One Hundred Oysters

To Francis

One hundred oysters
to feast on an event in Life
that made me feel at times
a prisoner of life.

One hundred oysters
to feast on that moment
on a hill in Africa
when we thought
that an epic thing happened.

One hundred oysters
to remember our time
walking in a jungle
and coming upon Gorillas
too fast, too easy
for me to build
out of it
an adventurous story.

One hundred oysters
for our dream like time
a short distance South of the Equator
on the lac Kivu
feasting on Love delights
in a convent
where nuns busily paced
in the hallways.



And the time
contemplating zebras
while tasting with fingers
delicious fleshy tilapias.

Then as now
we were eager for Life
intoxicated with love
with a ravenous appetite for all
including hundreds of oysters.

We went on
celebrated life together
and the beginning of Time with our children
taking them with us to the feast of the world
in which we were lucky guests.

One hundred oysters
whose rough irregular shell
hides the delicious edible part
in the brine of sea water
just like the rough side of Life
fashioned after the shell of those mollusks
hided
the delicious, heavenly, edible part
of our love in the brine of life.

Flora

Walking On The Territories of Poetry

I'm now walking
on the once forbidden territories
on the edge of which
I lingered long ago.
Then left and went
to walk
on the paths of so called "Happyland."

For a long time
I lay down
and watched the spacious sky
searching among starry multitudes
my own wishes,
but all I saw
was missing pieces.


Saw worthless, wordless, reminiscences
saw 17th century bridges
crossed by forebearers
wanderers of Silk Roads
saw the shiny bullion
they carried back
for the expenses of the Court
in exchange for Dear Life.
Saw the earth's declining ochre
and the turquoise of minarets
colouring the structure of memory.

In the loneliness of a Zoersel sky
saw the loneliness of a Vera Fosty
hers, hang in a Baya sky.
Saw her words of poetry
like droplets of water
that nobody drinks anymore.
Saw Vera's Titles,
"Roses of Time"
"Added Value"
that most significant
of all her poems
along with the last one
dedicated to eternity
that "Last Poem"
with prayer words
to not become infatuated
with useless rhyme
are now unexpectedely
exquisite relevancies.

All the Walks
all the Arts
are now taking me
once again
not on the edges
but this time well into
Territories
where once I didn't dare to go
where words can freely
roam and play,
love each other
warble or trill
and make me quarry
rubbles
from inside me.

Flora

Lips sealed with the kiss of words

When lightness leave us
on an unbearable shore
you always give me
the gift of laughter
making it impossible
to let you go.
That cautious part of me
God where is it now
For I lost it among the graves.

'I could fall in love with you'
my old alley
Where November guests
walk
where beloved ghosts
walk
and where searching
among the graves
our lost caution,
you used your lips on mine.
It wasn't a childhood purple kiss
with a mulberry taste
nor was it the kiss of an old man and an old woman.
It had colours and texture
as on a canvas painted by you
it was souls kissing
and I knew all the colours
without ever seeing those on your paintings.
one early morning
drinking tea by the window
I'd marvelled on the subtle nuances of
the jujuba colored brew
while admiring the richness of
layered reds, turquoises,
white and blue,
yielding in the window framed sky
to the monochromatic grey
of the day.

Then as now
I knew these would be the colours
of our kiss
and the alleys I'll walk afterward
wouldn't have anything of
my childhood orchard alleys
but the alleys that kiss
will take me
will pull at

forgotten emotions
challenge beliefs
examine ones feelings and insecurities
and make us think.

if I use my lips on yours
we will walk
reflective alleys
where once uppon a time
souls of wisdom
whispered to you

´´kiss her you fool, don´t let her go, for amongst the stones you´ve found your soulmate´´

Flora

Words on Wet Lips

There is no safe shore
to land adrift
with you
my November guest,
lingering so stubbornly
on my skin
with whispering lips
wet with words declining
their very existence
with-holding from you
the right to use them
nevertheless going on...

"Thee's a soft breeze
on my cheek"

all the while
ceaselessly, mercilessly
life breaking sharp surfs
upon odd shoals
which can swallow
despite us thinking them
kindly shallow.


