[b]The Miracle of the Kisses[/b]
That night, the cock denied him thrice.
His mother and the whore downloaded him,
nails etched into his palms,
his thorny forehead glistening,
his body speared.
He wanted to revive unto their moisture.
But the nauseating scents of vinegar
and Roman legionnaires,
the dampness of the cave,
and then that final stone…
His brain wide open,
supper digested
that was to have been his last.
He missed so his disciples,
the miracle of their kisses.
He was determined not to decompose.
[b]In Moist Propinquity[/b]
Hemmed in our bed,
in moist propinquity,
’tis night and starry
and the neighbourhood inebriated,
in the vomitary of our street.
A woman,
my stone-faced lover,
a woman and her smells.
The yellow haze of melancholy lampposts.
Your hair consumes you.
[b]When you wake the morning[/b]
When you wake the morning
red headed children shimmer in your eyes.
The venous map
of sun drenched eyelids
flutters
throbbing topography.
Your muscles ripple.
Scared animals burrow
under your dewy skin.
Frozen light sculptures
where wrinkles dwell.
Embroidered shades,
in thick-maned tapestry.
Your lips depart in scarlet,
flesh to withering flesh,
and breath in curved tranquility
escapes the flaring nostrils.
Your warmth invades my sweat,
your lips leave skin regards
on my humidity.
Eyelashes clash.
[b]A Hundred Children[/b]
Tell me about your sunshine
and the sounds of coffee
and of bare feet pounding the earthen floor
the creaking trees
and the skinned memory of hugs
you gave
and you received.
Sit down, yes, here,
the intermittent sobbing
of the shades
slit by your golden face.
Now listen to the hundred children
that are your womb.
I am among them.
[b]Cutting to Existence[/b]
My little brother cuts himself into existence.
With razor tongue I try to shave his pain,
he wouldn’t listen.
His ears are woolen screams, the wrath
of heartbeats breaking to the surface.
His own Red Art.
When he cups his bleeding hands
the sea of our childhood
wells in my eyes
wells in his veins
like common salt.
[b]Prague at dusk[/b]
Prague lays over its inhabitants in shades of grey. Oppressively close to the surface, some of us duck, others simply walk carefully, our shoulders stooped, trying to avoid the monochrome rainbow at the end of the hesitant rain. Prague rains itself on us, impaled on one hundreds towers, on a thousand immolated golden domes. We pretend not to see it bleeding to the river. We just cross each other in ornate street corners, from behind exquisite palaces. We don’t shake heads politely anymore. We are not sure whether they will stay connected if we do.
It is in such times that I remember an especially sad song, Arabic sounds interlaced with Jewish wailing. Wall after wall, turret after turret, I re-visit my homeland. It is there, in that city, which is not Arab, nor Jewish, not entirely modern, nor decidedly antique that I met her.
And the pain was strong.
by Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. (c) 2002
([email]vaknin [at] link [dot] com [dot] mk[/email])
[b]Author?s Note:[/b]
Sam Vaknin is the author of [i]Malignant Self Love – Narcissism Revisited[/i] and [i]After the Rain – How the West Lost the East[/i]. He is a columnist for Central Europe Review, United Press International (UPI) and eBookWeb, and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory, Suite101 and searcheurope.com. Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia. Visit Sam’s Web site at [url=http://samvak.tripod.com]http://samvak.tripod.com[/url].
