The Magic of Marinas

Seagulls white as the hulls of sleeping sailboats
Send out their cries joyous in the clear cerulean skies
Moored to the floating docks the Southern Breeze tied
To the Freedom of exploring horizons and shorelines
And barnacles on mooring posts as low tide drags
Away last night's skeletons and reveals today's promise
White sails hoping for wind: paradise for wanderlust-stricken souls.

Unleash My Soul

The desire to live, that’s what dance means in Sanskrit,

What does it mean to you, my tiny dancer, to dance?

Do you forget the little girl who fell in love with dance

Or do you still embrace the blistered feet as milestones?

Do you feel the floor beneath your feet when you plié,

Bending your supple knees and bowing your arms,

Fighting the friction against your bare feet, dirt-caked?

I see your deep breath, stabilizing the supporting leg,

Freeing yourself for the pirouette, surreal extension of the leg.

Your relentless spirit flies as your skirt flutters, arabesque

On pointe flowing effortlessly into a perfect grand changement de pieds,

Or was that a pas de bourrée with some attitude?

I saw a jump, feet fluttering, thighs kissing each other.

I forget what your movements are called, you call me

To join you. Breathless, I take your hand, staggering to plié.

I’ve been waiting to join you all my life, tiny dancer.

Your gift, your ethereal dance is a gift, permanent in my soul,

Nourishing mind, body, and soul as you demand everything

From me. You anchor yourself in my heart as you grand jeté

Across the stage, stag leap ending in arabesque, not attitude.

Supported on the toes of your right foot, left leg extended behind,

Your arms graceful at 10 and 2, no knee bent behind you.

I am relentless, fearless arabesque on flat feet. Afraid of pointe.

But let me dance for you, be the audience and see the love,

Passion, thirst bursting, radiating from my body, bare feet

Fighting frustration and envy, long strides pas de bourrée

Across the floor with no consideration for the barre.

Crossing right foot behing, jumping up, crossing behind.

Relevé, passé, ending in a pirouette. Again, again,

Again, I can do it, never losing my focus, like you.

Lifting myself onto my toes, caressing right calf

With the lifting on my left leg towards me knee,

Who am I spinning for? Who does your heart flutter for?

Tiny dancer, do these propulsive rhythms propel your heart

To flame and leap higher than your grand jetés?

Piqué turns are astounding, difficult, enthralling.

How your left foot rises passé while arms open and close,

Open and close as you lift, lower, lift your lovely leg.

Your développés are perfectly controlled, teach me?

I praise your dance, for it frees you from life’s heaviness;

You are lighter than air, buoyant soul that dancing transformed.

I praise dance for its enchantment of my life, enriching

My dreams of flight with rosin- caked ballet shoes.

Sit, tiny dancer, don’t hold me my hand, let me fly

Across the stage, this room, this life with effortless grace.

Unleash the passion locked away in a music box cage,

Teach my skirt to flutter in pirouettes,

Unleash my desire to live.

Stolen Cheesecake

The thought of watching you eat               La idea de verte comer
- so gross and yet erotic -                           - tan burda y sin embargo erótica -
will not let me fall asleep.                          no me deja conciliar el sueño.

I taste my cheesecake, a feat                  Me comí mi torta, una hazaña
you quickly turned chaotic:                      que tú rápidamente hiciste caótica:
the thought of watching you eat                la idea de verte comer

from my plate is some sick treat.             de mi plato es una delicia enferma.
Empty fork and lips hypnotic                    Tenedor vacío y labios hipnóticos
will not let me fall asleep                          no me dejan conciliar el sueño

on the bed or the love-seat.                      en la cama o el sofá.
It’s become anti-narcotic,                         Se ha convertido en anti-narcótico,
the thought of watching you eat.               la idea de verte comer.

Wrapped lips around tender meat,             Labios envueltos alrededor de carne tierna,
your theft from my plate, exotic,               el robo de mi plato, exótico,
will not let me fall asleep.                         no me dejan conciliar el sueño.

Hungry for food or other treat,                   Hambrienta por comida u otra invitación,
I watch you smiling, idiotic.                      Te veo sonreír, idiota.
The thought of watching you eat               La idea de ver que comes
will not let me fall asleep.                         no me deja conciliar el sueño.

Food For Thought

I started to write a poem, hungry for substance.
I stewed my thoughts, mixed them, cooked them.

So I laid the foundation with a meaty sauce.
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;

Then I covered those thoughts with starchy rigidity.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

A heaping spoonful of loving cheesiness to top it off:
Merged, you and I, my love, seal the silence
while the sea destroys its continual forms.

Hands moving quickly, anxious,
salivating at the thought of more.

More hearty, seasoned support:
Thou'art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy'or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?

Layered over layers, wavy and yeasty:
Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!
Let the bell toll!- a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river;
And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear?- weep now or nevermore!
See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!

All covered in cheese, flavorful and exotic:
I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes.

Layers upon layers, condensing on paper,
labored over and left to bake for hours
in my brain and soon, the thoughts of
my sweet labor call me back,
hungry for more:

Melted and crunchy crust of love metaphors,
the rigid, starchy rules softened under the heat,
the hearty base thickened, darkened, sweetened.

Poetry of Love

Entre encuentro y encuentro
te extraño y te deseo por dentro:
mis ojos no lo aguantan y cierran,
mis dientes a mis labios atacan.

En una semana o en un mes te vere
y cómo añoraba te abrazare.

