Requiem for the Peppers of Longinus

Poetry readings often include something poetry collections do not—context. The context of this poem is that Ricky was preparing an elegant sauce, and that in the course of shoving bell peppers down into the blender with a fork … well, you see the result. This poem was my take on the spectacle, which took place in January of this year.

Photo Ricky Garni.

Your fingertips skim passion red pepper cheeks arousing zest

for sweet life on your tongue. At your behest, cool water

would refine their lust unto muffled sighs of crisp yearning

neath taut smooth skin reflecting light from above

the kitchen sink as in your hands they offer themselves

in full abandon, innocent of reason, trusting your lips

to take them to the warm succulence of Providence.

With priestly aplomb, you steady the quiver of their taut, slippery desire

on the old rugged wood and their lip longing flesh meets steel resolve

dividing them into trembling helices wavering twixt gore and glory

awaiting only your touch. You gather their wavering slivers and they soar

raptured in your embrace that forsakes them to gravity. Freefalling, they

undulate into the blender to meet blade upon blade whereupon, lest they

slidder away, you plunge into their ribs the tines of destiny and thus

they gave up their ghosts and gore upon their Lord.

                                                                                           ~ PCM 1/28/2014

Since when?

Time traveling

Since when did we measure

time? Before the specious

present or Newton’s cause

and effectiveness, the

Greeks read stories in the stars,

Romans dialed the sun

to harvest daylight and

labyrinths tracked the seasons

of the moon. I bet cave women

gestured to the hearth and sky

wondering if their men

would die before nightfall.

I Eat Impossible for Breakfast

Double rainbow, Mauzac, France 2007

I eat impossible for breakfast

There’s nothing I can’t do

If only my mind I put to the task

Of believing it’s possible, when of me my spirit asks,

             “If you are alive on this Earth count one, two, three!

             Breathe deep, again and again — it’s free!”

The air holds the answer just wait and see.

Where once there was molten lava and ash

             Curdling, burbling

In space did it dash

Round in orbits elliptical

Till seasons appeared quite cyclical.

             The day from the night emerged sure and strong

And earth from the waters along and along.

Small creatures microbial

And algae quite jovial

Simmered until there was oxygen stew.

Along came the plants, the fishes and Pterodactyls

Saber-Tooths, Mammoths,

Then man, woman, child with fire and other practicals.

The oxygen moved from stew to sea

To land and air across the centuries to you and to me.

So the O₂ that’s here once lived before

Perhaps in the nose of a dinosaur.

Across the millennia, mountains and desert

Ice age and new age, from castle, igloo and yurt

In the wind, oxygen whirls to animals and plants

It even invades the holes in your pants.

So as impossible as forever may seem

If you but breathe deep of the air

You’ll be on the same team

As the sun and the stars and the moon by night

The tadpoles and polecats and butterflies in flight

You’ll cross eons of history ancient and old

Inhale the courage of heroes and heroines goodly and bold.

So breathe, breathe and breathe again

You’ll find nothing impossible for women and men

And children too

Because the possible is right there in the oxygen stew. 

                                                                ~ 1/20/2014

Chinon Story

Chinon: marché

M. Roland’s pale cheeks flushed ruddy from the cold rain pelting his face in the breeze as he stood beneath his flower tent in Jeanne d’Arc square. The scent of mint, radish leaves and squash combined with the diesel exhaust of a chugging camionnette and the nerolis and rose perfume from a woman of Italian extraction, gracefully picking her way over the cobblestones back to her stand. There, her cousin stood guard over her merchandise—flowing tunics, hand-sewn blouses, skirts, and Capris—gently swaying in the same breeze that pelted rain on M. Roland’s face.

Roland’s eyes followed her with a surreptitious sidelong glance from under his thick lashes as his mouth puckered in greeting to the grey-haired M. Bruno and his wife Elise slightly leaning upon each other against the breeze, the diesel fumes and the ardors of doing the morning shopping. Aches and pains pulsed through their limbs producing winces that went imperceptible beneath their matching felt hats–his a Fedora, hers more of a cloche–set firm against the rain.

M. Bruno chortled his greeting “Bon, ben, Salut Roland!” as though a stiff puff of air escaped through bellows across his tired larynx forcing out the syllables with a staccato rhythm that jolted M. Roland from his reverie. Mme Bruno’s eyes, tinged grey, reflected a puddle on the pavement, her blue-green cataracts formed misting clouds across her irises, making her sway back and forth against her husband. She gazed down with a slight smile nestled deep in her soft wrinkles that met a small reddish brown mole on the edge of a dimple. Once alluring, it now sported a defiant black hair.

M. Roland’s Italian flower floated across the square between the stalls of lettuce, fennel and zucchini. The cold, dark spring had delayed the tomatoes this year and the aubergines were just the length of the zucchini—miniature imitations of their full-grown selves. Bernadette only visited Roland when the tomatoes were ripe and the eggplants sat heavy in the hand and sprang back when touched, leaving no fingerprints.

She wore a pale pink scarf loosely draped around her neck that set off her rich olive complexion; her dark curls framed her face and flashing brown eyes as she joked with her cousin whose overalls sagged and billowed over his white T-shirt in the spluttering rain as he repaired one of the support poles of the tent sheltering her swaying clothes. She made a point of not looking at Roland, but could feel his sidelong glance caress her cheek from across the square as she wondered when the tomatoes would ripen.

~*~