Month: December 2015

On the Altar of Desire

Pierre Mhanna2 Comments

This overflow of desire
held her in place
on his burning altar
where the fires of his poetry
in aching waves
licked at her skin,
melting her, moulding her,
consuming her to ash
and from his flesh reviving her,
eternally reshaping her,
in the intimacy
of his endless embrace
a poem exhaling the depth
of darkness and light,
each quiver on her lips
a moaning flower,
a soft, glowing star
in the gushing river of the night.

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Woman From The Sea

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With disbelief
I look at you,
that, at long last,
love has come to me
in the swaying body
of a woman from the sea,
and my poem
over your endless waves
tenderly weeps,
tears that were forgotten
in the hallways of a heart
that too long lurked in darkness,
lurked without hope,
against hope hoping
that one day love and light
would come into my world swaying
like a limitless sea,
the infinity of a womb
at long last binding
all my rivers and streams
to flow into eternity.

Free Verse # 340 (on her lips the full moon)

Pierre Mhanna5 Comments

She held his poem
against her belly,
pressed into her naval
like a fiery seed being sown
in the womb of the earth.

~

On her lips
the full moon
a wild flower

~

Two in appearance; in reality one light, one body, one soul.

~

Wrapped in the silk
of a thousand dawns
she comes to me
and I unwrap her
one dawn at a time,
unfolding
her ineffable essence,
poetry…

~

I’m not a poet
I am a perfume maker,
in the oil of her skin
I dip my brush
then paint her,
a burning fragrance,
poetry.

~

On the nourishment
of your skin I subsist
the way a butterfly
dips and dips
into the heart of the flower,
her tremulous sea of poetry.

~

Of all my yearnings
only one remains…
red flower on her lips

~

In the quiet of my heart
your flower grows…
moon in the night

Free Verse # 339 (totality of being)

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In the sun’s aura
all the thin branches
lay hidden, engulfed;
likewise,
the world is eclipsed
in the eminence of your glow,
the effulgence of your light.

~

His touch carves
an ocean out of her,
waters imbued
with the salinity of his tears,
his pull and push rhyming
her ebb and flow.

~

Her hair
in the early morning,
the incense
of myrrh and sandalwood
in quivering wavelets
coming over me,
coaxing into her
all my poetry.

~

I wait for you,
in each nocturnal breeze
a flower seeking
the warm breath of dawn.

~

Poetry –
whatever sips
from the fountain of your face,
saouled, awakened,
released into grace.

~

Finish me off
so that nothing is left
of this existence
but the ocean of your face

~

She kissed me like a serpent
bites into her prey,
her venom in my veins
a fever boiling,
fire from my pores spewing
the blood of poetry.

~

It rains and I
in the midst of the fields stand,
a homeless man searching
for the house of your skin,
the blanket of your hair.

~

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Photographer & artist unknown

I see her
and fill with ache,
burn to merge with her
in a totality of being
that leaves no space
between our bodies.

Letter, December 18, 2015

Pierre Mhanna2 Comments

Transient as the foam, along the trail of leaves I plant a few flowers and pass on my way, a hermit, a poet, a wanderer, a lover with no home but the sky of your face. Yet, long after I’m gone the flowers will burn still, season after season their flames whispering your name and fragrance amid the falling leaves. The hush of your breath on their fiery lips intoned like a prayer rising into the eternal sky. The bees will come to gather your nectar and in their honeycombs ferment the sweetest poetry. And long after I’m gone the earth will remember you as the sweetheart for whose sake a poet became the sky.

Loneliness

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Loneliness
is a winding road,
through the foliage of night
a necklace of stars twining itself
in circles around her neck,
a curving river
rising and falling
to its fated melting
in the ocean of her womb.

Loneliness
is a fire
honing to an utmost purity
the essence of a poem
forever emerging
from the sanctity of her skin,
the soil that birthes
thorns and roses
and tempts the verses
to reach the dawn
through the dark gates
of her hell.

Loneliness
is the poet’s crown
which jewels burn
like white jasmines
as they blossom in her hair,
moonflowers which fragrance
seeped into my longing
on the day the earth and sky kissed
giving birth to life
and to everything that is.

