"Poetry is not a luxury... Through poetry we give name to those ideas which are until the poem nameless and formless."

by Audre Lorde

what a miracle each morning
to rediscover the symmetry of words
words in flight words in might
worlds of words submitting
to the geometry of dreams

what a miracle each evening
to feel the ripples of certain poems
in the maze of  synapses
a certainty each day I do not count
my naked body is carrying death
like an embryo of silence

what a curse what a delight
to meet myself in flesh and bones
as a road without beginning

I am not your favourite person
it is not right, you know nothing about me
I am a closed book,
don't open me to read,
the empty pages are not yours to fill,
I am normal, don't make me feel bad
It is exceptional, the part you expect me to fill still,
But I am my own person,
Keying my destiny to be apart.

I feel like a poet again as
I'm standing in front of this window
it is full of ivy and ripples of quietness
life has certain rhymes and some riddles
I'm thinking about lovers exchanging
spontaneous glances, words, illusions
I'm thinking about social workers
returning home with a tired smile
I'm thinking about young and old
carrying different worlds under their skin

I feel like a poet again as I wait for the hours
to ripen for more truth to tell
a round whiteness  an exultant blackness
embrace the window

my hands are full of waves, walls, kisses, common faces
a shamanic design sometimes
but they still can't bear the weight of words
in a language without wrists

I am a Jane Doe on a metaphoric journey
cause time isn't waiting for me in particular
so I won't waste any more minute on the description
of the darkness of language
better start writing the memoirs of the time to come

The true poem is not the work of the individual artist, it is the universe itself, the one work of art which is forever perfecting itself.

Ernst Cassirer, from "An essay on Man"

Language thus becomes an instrument of "spirituality", that is to say, of the direct transmutation of desires and emotions into presences and powers that become "realities" in themselves, without the intervention of physically adequate means of action.

Paul Valery, from "I would sometimes say to Mallarme..."

a desire to erase,
to stay away forever.

an opportunity to transfigure,
to sit on the floor and wait for storms.

a line to cross, a lion at dusk,
a catastrophist.

a pen filled with acid,
a book of theories full of holes.

once this begins, there are only endings.

Just picked up my thirtieth pair of glasses
(perhaps you call them eye glasses).
Progressive, photo-chromatic, temples with wrap around cables.
Same round frames since I was sixteen (first saw them in How I Won the War).
I don’t mess with what works. We fit. No need to look further.
Had my eye on the prize.
They give me perfect sight. And I waited years to get perfect sight.
Always needed glasses. Finally got them when I was eleven.
Big family. Immigrants. No health coverage. So, no glasses.
Couldn’t see the forest or the trees. A genetic thing too.
Several sisters and brothers are as myopic as moles.
Mammy and Daddy never wore glasses (which is not to say they didn’t need them).
All granny glasses are wire rims with a golden finish.
All of mine were. These ones are round black wire rims. I’m being so adventurous.
I remove them (singular is a monocle) to shower and go to bed. I never ask to try on someone’s frames, and I never loan mine for a second (Period)
I also have a face that has grown so accustomed to glasses, that my eyes have surely deepened into my skull. I don’t recognize myself on my driver’s license, health card or passport (Why do they insist on that? I’m never asked to remove my glasses upon surrender of any document for visual verification).

I’ve yet to regret the wealth I’ve spent.
Their cost could pay the rent
For a third world family for years.
It would feed and clothe a village, I’m sure.
I'm not blinded by how good I've got it here.