I lie here, fresh, pronated,
Sifting through the sheets of my memory
For the strand, a hint, a mark,
A scar
Of her decadent delicacies,
Of urges and celibacies,
Just to quiet me and falter,
And falter hard, mad,
Into the night gentler
Than the lightest of strokes,
     Her touch.

And the moon creeps through my heart tonight—
A chill, a violent chill, still—
An opera, a sonata, an elegy,
A requiem
Just because I fought
     With an angel.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Let January be itself,
And us, the month to follow.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

There...
     Somewhere...

Between the flesh
     And the shadow,*

          I am.

© 2015 J.S.P.

Infant formula...
The cries of the motherless
     Infant formula...*

© 2015 J.S.P.

It's not a scar.
This is love overflowing.
I cannot give it anymore.
You are gone.

This is my life's work,
My genius showing,
My own Black Square, a poem
That won't explain.

This is the eye within my eye,
Or should I say, soul
Breaking through its windows,
This viewer of my heart.

This is the night falling,
The weight of the weightless suns,
The length of my journey,
Pain's pinnacle.

This is my curfew.
I need
     To go home.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Some starts from scratch,
While others start
     From scars.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Those hands,
Cleaned with our clothes,
Washed with the rice,
Rough like these days
Are feet that kept me going.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

My heart pounds like the Leonids.
I fail to find the voice to console her.
I do not wish to be the reclining Moon,
Nor the twilight that reminds her of the little things.
She has the eyes of a heavenly body,
I love her blindly.
And as the slow lightyear of a tear
Shoots down to her lips, I wonder
How the stars really taste like.
And so we kiss,

     But it did not change the universe.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

A river of emotion-- wandering
Always. Always going back.
The blue whip of the seas
To the Spratlys.
The blind sting of salt
That felt like fire.
Moments of impact.
A sailing journey.
The big dam of everything
That is not you. A night
In the belly
Of a bluer whale.
Pains that are necessary.
Pains that fortify the past,
The tides and the lesser heart.

This is not like those.
My aching bears no weight;
It is the inner weight itself--
An old anchor, the great shipwreck,
Our first kiss I remind myself of.
Ever hopeful. Ever silent.
Ever love.

Here, I wait for you.
Here.
Still is the pain...
...that love moves.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

Time forgets progression
Every time you move and dress,
And cover yourself with silk, satin, lace,
     With hooks and garters,
With garments and clothing
Starting from small, tight and light
To large and loose,
     And soft and cottony,
That I can almost feel everything
     In my mouth, my tongue, yet
You are all too smooth to me,
Elegant, sophisticated, a walking flame,
That there's almost nothing there to touch
All red, white, all pink, all bloom,
     No flower nor petal,
All root, all stem, all fruit,
All pollens and butterflies, and juice,
All juice, all round, all curved,
     All bare, all time.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Melt Antarctica,
Flood over these islands!
     Take me to her!*

© 2015 J.S.P.

If hearts can fly
     To find the wind of longing,
Then wings, why grow from her back?
Why not embrace her, for me,
Warm her and wipe those tears away?
     Why not seal love?
Why close the distance still,
And toil, tire and shed
Just to encircle us both?
     Why not seal love, light
          And forget me?

               Why defeat the darkness?*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Her championship kiss, too,
Will empty me, exclusively,
     To poverty.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Looking at her eyes,
Her eyelids must be
     New galaxies.*

© 2015 J.S.P.