Free Verse # 338 (there comes a moment)

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On her lips
the drunkenness of wine
comes to sobriety
as it learns the secrets
of the eternal vine

~

She came out of the woods,
brown moths in her hair,
her skin, dawn in a flower,
her clothes weaved of patches
of sunlight and air.

~

Poems like flowers
growing in the field,
little flames craving
the musk her skin.

~

Honey, envying her lips, became red like wine.

~

In the warmth of this poem
we bathe,
us two, one,
an organic unity
sharing one beating heart.

~

She entered my heart the way silence gives birth to the dawn, a voice calling me back to the eternity from which I was born.

~

My fingers
ghosts of autumn
shriveling the skin
of each woman I touch

~

My hand shivers
when I write your name
like an eastern wind carrying
the sun in her womb

~

Sleep douses my eyes
and like a candle in the night
I surrender into you

~

There comes a moment
when I pass into you
like spring passes into summer,
slowly, imperceptibly,
watering your soul
like unheard dew at dusk.

~

Your touch in my blood
lingers,
a flower aching
to birth the whole sky.

~

At night by the sea
listening to the waves,
your name is all they speak.

~

She sat on the rocks,
her black dress sprawled
like a butterfly’s wings,
still and waiting
for the salty breeze to lift her
and carry her over the sea.

David Whyte – Mid Life Woman

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Mid life woman
you are not
invisible to me.
I seem to see
beneath your face
all the women
you have ever been.

Midlife woman
I have grown with you
secretly,
in another parallel,
breathing with you
as you breathed,
seeing with you
as you see,
lining my face
with an earned care
as you lined yours,
waiting for you
as it seems
you waited for me.

Mid life woman
I see your
inner complexion
breathing beneath
your outward gaze,
I see all your lives
and all your loves,
it must be for you
that I wanted to become
more generous,
a better man
than ever I could be
when young,
let me join all your
present giving
and all your receiving,
through you I learn
the full imagination
of every previous affection.

Mid life woman
you are not invisible to me,
in you
I see a young girl,
lifting her face to the sky,
I see the young woman
in haloed light,
full and strong,
standing before
the altar of time,
waiting for her chosen.

I see the mother in you,
in your past
or in some yet
to be understood
future,
I see you
adoring and
I see you adored,
and now,
when I call your name
I want to see
day by day,
the woman
you will become
with me.

Mid-life woman
come to me now,
I see you more clearly
than all
the airbrushed
girls of the world.

I became a warrior
only to earn
your present
mature affection,
I bear my scars to you,
my eyes are lined
to smile with you
and I come to you
uncultivated
and unshaven
walking rough
and wild through rain
and wind and I pace
the mountain
all night
in my happy,
magnificence
at finding you.

Mid life woman,
In the dark of the night
I take you in my arms
and in that embracing
invisibility feel all of your
inner lives made touchable
and visible again.

Mid-life woman
I have earned
my ability to adore you.

Mid life woman
you are not invisible to me.
Come to me now
and let me kiss passionately
all the beautiful women
who have
ever lived in you.

My promise
is to you now
and all their future lives.

— David Whyte, Mid Life Woman, from The Sea In You

A Drowning Man’s Call

Pierre Mhanna2 Comments

In those shadowy streets
where no one wanders
what is it you’re looking for?
All the birds have fled
and the bare branches
of the silent rain
alone remain shivering
against the body of the sky.

All the birds have fled
and the falling leaves
have steeped
in puddles of dark water
a velvety tea
of bitterness and sorrow
now staining your lips
and merging with your blood.

In those shadowy streets
where no one wanders
alone you remain,
the icy wind licking your body
with the eagerness of a lover
for his beloved’s embrace,
and when dawn breaks
the sun rises dark
bringing no relief,
no fragrance of the lover
promised to your heart.

‘What is it you’re looking for?’
resounds like a tidal wave
washing over the sky,
her face of ash and flickering flames
dripping blood
into the last beating veins,
fiery remnants of what could’ve been
the hand of poetry once squeezed
from a heart of boundless passion,
now a wilting fruit hanging
from a bare branch in the sky.

The wind howls like a prairie dog
searching for its master
and the waning voice recollects
a sea of memories
on the shore of forgetfulness.
Another howling burst comes
and the ashen leaves scatter
as you remain alone,
in your hand
a puddle of vanquished tears,
your face a tired smile
that no one knows anymore.