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

Last day of 2008

life is not a wish fulfillment fantasy.
we walk on sidewalks that ends somewhere
but never in dead ends.
And in the mornings
through drops of dew
and pieces of sky
framed by frosty windows
splashed with layers of colors
red, turquoise, blue
yielding to the grey of the starting day
and stillness disturbed only
by the barking of a dog.

then fragrance of coffee and freshly baked cranberry bread raises
while the bouquet of an old wine
drunk the night before
and aimless in the freshness of a new day
continue loitering the space
mixing the warmth of old friendships
with the rythm of breathing.

The alleys of the garden swept clean just yesterday
covered now with early morning's ice
the screen of a computer glowing
with the love of beloved people
from remote places
or the beautiful poem that comes always
with Wies's end of the year wishes
and even though a Parisian babahoo
stands in the way of my wish
in this last day of December 2008

The mighty pulse of Life
pushes on
to pick up the shatterd pieces of last night's dream
to wash the tired eyes
and to walk
with a broad beautiful smile
all bumpy walks of Life
Flora

A Day Among The Buried

"The poem comes in the form of a blessing_'like rapture breaking on the mind,' as I tried to phrase it in my youth. Through the years I have found this gift of poetry to be life-sustaining. Life-enhancing, and absolutely unpredictable. Does one live, therefore, for the sake of poetry? No, the reverse is true: poetry is for the sake of the life."
Stanley Kunitz





We treaded through the graves, on the cracking leaves
of a cold november day
on the otherwise silent paths
till we lost all measure of present and past


As we reached the monumental stone
a girl started smearing red on her lips
while the dark delectable chocolate
melted down in our mouth
And the girl kissed Oscar's stone
some things are never clear
even on such a bright day
a subtle, soft colored chimera
hanged there in the air
We took it in
our earthly souls wandering among the buried ones
Life's pulse playing a clarinet concerto
Music of words wandering into the vastness of death

the way came to an end
as it always does
in real life
careless of unborn things
longing to live their time of beauty
and to die
before maturity robs its dreamlike quality.
Flora