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Ariel Baptista Jul 2014
I look into myself and see only an accumulation
of lost objects
Piles of beautiful, forgotten documents
unusable
but loved for what they are
I am the words on a tea-stained music sheet
that mean nothing
and yet
you turn them over eternally in your mind
because there's something about that
sequence of syllables
that makes them
irresistible.
Look at my shelves and see my soul
Repeat my words and learn my essence,
Home is knowing who you are.
Ariel Baptista Jul 2014
I pick you up in my hand
A red apple from the cart
I turn you over and run my hands along your curves
I see your beauty
I see it speckled with imperfections
Red so deep
Like crimson
You look so sweet
But there is much you could be hiding
I toss you in the air
and catch you
I see the sun reflect off your polished surface
I see your dark spots absorb the sun
I twist your stem and take it
I smell your skin
and estimate your circumfrence
All around me they are filling their bags
to be measured
piling them full
taking so many of you without a second thought
But I have many thoughts
I wonder
and I wonder
Who you are really
I don't see you like they see you
I don't know you like they think they do
I'm not like them
at all
Are you what I am looking for?
Oh, small red apple
Will you show me who I am?
Will you help me or harm me?
Will you liberate me or cage me?
Will I find in you my identity?
Are you what I truly want?
Perhaps I will buy you,
or
Perhaps I will leave you
or
Perhaps I will continue to hold you and wonder
until we both rot away.
being back in my 'homeland' feels different than I thought it would
Ariel Baptista Jul 2014
Say it
Say it, you must
Red Wine and bread crust
Last supper in your home
Last night in your town
Last memories with your loves
Things will be different now.
Say it
Say it, but not yet
Not until you've nothing to regret
Jump in the river one last time
Walk the streets by starlight
Sleep sweetly this final night
In your own teal sheets
Sing the song of your adolescence
that of four years gone,
Will this night to go on and on,
To Infinity
Bite your lip, hold back the tears
Run until you lose your fears
Come to a screeching halt
you're face to face
in the Vineyard,
sacred space
In the Vineyard,
           Say Goodbye
In the Vineyard
           Say Goodbye
Salt water makes for sour wine
Quickly now we've little time
In the Vineyard
           Say Goodbye
Paint your eyes black
and greet with a bitter kiss
You never thought goodbye could taste quite like this
Sever your ears and bury them in the bank of the river
Bring forth the memories and shiver
Sever your ears so you can't hear the sound your tears make as they collide with the concrete
Curse the beauty of these streets
Curse the comfort of your sheets
Sever your ears and bury them here
Because you owe this place a piece of you
You made a vow you knew you could not keep
So bury them,
          Bury them deep
And bury them well
Grow long your hair so they can't tell
Rely now on sight and smell
and hold forever
your final memory of sound
the green waters rushing over this sacred ground
Maybe you'll come back someday.
But now, there's not time to waste
The guards come quickly to tear us apart
I loved you fully with my whole heart
But now it's time
Whisper tenderly your final lie
In the Vineyard
      Say Goodbye
This one is kind of a mess, still a work in progress
Ariel Baptista Jul 2014
The Sun, He calls to me
And I go to Him with a subtle hesitation
Knowing I’ve been hurt before
(I knew that I’d been hurt before)
But still I run
And fall down before Him
And He kisses my cold white face
And I melt under His hot red heat
And He says He will make me beautiful
And I believe Him
(and I believed Him)
And the longer I stay, the harder it is to leave
He begs of me a few more minutes
And then a few more
And more
And He tells me He loves me
And I love Him back
(and I loved Him back)
And then the time comes when we both must depart
And I wave goodbye
And He tells me to come back soon
And I tell Him I will if He does
But after He is gone
It takes me some time to realize
That I am not the same
(and I am not the same)
Because He has stained me with His crimson mark
Burned me with His good intentions
Blinded by His beauty I allowed my surface to be altered
And the sting on my flesh is a familiar one
Because this is not the first time
This happens to me year after year
And I never learn
Because He looked so innocent
So enticing
         So intoxicating
And He called to me
And I could not refuse
(and I cannot refuse)
But that was the last time
(and this is the last time)
Ariel Baptista Jun 2014
I would say it all to you if it would make a difference;
I love you
and
I'll miss you
and
I'm better for having known you
and
I will never forget you
I would say all that and so much more
if it would  make a difference
if it would matter at all
if somehow hackneyed words could break this fall
I would say them
(I would say them all)
But ******* can't stand up against time
Those words would be washed away and forgotten
so hold me tight in this moment
say nothing
and
say nothing
I know and you know
and that is enough
and that is all
that is all
and all
and all
  Jun 2014 Ariel Baptista
T. S. Eliot
S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
        A persona che mai tornasse al mondo
        Questa fiamma staria senza più scosse.
        Ma perciocchè giammai di questo fondo
        Non tornò vivo alcun, s’i'odo il vero,
        Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question…
Oh, do not ask, ‘What is it?’
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to ****** and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, ‘Do I dare?’ and, ‘Do I dare?’
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
(They will say: ‘How his hair is growing thin!’)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
(They will say: ‘But how his arms and legs are thin!’)
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
  So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the ****-ends of my days and ways?
  And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
  And should I then presume?
  And how should I begin?

     . . . . .

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? …

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

     . . . . .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in
     upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: ‘I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all’—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
  Should say: ‘That is not what I meant at all;
  That is not it, at all.’

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail
     along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
  ‘That is not it at all,
  That is not what I meant, at all.’

     . . . . .

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
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