All Nighter

That thin young kid
With gangly arms
And endless legs
And cadenced charms
And acne scars
And two guitars

(And dreams of more)
And dreams of Bjork
And goes to work
To earn enough
To buy more stuff
To hook them up

Maybe in Rio
Or Argentina
It would be worth it
Just to see her

4 months in a lan house
In Orkutland
To earn a ticket
To that promised land
Trumps anything out there
That looks like a plan
For this knight who has yet
To be fully a man.

So good night, sweet knight
Wherever you are
Til you find your way home
(If someone has a car).

The dance has begun
Toward orbits alone
Yours back toward a youth
That I’ve never known.

The Deliciousness of Blank Pages

lorretine´s lovely photo

The deliciousness of blank pages, waiting for any scribble and scrawl, born to absorb the ink, the words, the lines, the lives, the love of just writing, feeling the difference of each pen as it slipes slides glosses scratches drags across the page. are the words worthy of such paper, such pages, such golden edges, such luxe leather crackled and soft and padded and waiting and waiting.

Pentimento

this time no tears
no clinging
no grasping for one last look
word, embrace

your past recast in softer tones
sentimental pentimento
penetrating, permeating the now
faster than it can be painted

Sonhei Que Você Estava Aqui

Small city too small
Big city too big
Familiars too familiar
Strangers too strange

Far away too far
Nearby too near
You wished you were where
While I dreamed you were here?

Tic Toc

How luxurious to feel
There is time, enough time
So much time, plenty of time

Stretching ahead so far
There seems barely a narrowing
Let alone a vanishing point
For the two lines, lives

What is one week, two weeks
In a lifetime so fresh,
So full of days to come?

Each tick of the treacherous clock
Passing 3, passing 4, passing 5
Whispers nights are forever
But life is not.

"Longe do olhar dos outros..."

Special thanks to Primo Tacca Neto for the shimmering image

An interminable approach
Until finally parallel
Then moving
Unfathomably, inexplicably
Apart

Cruel trompe l’oeil
Where drifting away
Disguises itself so well
On the golden horizon
Any blue beyond view

Anil infusing each tone
In the barely veiled dance
Of a patient Salomé
Her words
Like diaphanous scarves
Wafting through your blue,
Her unyielding song
Caressing each longing

Sussurros, suspiros, saudades
Sussurros, suspiros, saudades
Sempre sussurrando

"Longe do olhar dos outros,
respiramos ao mesmo tempo-
como uma engrenagem única e bela."

Our breath now hers
Her words now mine
An exquisite exchange
Of despair and desire

Voracidade saciada
O gosto das amoras amargam
Perco parte dos meus sonhos.

Beyond the Blue

I looked to a blue
Beyond this field
Where golden flowers flourished
Reaching for their bit of heaven

The sky reached back
Warmer than sunlight
Hanging from heaven
Unhooked from home

Gradually graying
Echoing the thunder
Of granite streets
Across a sorrowful sky

Reaching again
To other fields
Other flowers
To renew its blue

Tua Boca

your wild teeth
gleefully pursue chaos.
no orderly soldiers they,
lining up for duty

hell bent for pleasure
they nip, nibble, gnaw
their way through life
deliciously askew

Tutu Haiku

Solemn, expectant
In grubby glittery garb
Certainly ready

Sozinha

midnight poem by flief

Sopram os rios
Outonos passando, dos
Zinco, ainda escapa
Interminável movimento, esbranquiçado
Ninho dos pensamentos amarelados
Hélio tão fácil, tão leve, girando
Amanheço confortável, na próxima sala.

for this and other flights above the storm visit:
http://umvoosobreatempestade.blogspot.com/

Blue Haiku

blue drops slice the screen
sparkling on my limbs
endorfinazul

Raindrops II and more by Aki Jinn of Kuala Lumpur at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/akijinn

Todas as Cores, Não se Foram

inspiring image by j star at http://flickr.com/photos/jstar/

From the spectral beauty
of life in your heart,
I count the days

Harsh shards
of an awkwardly conceived,
now-shattered vase

Faded roses
strewn about,
thorns under bare feet

Bloodied fingertips
pick up the jagged pieces,
one last time

Tua vida é o meu suspiro.