If you venture
with that vagrant
language drifter
once again
on the grounds of
souls needing their rest
there will be no room
for sorrow
nor for regrets

let go of your sorrow
my November guest
I found you among the graves
and we tucked our words together
mixing it up in beautiful whispers

you'll need to bring
your softest embrace
the most smooth
and the most soothing,
the most incautious
this time bold but wordless
and lay it upon
that vagrant,
language drifter.
Flora

For My Son

You used to come to my bed
and nestle your warm small body
beside me.
A beloved intruder
into the unique privileged moment
of my reading,
of my mind wandering in search of poetic words

I used to hold you tightly
and feel anything harsh in me
melt down into mild honey
used to hold in turns
your fingers or your toes
wishing that the moment be unending

The words flowing in then
being too mellow
too full of unrestricted love
words of bondage
words out of a silent scream
words too silly, too precious
to ever be useful
in a poem
unless composed by a mother.


Words that now sometimes I say to you
laughingly, loudly, happily
words that turns your beautiful big eyes
skyward!
throwing me and my laughter
outward!

Nowadays no more bed nestling
no more crying for me
no more jealousy
if a bit of my attention
goes to another little kid

nowadays your wish being
faraway from me
letting you
free and fully focused in the adolescent ways
with its splinters of thrills
and no more words come to me
powerful enough
to fulfill my wish
of offering you
written words of apprenticeship
which of course you'll never read
words that right now
rest in that deep place in me
in which I have stacked my books of love
and that I wouldn't let you
see the unbearable side of it

What I want now
is not you nestling beside me
but that rushing beat of life
in your eyes,
the hast to break free
away from my wish of
tucking you in your old safety blanket,
pierce all the mercurial beauty
of being alive and happy
of having your life ahead of you
I want you to keep for ever
your light and flighty ways of now
and later to master
the skills of balancing
that lightness into duress

I know some day you'll lower
your eyes
toward these words
it will be finally my moment
like the old mommy and me days
stolen from school days
so here are the words for that special moment
for I won't be there
to see those bright eyes of yours
hopefully always full of the same flighty lightness
reading words that express
the entire worth of life
just because of having you.
Flora

Feline Revenge Over The Use Of Forbidden Words

From time to time
you say hello to me
in a rushed manner
as if to solve a matter of emergency
and settle down back
in the layers of a mystery
known only
to a feline triplets
who might have committed a crime
in their own quest of poetry
or preserving Beauty

You come scarcely in touch with me
being caught in catty gossips
trying to weave
the surreal in the rational
concocting a novel about a Beauty
with the features of a Nefertiti
then letting it simmer
with the felines in it
toying with you.

All the while I'm sitting here,
sending you intimacy
which is lacking in this tongue of yours
that "you"
exacerbating distance
against my

"tu me acercas y me dejas,
a quien offreces tu caricia?"

all of it despite the canonics
of Strunk and White
in their Elements of Style,
cautionning to not play pyrotechnics
with foreign words.

Don't they know
that those intimate foreign words
are nothing more than
composites of complex identities
homeless in language
facing the dilemma of words
flowing and opening their way
in a O! so foreign language.
And you go on:

"For someone who doesn´t have English
as their native tongue
you sure do know how to use it."

Poets do
writers too.

with no country in one language
they can move
from the rythm of a mother tongue,
into the ones in which
they are denizen foreigners.

There is Khader Abdolah
born on the shore of "Sefidegani"
weaving the heights of his musical Farsi
into the depths of a nebulous Nederlands
clearing skillfully all haziness
with the pyrotechnic of his "show off" words


There was the time
when you said to me
that I was a "bonus" in your life
the overtone carried by this word
in your own mother tongue
being more at home
in the premium of a loan
rather than in conveying poetry.

tossing words carelessly
in the world of Poetry
will be messing up with felines
and not only papery triplets
untidying things in your rooms
forcing you to move
up and down while you long
to run along the coast
letting the surreal
flow into your artistic juices
and replace the lack of craziness
so that the poetry outcome
might even surprise the three furtive beasts.
And maybe stops them
from delightfully bullying you
browsing into your words
unearthing the forbidden ones
relentlessly throwing it at you
and planning revenge
over words such as "bonus"
in exchange for "exquisite irrelevance"
out of mischivious threads
in all of our stories.
Flora

Words in the Structure of Memory

The place I live
is full of blackberry bushes
and even the hottest summer
won't give them the taste and flavor
of a childhood purpule kiss
under a mulberry tree
in a storybook setting

The place I live now
has scents and savors
brittle and bright
unsubstantial, unfaithful
and when the light trickles
through branches of the trees
memory structure starts to plays its tricks

alleys in the woods
reminiscent of storybook orchard alleys
where a little girl
in a hand made summer dress
rode on her father's bike
his arms like walls of love
surrounding her
an irreplaceable safety feeling
wrapping up the little girl's being
if only the time of that bike ride.

