, and "primitives"—as necessary alternatives to European modernism. 
"Let us find other ingenious ways to transcribe objects onto flat surfaces; make the surface speak its own surface-language and not a false three-dimensional language which is alien to it," he stated. Here the highly textured and gritty pigments help realize this painting’s particular "surface-language."

source: http://www.moma.org

emotionally attached to the notion of seducing you

my words pornographic
my head an opium den
never meant to cause you sorrow
or shoot you on the head.
a horrible creator painted my world blue
now I spend my evenings
adoring naked pictures of you.
don't hate me 
don't love me
don't steal my wine
just go out on a date with me.

homeless

I feel like being out in the world
with you today
but the world is too small for us
my huge ego
and your jaded attitude
need more hot air
than what is available
in the atmoshere
I am sorry for the drugs 
I bought for you
or the drugs I took
no amount of chocolate
could mend this wound
I could die without you 
but I won't.

buy me love

artwork by Jun Kumaori

you can't buy
a movie
a memory 
or a tear.

damn the distance

I woke up early to abuse you
we can share melodramatic coffee
where metaphorical guts are spilled
do I know you well enough to admit
I am a coward?
if I lived across the street from you
(I just kissed your left shoulder,
did you feel that?)
we could meet at the bus-stop
or the library
like dolphins who swim in the same waters
(I kissed your breast)
you play your Radiohead music
too loud
I use some excuse to come over
like I bought this watermelon
it's too big for my refrigarator
may I keep half in yours?
we share the watermelon
(do you swallow the little black seeds?
they are full of antioxidants
or would you spit them out 
if I weren't here?)
I will not limit myself to logic
I don't understand the mechanics of dreaming
I will say your name
(and kiss your eyes)
maybe I am not a coward with you
and tell you that you smell
like sweetness, sex and lilac
and now watermelon
because it ran down the side of your mouth
and everywhere.

body music

your dancing body has invaded my life
I'm under its magic spell
it's dancing on my pillow
it won't let me sleep
your every move 
causes friction
in the electric air 
spreading lighting bolts
that make me shudder
flung to the walls
my muscles break like glass
the room collapses on top of me
the whole world unraveled
except your hand that pulls me
from the ruins
I learn to crawl
I follow you in the labyrinth
your body a volcano of flesh
the only light in the dark cavern
we encounter a door
you slide the key as you whisper
"soon we will be free"
I feel your sweet breath
like a kiss on my tormented skin
our hands push the door
we are bathed in light
we walk into a fathomless archaic forest
an impressionist landscape
I sense your hunger and I gather figs
I peel them and feed them to you
you start dancing
and once again I am a grateful prisoner
of your moves
sacred and wicked
it is only a dream
we are painfully connected in this dream
let us not go back to reality.

long distance masochism tango blues

I will freeze-frame this divine image
the aroma of your skin sweeter than 
the rose in your hair
you glow like a shiny cadillac
like a Manhattan night
like champagne smiles
rising to the skies
I pray  to all the little mad gods to grant me 
three wishes
a ladder to the future summers
a movie screen
where the film is you
the reality of you
the desire of you
the memories of you 
open a window
I catch a momentary glimpse
of your face
it is the color of sunny days.
I need no more words
I need no more wishes.

a sea that there is no more

Arash Ashkar

I don't believe I ever saw your face unmasked
you never shared the little moments
the songs on the radio
the smell of your perfume
the small of your back
yours was private world
with conceited walls
and skies of gloom
you were so in love with 
your transparent skin
my syllables of rage
never reached you
only when I had walked away
you started missing my clichés
you attempted to enter the house 
I had abandoned
and you reached the bus-stop too late
from now on
between you and I
there are no bridges
no clouds
only a broken compass
and a fascinated sun
eager to burn
all tresspasers.
once upon a time
I was tempted to kiss your sealed lips
I am wiser now.

still life with the woodpecker

Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not.

Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end.
Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm.
There is only one serious question. And that is: Who knows how to make love stay?
Answer me that and I will tell you whether or not to kill yourself