In My Blood

Like velvet - your hands
pass over me with a gentle clinging
to my very being
your body hits me like a fresh flame
and my defenses melt away
with fresh kisses
they remind me of still beauty
after a vengeful rain
pouring into me
Passion,
Niagra feels defeated by
touches overflowing - lava
brings fever to the coldest - hearts
like a newly woven web
drenched in glitter of the clearest night
where sensations once lost,
windows fogged, almost forgotten,
prove to be closer than they appear
and I prove each breath is deeper
With you, here,
flooding bodies with secret dreams
reaching to souls with desperate hands
clawing lightly at thick skin
until we pump through veins
the sweetest resurrection
Loving you is in my blood.

Transcend

Where tongue transcends torso,

I gasp in the grasp

of longing.

Lust and love

leave one lost and languishing

in the limbo of anticipation’s lull,

a seeker of the storm that soon

should break in the brilliant blue

and black, surrendering skies;

my rapture rediscovering

itself inside electrifying eyes.

Gypsy-fingers journey

hallowed hills and highlands,

sojourning south in search

of your fabled forest’s fringe,

where a luscious lagoon lays

a warm, wet welcome

like a will-o-wisp, wooing

wisdom, will and want.

I sail the seas of your soul,

following each ebb and flow,

sinking to the song

of a siren’s smile,

‘til I am no more

than a supine shipwreck

swept onto a sudden shore,

as several summer stars

blossom on the blessed glow of this night.

Ties That Bind

What separates one certain face, one certain voice from all those encountered in several lifetimes and launches them to a special place in the heart? Is it a simple matter of features...the line of the throat, chin and cheeks...the arch of mouth...the angle of the eyes? That is perhaps the first step, the one that we call chemistry, that sets all that is to follow into motion. I have been drawn to many over the years - some for their incandescent beauty; some for the imperfections that find harmony in my soul; some for their simplicity; some for reasons I would be hard pressed to explain.

I can recall countless smiles cast in my direction - everything from the shy greeting of a girl in the first bloom of youth to the brash invitation of a jaded nymph to the tempting pout of a flouted and crossed lover. I close my eyes and count the many others that watched me surreptitiously or with brazen and wanton lust...that flirted...that accused...that begged for something beyond the ordinary from this all too fickle heart. And I have heard all the conversations spoken in the dark, in those discreet and intimate moments before dawn stretches its lethargy through my limbs and threatens to bury me in some beautiful stranger's arms. I have had countless secrets confessed to me,or plucked without permission when I was too impatient to wait. I have tasted an eternity of protestations of affection..or deep abiding love...and hung on the thread of their intentions with a need so acute it threatened to be my undoing. I have known the bitter beauty of disdain, rejection, loathing, fear, and found them all a single resounding note of my inadequacies and flaws.

There have been moments when the parade of "almosts" and "not quites" and near misses threatened to overwhelm me. Many have been my own fault. I am a demanding lover, no doubt about it. I operate from selfish motives more often than not...and my penchant for double standards is the stuff of legends. I am mercurial - quick silver that runs through your veins as a taste of ice one minute...a hot and quick slap to the senses the next. Sweet words flow from this tongue like warm summer honey...and I will wrap my victim so lovingly in them that the trap is never seen. I am the rebel dream in leather that slides through society like a wicked and delicious lie - the beautiful monster that drapes her black wings around a halo of steel and barbed wire. I had reached a point where my myths threatened to consume me...to become me, expertly performed for the audience that claimed my heart - and each of those faces craved nothing more...they all but demanded it.

My body count of lovers, of easy and willing flesh...or of those who played the dangerous game of refusal, tempting me beyond the breaking point is legion. The number of limbs that have wrapped around me...the flawless skin that has warmed my own...the sweet friction my tongue has lapped and savored...the swagger of hips that has pressed my own in the sharp cry of midnight when sin is bartered and stolen is the litany of one who has loved too well. I have felt the fearless heat of matrons searching for pleasure never tasted from husbands...and the timid innocence of maids begging to be torn and twisted into something ripe and feral. And yet each time after passion slowed and cooled our blood, something always seemed strangely out of kilter as if a small piece of the world had gone missing or I had been found wanting...lacking.