Moistened earth
on summer irrigation day

Here, I have Johan's yellow earth
in which immerse hands
after a shallow digging
then press fingers
on the drawing paper
or moisten shucks of walnut
to curve the lines
of pulpous naked modeling bodies

the dark inky color
bringing back
enduring scents and flavors
tastes and savors
of walnut peel stained fingers
in the quince preserves
of my beloved grand-mother
How I'd liked
to draw her now
naked,
embodiment of an old body
Warm and welcoming
in the hugely deep wrinkles of which
I took refuge
when I didn't need
to spit out words
in the void left
That no yellow earth
no scent and no flavor
can fulfill ever
Flora

A Day Empty of Words

The morning light
aborted the pregnancy of last night
words were killed in the womb
and no grief or tear shed upon them
all those days past
when we waited the embrace of nights
to clasp bodies and enlace
like entertwined old vines
covering the walls of old buildings
Didn't you hear my scream my wailing
my moaning my complaining
didn't you see the immensity
of a desir storming like a stream
going to become a great river
flowing with words of poetry
words of love, passion
loss and grief
didn't you see the beauty
in all of it
don't you know the lyrics
of a song sang by the great Brel

"on a vu souvent
rejaillir le feu
d'un ancien volcan
qu'on croyait trop vieux"

All you did
was asking for words
to make you feel good and alive
did'nt you think ever
that I'm like an
empty platform
at dawn
when your train just left


Give me some of your poetry
the poetry of your youth
don't you know
that browsing memory
might destroy dawn's promise
of a bright day
such as the one
you wish me everyday
Flora

Maya Angelou kind of bodies

"My muses are words that I read in the books, or words that are in me grabbing my being into their sheer power and my lovers are writers that I long to translate"

words have been lonesome stars
fallen off heavily clouded skies
their mysterious unutterable power
shockingly unexpected
yet nurturing


and come what may
their dust are cherished
and their ravenous lust
sails the waves of dreams
stranding on our bodies
Maya Angelou kind of bodies
bodies stalked

by "

the loss of love and youth
and fire came raiding,
riding,
a horde of plunderers
on one caparisones steed,
sucking up the sun drops,
trampling the green shoots
of my carefully planted years."

but the words "carefully" and "planted years"
are mercilessly plundered
by the big surf of eroticism
that breaks through
the cruelties of time
upon those
Maya Angelou kind of bodies
when time comes to meet up
there will be no word at all
but skin and bodies
free of their dust
treading on eroticism
on a stage
set alive
by the librettos
out of untranslated books.
Flora

Love of Poetry

"My words are pure poetry and isn't poetry the language of God? the language of love, of passion of life itself?"
Jim Yates, Oh! Père Lachaise






words runing on the skin
under the tarpaulin
of a silvery lighted
bitter cold night of January
Callas singing...
and time swinging
with lyrics of "vestale"
"Les Héroines Tragiques"

words quarried from a mine called heart
honest words, words of truth,
to be kept in the dungeon of a fortress
where a fierce dragon fires toward intruders
words having no room to live out their life
words of Giulia, O Nume tutelar degli Infelici,
O! Goddess divinity of those unhappy
words that are the language of rapture under the moon
the language of love, of passion,
of life itself.
Words to be buried on the threshold of daybreak
just before the whirlwind of real life sets off
while the bliss of last night
is still lingering on our skin,
on our bodies
bodies meant to bear separation
experts in farewells
heart beats asking

you are not saying the last one, are you?
no, my love I'm not saying farewell at all
all I'm saying
is sometime between not now and never
I'll be writing you for ever

Flora