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:
- Hymn Light
- Ольга Берггольц – О, наверное, он не вернётся
- Валерий Брюсов – Из детской книжки
- The Winds Out of the West Land Blow poem – A. E. Housman
- A Song of Travel by Rudyard Kipling
- Нинель Эпатова – Настя с мамою в лесочке
- English Poetry. Thomas Moore. From “The Odes of Anacreon”. Ode 66. Томас Мур.
- St Patrick’s Day by Michael McGovern
- Meditations In Time Of Civil War by William Butler Yeats
- pathos_is_the_skyward_tanka.html
- Children Are Like Water by Robert Lloyd Jaffe
- Алексей Жемчужников – Так прочен в сердце и в мозгу
- When the Lad for Longing Sigh poem – A. E. Housman
- Jerusalem Delivered – Book 06 – part 07 by Torquato Tasso
- Валерий Брюсов – Грядущие гунны
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
- Summer poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Suggested by the Cover of a Volume of Keats’s poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Stupidity poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Stravinsky’s Three Pieces poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Storm-Racked poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Spring Day poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Song poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Sea Shell poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Sea Shell poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Sancta Maria, Succurre Miseris poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Sancta Maria, Succurre Miseris poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Roads poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Roads poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Red Slippers poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Reaping poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Petals poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Patterns poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Patience poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Patience poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- On Carpaccio’s Picture: The Dream of St. Ursula poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
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