Your eyes were the first to raise a question to my own...your smile was a challenge...your voice one that brooked no games, only the truth in whatever form it might take. You wanted no disguises...you craved no masquerade...and you made it abundantly clear that impressing you was going to require more than parlor tricks and romantic sleight of hand. You had a way of cutting to the quick like a surgeon...and knowing at just what point to capitulate...and make me believe it was my idea. You demanded my best..and my unrehearsed worst...and settled for nothing less. You took my flaws with an open heart..bore their rude brunt and fine-tuned them into a voice I did not know I possessed. I brought you the complex and frustrating...you recreated serenity and simplicity. And you wove this tapestry of me...of us...with a passion that matched my own. The ties that bind are eternal...

Spotlighting: Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda was the pseudonym of the Chilean poet Ricardo Neftali Reyes Basualto. He was born in Parral a little town in central Chile, but moved to Temuco city when he was only months old. It was in this city where he showed interest in poetry and made his early works, and where he picked Pablo Neruda as a pseudonym because his father did not approve of his writing. He is considered one of the greatest Spanish-language poets of the 20th century.

He is called the poet of love, because his poetry is so sensual and sometimes very erotic. He was Chilean honorary consulship in Burma, Ceylon, Java, Singapore, Buenos Aires, Barcelona, and Madrid. In 1943, he returned to Chile but he left the country in 1949 because the Chilean President Gabriel Gonzalez Videla was chasing him for political reasons. Between 1949 to 1952 he lived in exile in different European countries. He was also known as an outspoken communist. he died in Santiago de Chile, few days after the coup of state on September 11th of 1973 where his friend Salvador Allende (the first socialist President to been elected democratically by the people in Latin America) died.

Trivia

He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971.

Children: Malva Marina (b.1934, d.1942)

Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez considers him the greatest poet of the 20th Century in any language. Mexican poet Octavio Paz considered Neruda "a servant of fascism".

Federico García Lorca was a primary influence on his style. The two poets were close friends up until Lorca's execution during the Spanish Civil War.

Biography/bibliography in: "Contemporary Authors". New Revision Series, Vol. 131, pages 321-330. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2005.

The love poetry Patch Adams (Robin Williams) read to Corinne Fisher (Monica Potter) in the movie Patch Adams was from Pablo Neruda's "100 Love Sonnets : Cien sonetos de amor".

Kenneth Rexroth's translation of Pablo Neruda's 1955 poem "Brown and Agile Child" is shown on the back cover of Jackson Browne's 1976 album "The Pretender".

Adopted the pen name Pablo Neruda as a tribute to the Czech writer and poet Jan Neruda (1834-1891).


Personal Quotes

Love is so short and forgetting so long.

Only with burning patience shall we conquer the splendid city which shall give light, justice and dignity to all men. Thus shall Poetry not have sung in vain.

They may mow down all the flowers, but they can't stop spring. (I LOVE this quote)

Someday, somewhere - anywhere, unfailingly, you'll find yourself, and that, and only that, can be the happiest or bitterest hour of your life.

Shyness is a condition foreign to the heart - a category, a dimension which leads to loneliness.

The poem featured below is from Pablo's 100 Love Sonnets and is one of my favorites by him--Sonnet XLV "Don't Go Far Off, Not Even For A Day"

Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --

because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long

and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station

when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because

then the little drops of anguish will all run together,

the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift

into me, choking my lost heart.

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;

may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.

Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,

because in that moment you'll have gone so far

I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,

Will you come back? Will you leave me here,

dying?

A Kiss

A glistening tear

Rolls down her cheek

Eyes gleam, wet

And knees shake, weak

The softest sigh

Warm on the face

Safe, secure

In deep embrace

A perfect smile

As lips do part;

Grow closer

As love grips the heart

The tiny pulse

That beats with thrill;

Goosebumps prickle

In tender chill

A single kiss and time stands still

Do You Know....

