by Ainne Frances dela Cruz
In dark girls I see your skin. The lines of veins delicately whispering on the underside of your arms. The graceful motion of your fingers, how you always seemed on air, entrapped with wings; you who only had to rise to fly.
I, in another time, I see you. Dark of night, and dead weights, as everything must be to your ancient body. Yet, I love this of you. Even the headiness of the scent of entrails rushing after you, slapping on my hair, and I am left, matted and bloodied. And my heart left matted and bloodied.
I see now, you wanted to eat my heart. Dark blood pulsing through arteries. Transparency? Doesn’t my skin scream my love? Yes, my heart is yours. You only had to ask.
Do you remember Chinese water torture? One drop a minute to a prisoner would seem like an eternity of waiting for the deluge. And this, your wings rushing through light, beating through my ears like bats, high-pitched, tortures me. Wanting to get through your skin, carried away on your nails. Wanting to be you, dark as flight, as flight is, to one land-bound.
I am bound to one who flits from transparency, to a land opaque, where feelings must darken, and become murky. From water to blood, from oxygen to air so thin and pure, I have trouble breathing. But this is what we come to in the end, isn’t it? You have clutched me so tightly that I can let go and fall, but always find myself in your talons. The nails curved inwardly, my stomach heaves.
To become one, to be so close that the skin you hold is my skin, that when I look through the dark, I can see you. To hold me as if I was in you, your skin, your blood, my blood, one. This is what you do best, isn’t it? Touch things about to vanish. In your eyes I see myself. Will you see me always this way? Lips stained with your blood, fingers gripping your wings.
Do you want to fly? you asked. I nodded. Then close your eyes. The first bite, the first tear at my skin does feel like weightlessness. Levitation, blood escaping from me, finally free, skin to skin, and body to body. No longer heavy. You carried me forever. You don’t have to do so now.
I can fly.
Paper Monster Press Dream Pop Issue
Copyright ©:
2011
A few random poems:
- Владимир Высоцкий – Пародия на плохой детектив
- The Municipal Gallery Revisited by William Butler Yeats
- From you have I been absent in the spring… (Sonnet 98) by William Shakespeare
- Ярослав Смеляков – Хорошая девочка Лида
- The Reverie of Poor Susan by William Wordsworth
- The Heart Breaking
- Native Moments. by Walt Whitman
- Stalker poem – Alice Notley
- Duino Elegies: The Fourth Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke
- Persuasions to Joy, a Song by Thomas Carew
- Hospital Barge At Cerisy by Wilfred Owen
- Алексей Николаевич Толстой – Купальские игрища
- Ballade Of A Toyokuni Colour-Print by William Ernest Henley
- Euclid by Vachel Lindsay
- Peter by Marianne Moore
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- Il Penseroso poem – John Milton poems
- Hymn on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity poem – John Milton poems
- How Soon Hath Time poem – John Milton poems
- From ‘Samson Agonistes’ i poem – John Milton poems
- From ‘Arcades’ poem – John Milton poems
- Comus poem – John Milton poems
- At A Vacation Exercise In The Colledge, Part Latin, Part English. The Latin Speeches Ended, The English Thus Began poem – John Milton poems
- At A Solemn Musick poem – John Milton poems
- Arcades poem – John Milton poems
- Another On The Same poem – John Milton poems
- An Epitaph On The Marchioness Of Winchester poem – John Milton poems
- An Epitaph on the Admirable Dramatic Poet W. Shakespeare poem – John Milton poems
- Winter Seascape poem – John Betjeman poems
- Winter Landscape poem – John Betjeman poems
- Westgate-On-Sea poem – John Betjeman poems
- Verses Turned… poem – John Betjeman poems
- Upper Lambourne poem – John Betjeman poems
- Trebetherick poem – John Betjeman poems
- The Plantster’s Vision poem – John Betjeman poems
- The Olympic Girl poem – John Betjeman poems
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works