She Doesn’t Speak French

On sleepless nights

I stroll the left bank in sequined heels

My Eyelids heavy with smoky glitter

Among the art I find you

Your essence pierces my veins

Settles in the pool of my heart

Dim lights flicker their last warning in

the cafe where like willows we sway

To long forgotten love songs

Then you are gone never hearing  Je t’aime

the only French I know.

Mark Spain Art

“Je t’aime, Je t’aime  (lyrics by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin)

“I love you

Like a fool like a soldier

Like a movie star

I love you I love you

Like a wolf like a king

Like a man that I am not

 I love you like that”

Cliff Girl

In my infinite smallness

looking out over the ocean

my limbs are albino snakes

basking in the sun and the heat

burns the soles of my feet

A treasure of pearls are strewn

like stardust on the shore

and a garland of lilac is tied

to nothing but my hand.

I am the universe lending life

to silent rock as the sun streams

down my throat where there is no voice.

The laughter of children rings

through honeyed coves where lost

lovers await the tide to

tumble them into the light.

Below my feet lies a carpet of

Jacaranda and my empty hands

carry no burden but love.

Winter Song

The sun has lost its domain

snow birds shroud the light

A handful of starlings quiver on

bare branches so  fragile in fixed feathers

they could fit in the palm of a hand.

Suspended  in frozen breath they sing

for the reach of an outstretched hand

clinging to a red-tailed kite floating

above snowy fields of  wildflowers in full bloom.

The Lighthouse

I am a lone bird wheeling jagged edges

of ancient cliffs above the shallows

of a rough Dover sea.

My  feathers gleam in the beam of

the lighthouse where gentle swells

pulse against rocky shores  

where in dreams you held me tenderly like 

treasured pearls.

I have abandoned the lighthouse

that seems to lean closer to the sea

waiting in vain at the tide swept shore.

The beam has ceased its search

still each time I pass I  tip my  wing.

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A Thousand Years

cover the sky with your hand

the summit of your palm is the moon.

Your fingers are streams of stardust

sweeping across ancient dunes

or the slender branches of willows

gliding through desert sand

soft and sediment.

Your words sting like bees that linger

thawing like ice on your tongue.

The heart of every woman you have

loved lives inside me

the cracking bones of beating wings

resounding against fixed walls

whispers of moments come and gone.

Recall my eyes as time,

you have lived here a thousand years

To Get To You

In this dream my arms

are the branches of trees

and you are my nourishment.

Cut me down to a boat.

My spine is a sturdy keel

my hair a furl of sails in

the dark sky of uncertainty.

A lighthouse is my only lamp

the stars held captive in your hand.

If the sea does not capitulate

red sails cast into a cleft

too wide for me to cross,

I was trying to get to you.

Art from Getty

Nothing has Changed

When dreams pull me under

I call out across the ocean

You meet me at  the shore

and there is nothing to  hold to

but silvery shadows that cross

and uncross in our slumbering sea.

I bend to you  fragile as  sea foam

tossed in wind rifts  released

from unfastened hands. 

This is how I love you

a prisoner of  repetition

like endless waves you come and go.

 

art by Victor Bauer

Like an animal

In the mist of dreams the touch of your skin is tinder igniting a flare becoming a flame. Your eyes seek out the savage in me.  Here we are still lovers  and like starving animals  we devour  each other with weak bites never completely consuming  one another. 

National Geographic

The Gold

Nights while you sleep

 my lips are so close I can

draw your breath in like an

infant at its mother’s breast.

I  run my fingers down the curve

of your spine lean in to breathe

your smokey scent.

I have entered that golden part of you

immersed the sea that claimed me in

oceans of fiery sunsets.

When our hearts grow mute we will know

we have drifted too near the sun

 

art by Karol Bak

 

 

Blasphemy

Browsing  my  journals

I am reminded of the past.

The door  swings open

releasing sleek eels of memories

where I am nothing or at best

a trembling leaf  caught in a spring  breeze.

Do you ever think of me

find  me in constellations pressed against the sky

or hear me in the sigh of  an incoming tide?

I would seek comfort in the moon but I am

so trivial and he is taken by the stars.

In dreams my tongue is a crimson snake that

flicks  hungrily along  the length of your thigh

curling around the catch in my throat.

You are god and have  named me regret.

I close our door with pried fingers.

I’ve given up on prayer hands.

 

 

 

Art by Rita Hardy