Do you know that I dream of you?

I lay myself down in the warmth of my bed

And visions of you promenade in my head

I held you close in the heat of the night

Heartbeats matched, souls intertwined

Do you know that I dream of you?

Summer kisses ever so sweet

Warm bodies outlined by cool cotton sheets

Softest touch on silky smooth skin

Whispers drawing passion from within

Do you know that I dream of you?

The fluid warmth of love begins

Sizzling look and mischievious grin

The taste of lust upon your lips

Seizing tantalyzing little sips

Do you know that I dream of you?

Radiant feelings breaking free

Whirling thoughts you can not see

Senses racing with this fire

The burn of yet unquenched desire

Do you know that I dream of you?

In every hollow space I ache

And only you can fill this void

A single touch from my mirage

Leaves my senses overjoyed

In wordless communication we speak

And the air, with our desire, weeps

Tell me. Do you know that I dream of you?

Your shimmering eyes they melt my soul

Bodies connected, feeling whole

Every nerve throbbing without cease

Building towards a sweet release

We make love nice and slow

Then bask unclothed in the afterglow

Do you know that I dream of you?

As fingers twirl into your hair

I can't help but to be aware

Holding you in my adoring arms

I'm helplessly taken by your charms

Do. you. know. that I dream of you?

Then smiling I awaken

Wait. Quick realization...

And I pause...

-

-

-

How sweet, how distant, how true?

That delicious touch that woke me with yearning...

Do you know that I dream of you?

Mezmerized

Do you have any clue how

mezmerizing

you remain?

You're a cryogenic

heart

attack

{encased in flame}

and laced with passion's sweetest secret name

spoken

and winding

icily

down the same backbone

that you freeze

with a fireburn hum;

to feel you breathe

upon my skin

is like a dream from heaven above

wrapped in an

aquamarine

pillar

of

flame;

"I am so in love with you"

becomes preferred refrain.

(There's something stuck in my head:

it's you and I.)

We must be the same,

for we have witnessed

candlelit displays

of come what may;

I will follow you

into the cold of daybreak

painted in shades of

midnight blues

and

velvet grays;

an instant in space

burns brighter than the jealous sun;

meteor showers keep us for hours

until our reservations are undone.

[pardon my wandering erratic mind]

[but that moment rests upon a pedestal within the halls of time]

[and Rembrandt's strokes fail to properly describe]

[the furnace depths that rest behind your frozen lake visage]

[that I can't help but ache to kiss]

I exhale

vapors

after taking time to warm your lips

that once purred with unsure frost;

now entwined fingers

cross hearts: a promise

to be lost

wholeheartedly

in thoughts of we;

Let us paint the music;

And dance, entangled...into the stirring melody.

Kiss Me In The Rain

Walking in the rain
and in the pain
you are beautiful
as the force of water

               sculpts
                        your
                              form,

               subtractions
                          through
                                 erosions,

                 leaving
                          essential
                                  remainders

and the promise 
to cleanse you, 
the bones of your
essential aliveness 
dancing their shine 
through your flesh. 

You are beautiful
in the rain and when
I kiss your mouth,
my bowed lip above
your bowed lip,

waters dancing down
                 
                 as 
                         from 
                                  eaves.

Breathless

Your kiss leaves me breathless
It's so difficult to explain
When I'm surrounded by your arms
You embrace away my pain
Your gentle words caress me
They soothe my wounded soul
Having you here makes my life complete
You ARE what makes me whole
I can't force the words past my lips
To tell you how I feel
But I know to the depths of my heart, 
That this love is so damn real

Stay with me baby....

For a lifetime of whispered "I love you's"
And you'll hear the words from breathless lips...
"Baby, I love you too" 

Entangled

Entangled

Arching backs,
moans of pure ecstasy,
writhing in love

consumed by one another,
they become one and the same.

lines of skin
converge, contract, contact
in heartbeat rhythm

searching for that place in space,
where time is no longer

a few moments
spilling into a lifetime
together as one

forever entangled,
entangled in love