closing my eyes
I feel your lips
   close over me
   in firm embrace

close to your ears
I murmure
words of love

and then go on
to close my lips
   lovingly
all over yours

holding each other
    close
we close ourselves
to the rest of the world
   for a while

and open up
    to us

         * *

my father’s younger brother
was quite an interesting fellow
worked over time in different jobs
and on the sided wrote poems
stories  novels  texted songs

we lived about 150 miles apart
exchanged occasional mails and comments
on each other’s writings

then I received an email rather strange
stating that he had underestimated
his sickness but wished to have no visits
at the time

it seriously felt
    like something was not right

and two days later
    I was just about to call
a weeping aunt was on the phone
and told me of his death

from what she said
it was not nice

he died of  cancer of the pancreas
could hardly move in his last weeks
and only weighed one hundred pounds
down from 200   when he died
guess his demise was a relief for him
    as well as her

how sad that he  a man of letters
     who wrote thick novels and articulate verse
could not find words for his own pain

maybe  like many of his generation
he felt his sickness was  a shame
or he was furious at his body   or his fate
or did not want to burden others
or did not like them to be witness
to his waning health

I do not know

what I shall remember
is the loud silence
in his last mail

          * *

I've built this wall around myself
To shield my heart from the pain
Like the caterpillar, I hide
Until I'm finally free to find
A love to fly with me in the rain

I am the ******.
Singer of songs,
Dancer...
Softer than fluff of cotton...
Harder than dark earth
Roads beaten in the sun
By the bare feet of slaves...
Foam of teeth... breaking crash of laughter...
Red love of the blood of woman,
White love of the tumbling pickaninnies...
Lazy love of the banjo thrum...
Sweated and driven for the harvest-wage,
Loud laughter with hands like hams,
Fists toughened on the handles,
Smiling the slumber dreams of old jungles,
Crazy as the sun and dew and dripping, heaving life
     of the jungle,
Brooding and muttering with memories of shackles:
               I am the ******.
               Look at me.
               I am the ******.

I could love you
as dry roots love rain.
I could hold you
as branches in the wind
brandish petals.
Forgive me for speaking so soon.

    Let your heart look
    on white sea spray
    and be lonely.

    Love is a fool star.

    You and a ring of stars
    may mention my name
    and then forget me.

    Love is a fool star.

brought to life
before my will

the day I was born
is not
a memory of mine

for this
I have to go
to stories told by others

family and friends
communities
   of the first second
some until this day
unknown to me

they knew me
long before I saw them

how can I have lived
so long
without memories
of my beginning?

       * *

Having just climbed
      through ages
up what seemed an endless flight
of narrow winding gothic spiral stairs
I step out
right into the wind's brute force
     instinctively
my arms grasp for a hold
    fearful lest I blend suddenly
    with the white horses
    and the fields of the Camargue
    far down below

Wedged safely
in a nook of stone
a hefty tourist
leans out wide between the walls
toward the setting sun

her summer skirt is blown waisthigh
revealing
unexpectedly delicate lace
above sturdy thighs

her body opens
to the strong soft touch
of the Mistral

A little later
she walks past me
clothes gathered
level gaze calm  
and self-assured

and leaves me wondering
whether the mighty abbot
    on his solitary tower
and his exclusive brotherhood of men
had ever understood
the wind that blew
    and still blows
through two feet of stone
  like they were silk
and thrills a woman
to her bone

      * * *
                                                              ­                        © Walter W. Hoelbling