Outer Bands

Breathtaking photo by Primo Tacca Neto

Rainbands pulse their path
Across this tattered landscape
Of exhaustion, anticipation, regeneration

Palms stretched to the limit
Shallow tendrils tearing free
Grasping, unclasping

Clinging, climbing, falling, flying
Dreaming of a flight
Above the storm

The Book of Love

by The Magnetic Fields

The book of love is long and boring
No one can lift the damn thing
It's full of charts and facts and figures
And instructions for dancing

But I
I love it when you read to me
And you
You can read me anything

The book of love has music in it
In fact that's where music comes from
Some of it is transcendental
Some of it is really dumb

But I
I love it when you sing to me
And you
You can sing me anything

The book of love is long and boring
And written very long ago
It's full of flowers and heart-shaped boxes
And things we're all too young to know

But I
I love it when you give me things
And you
You ought to give me wedding rings
And I
I love it when you give me things
And you
You ought to give me wedding rings

The Plausible Impossible

another glorious image by michael seidman

According to Walt Disney,
His flights of fancy
Hinged on the "plausible impossible"

That willingness to suspend reality
And believe
That if the propeller on the beanie
Spins fast enough,
The little boy will levitate...

A psychatrist friend told me
At 33:
"Your animus is an 8 year old boy
Who doesn't know
The laws of the universe,
(including gravity)
Apply to him,
So he still believes
Everything is possible."

The plausible impossible,
The beautiful impossible,
All the impossibles
Are possible.

Can You Imagine Me at 70?

art treasure by Lesley Chandler*

a slash through time's heart
let them through
i am a poet, he said
(was she lost?, they asked)

he is
she was
they are
now inhabiting that fragile slash
a scandalous summit of severed souls

one hijacked stanza
in a hundred page poem
that she began
and he will finish

*http://funkyartqueen.blogspot.com/

Primeiro Ato (Monocromático) na Paisagem dos Teus Olhos

image by jstar@flickr; poem by renato flief

Ela flutua sobre as cores
Não a importa o duo do contraste
Horizonte monocromático
Suas asas sobre qualquer transparência

As cores se misturam desde
O primeiro encontro
A voz suave e seu chamado
Aromático e de insistência
Descrita em linhas

Posso as ler?
As linhas da tua mão
Completam as minhas cores
Nem tudo é mono
Tudo está no branco dos olhos
A paisagem se concentra
Apenas, um pouco mais no centro

First (Monochromatic) Act in the Landscape of Your Eyes
(with apologies to the poet for this poor excuse for a translation)

She floats on colors
It doesn't matter the contrasting duet
The monochromatic horizon
Her wings on any transparency

Their colors have blended since
Their first encounter
A soft voice and its
Aromatic insistent call
Described in lines

Can I read them?
The lines of your hand
Complete my colors
Not everything is mono
Everything is in the white of the eyes
The landscape comes into focus
Just, a little more toward the center

flief's new blog: http://umvoosobreatempestade.blogspot.com/

Through a Gentle Lens

for Cinzita

How awkardly exquisite we were
To know, to love back then
Hopscotching landmines in
That playpen of terror
Tyrants and traumas
To what looked like life
From there.

Three lifetimes later
In some freakish measure of time
(Perhaps more mine than thine)
Through liquefaction, cavitation
We remain

The Dresden beauty,
(The wondering waif)
The fractal harlequin,
(The wandering waif)
Disparate dolls on a shared shelf

Keeping tabs, keeping track
Keeping safe
The other waif
That other self

The Relentless Beauty of the Ordinary

glorious image by michael seidman

for laurie

sweet the sound of laundry swishing
the click and clack of dishes dishing
the groan of hard drives overfilled
the clink of cocktails duly swilled

the ding of emails just received
raw scrapes of half-truths half-believed
a chattering mind consumed with doubt
the screaming soul, belting out

its song of longing, song of pain
the sound of living, once again

michael seidman's stunning work is one click away, at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mseidman/

lost light

i could say i remember
when I saw you in sunlight
basked in you filling
my window
with blue

i could say i remember
a time of plenty
of time, of knowing
the quality
of light

i call upon memories
that elude my grasp
in rationed moments dimly lit
the sky
at night

i could say the moon will suffice
but the lamp glares
with an unconsoling heat
the crystal pales
in paltry light

Love's Landscape

Scarred, pebbled
Laced with life given and gone
Long since ripe
Long since lush
Long since loved

And yet
Under your gaze
Under your hands
Under your weight

In the rasp of your breath
The heat of your desire
The cadence of your passion
I am renewed
Reformed, reborn