Otra vez me recordaras de todo:
las risas, gestos, y palabras que amo.
Abriremos las piernas en el sofá,
nos sentaremos acurrucados. Acaricia
tus dedos suaves entre my cabello,
apaga la tele, y dime sobre tu anhelo.

Déjame cocinar, déjame verte comer.
Déjame besar tus labios con el amor
de mis labios. Déjame desnuda,
abierta, viendo tu espalda encantada.

Enséñame como amarte otra vez,
como la última vez, como antes,
como cada vez de nuevo.

Enséñame que te amo.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

In English now:

Between reunion and reunion
I miss you and I want you from within:
my eyes cannot endure it and close,
my teeth bite at my lips.

In a week or in a month I will see you
and, how I yearned, I'll embrace you.

Once again, you will remind me of everything:
the laughs, gestures, and words I love.
We'll entangle our legs on the sofa,
we'll sit wrapped in arms.

Run your soft fingers through my hair,
turn off the tv, and tell me about your longing.

Let me cook for you, let me watch you eat,
let me kiss your lips with the love
of my lips, leave me naked,
vulnerable, gazing at your back, enchanted.

Teach me how to love you again
as the last time, as before,
as ever again.

Teach me that I love you.

Marble Sarcophagus

Intricately carved and shaped-
only to be hidden and shrouded
by death and grief,
hidden from a thief.

But for such morbidity
comes delicate beauty.
Dionysus, in his grape-vines,
triumphant, with fans:

Four Seasons - Spring and Summer,
youths not women, Fall and Winter.
Commissioned with meaning,
purpose or greed? Gleaming,

in marble cast, is death
such a party? Triumphant path
of the God of madness
and the passing Seasons?

Knowing our fates, have we built
or prepared for them? Guilt
or joy - in that pleasant morbidity.
We are nothing but frailty.

Love, passion, indulgence,
anger textured with patience.
That is the fleeting life we fret away
fretting over death's eternal stay.

Mush

Sitting in my high chair, I would stare longingly:

toned and tanned arms moving quickly, 

cradling bright red apples and gripping gleaming sharpened steel. 

A blur of chops, slices, and dices all shoved in a black blender 

to whir around with cinnamon or bananas. Pureed, poured in a bowl. 

Excited, greedy fingers grasped for it and giggling, I shoveled my

baby food into my hungry mouth and missed,  smearing the

fragrant mush across chubby cheeks and my high chair.

Sometimes, running short on time, 

a familiar “pop” preceded a can of Gerber. 

Apples and cinnamon, mixed fruit, or green stuff purees. 

Devoured gleefully, the Gerber baby food always a welcome snack. 

Glass containers were stashed:  I snuck apples and cinnamon

to school,  mixed fruit was for church, green stuff eaten

furtively after swim practice.

Old enough to stop needing

food for babies, the cans began to disappear. 

The cans did not accompany me on the

long plane ride to a strange new land 

I missed them.

I missed them

when new faces spoke that strange language.

I missed them when we moved again.

I missed them until my brother was born.

A new baby meant a new chance to instill

love for homemade mush and industrial mush.

He didn’t like apples and cinnamon.

He didn’t like mixed fruit.

He didn’t like the green stuff.

I snuck into the pantry, confused and eager,

I bit my lip with the anticipation.

Pop.

Apples and cinnamon - childhood manna at last!!!

Gleefully cradling the can and spoon,

I licked my lips and swallowed.

Eyebrows crinkled and lips pursed,

I checked the expiration date.

I re-read the label.

I bought more at the super market,

one in every flavor, and ... terrible.

They all tasted terrible.

Was this my fault?

Had I grown too old to enjoy mush?

Walking through aisles, I often wish to be back in my highchair

in Venezuela - back when the baby food was made with 

love and even Gerber tasted heavenly.

Ars Poetica - Defining What Defines Me

Sitting in front of paper and pen, in front of my laptop,
My eyes blur out of focus as I try to think of defining poetry.
What does it mean to me? What use is it to anyone?
Las palabras bailan sensualmente, intricate and enticing.
I forget meanings and language barriers, but there's a deadline.
Will what I come up with be satisfactory or intelligible to anyone?
Will you like it? Will you accept me for whom I wish to be accepted as?

Mixing words as the warmth of sun's rays play on my right arm,
while the moon sits atop the roof of Bush Science Center,
I type and retype, pausing to find a way to explain what I am - what poetry is. Rising further and further into the sky (or are we sinking and rotating?), the moon distances itself, taking part in a cosmic dance we are too small to understand but for thousands of years scientists and poets have tried to capture and understand it.

The memories created, lived, seen, imagined, remembered, they nag, like a flame to a wick, begging to be recorded. I have been lit from the inside out and am still burning up in desperate ways - burning with the passion to take words and make sense and beauty of them. Brillando en la oscuridad, mi llama baila como las palabras elusivas, acariciada con el amor de un susurro. Will the candle or the flame be blown away with a whisper?

That elusive detail
(feelings of love and inspiration,
creation and destruction,
bloomings of flowers and crescendos in sonatas,
the flight of a bird or the flight of passion,
el aroma de tu piel acariciando la mia,
kisses to soothe passionate bites on sensitive all too-human flesh -
real or imagined)
begs to be understood and immortalized -
can I do it justice?

Poetry: a song that touches the deepest, most hidden parts of hearts with strains and ink-stains so melancholy or hauntingly beautiful  that goosebumps spread across forearms and lives change.
Will it touch yours?
Will you let it?