I can stare at you all day,
Though people say
     That love is blind.
And love is blind for me, for me,
Only for we have faith
     To live by.

I love the thought that eyes can be
Windows, that I’m starting
To fashion an idea
To serenade the feminine soul
     With the chivalrous heart,
With all strings of it,
     Of its acoustic guitar.

Seeing your eyes–
     The daughters of their parent dreams,
How they looked at something
Less prettier than them
For more than twenty years,
How they stared at someone
Much prettier than them
On bodies of water,
And at the face on the mirror,
     And at the very heart of God,
Seeing how their glances at me,
Excite me, terribly, (though having no coffee)
     Into palpitations,

Hunching that their closing
     Are just as equally endearing
As when they are opened,
Smiling, for the love-blind to see,
I realize, I understand, sweetly,
     Why two gaze-bound stars
     Are blinking, beautifully…
          …apart.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

You have made it.
You’ve just made your self invincible.
The fact that you own this heart of mine
Rendered me vulnerable:
     The freeze of your smile,
          The death in your goodbye,
               The craze I felt I almost wanted,

So here I am,
A soul stuck in a sleepless state,
Writing poems just to forget
     What they really were about,
For longing, yet again, is disallowed
Because you got your eyes fixed
     In the opposite direction
That I can hardly see your face, your stars,
     The blaze of stars.
  
Now let me wait, at least, stay,
So that I may be able
     To understand why...
Why of all
The constellations to choose from
I chose the farthest, the one
     Most difficult to reach,

Then slowly, just maybe,
I’ll forget the glow...
     ...that you possess.*

© 2010 J.S.P.

Say, a star has the eyes
To gaze at you, holding out its telescope,
     And decide to leave its post to be with you,
Or on second thought, just to get a better angle
     Of your laugh-smile-wink impeccable,
Would it still be foolish
To say, with all profundities,
     That you, indeed, are beautiful?

What does it matter, tonight
     The cicadas sing of hyperboles.
There's a certain cold, sometimes,
     In the wind, as in a heart.
The warmth is in the blankets there
On my bedroom, something
That your sweater will never know.
     Friendship is basic love.
The moon has its own old course,
As shadows, timely, vary,
     Faithful to its better half.

Now, tell me,
Laugh at me, reason with me,
     With those agitated eyes,
Which are foreign to the idea
     Of these mysteries.

Isn't it possible, terribly so,
For one, for anyone,
     For someone, for me,
To fall in love with you,
     My friend?*

© 2015 J.S.P.

She kissed me on perfect spaces,
     With stars,
          Into constellations.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

I'm speechless.
I am poetry
     When I look at you.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Waves on the waterfront.
Sun eloping with the sad waters, the lulling ones,
Leaving forlorn the lavender froth
     Of this mischievous sky.

The wind fled and felt heavy
And heavily so for what it cannot touch.
A cicada sings to the ghost of his lover.
A tree misses, always missing,
     Its first leaf.

And I miss her...

The frost of our memories
Thaws away to my soul
As the slow burn of remembering.
And this time, for the very first time,
My heart felt
     Like an inhabited isle.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

...the sorriest thing
When you left me
For leaving you so long,
Or was it yours?

If it is mine,
Then leave it broken.
Leave it broken.

But if it’s yours,
Then let me say to you,
At least,
That I am sorry, uncertain
Of your return.

And then tell
Your close friends
That it was me
Who begged for you
To stay.

© 2010 J.S.P.

...started...
...and ended...
...like hiccups.

© 2014 J.S.P.

I thumbed...
...the tears away.

© 2014 J.S.P.

When you sneeze,
Pick a number,
And say: ''10''.

'Coz we are
Thinking...
...of you.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

''Why...is a silly question.''*

© 2014 J.S.P.

I know you too well.
I know your disregard for me,
For everything
About me.

I know the face of the ocean.
I know your waist that turns you.
I know the magic of your laughter
That heaps upon me,
Upon the shadow of me the Sun abandons.
I harbor all of your beauty that are unowned
And my heart moves there.

All my struggles march into you,
Towards you.
I am aware of the success
That might never come to me,
As some things are meant for your denial,
For your forgetting:

Isles, alleys,
Roofs,
Banners in the streets;
Let all forgotten things be forgotten still,
Quiet,
Awaiting all of your gifts
All of their lives.

But please...
Don't deny me of the gift
Of forever loving you:

For all things,
All days even,
Might finally forget me.

© 2010 J.S.P.

Between lovers, I shall stand
To hinder, not the vows but my heart
For my love will drift only in closer truth,
     Thus, with pain it is absolute.

My tears, I shall let them fall
For a drop will burden me,
Free myself from wanting still,
     Rest my eyes with certainty.

I think, in dreams, she shall visit,
Her simple smiles I will recall,
But I won't ponder on the sweetest
     For it's most painful of them all,

For that glow is what I cannot,
     Nay, what I'll never bring.
It is what both of them share,
Which I envy now,
And which I know, somehow,
     Proves that I'm triumphant,

For it's my duty, my purpose,
To bring her
     To a better place.

     Farewell, then, my love.
          Farewell.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Regardless of the pain
And the manner that I could let it show,
Or those crowded buses,
That could have passed to cause delay,
     A heart still leans away.
It has to be taken far
From it's last scene,
     Forever.
     Your heart should lean away.

I take it madly here within me.
I would hold your escaping hand,
Though its phantom would mock me,
     **** me with its slow release.
Our first promises wander now,
And are to be found in new lovers like
Pups, like cygnets, like old nets
     Drowning in their love.

In this suffering, love, of then
And our future, faith and memory,
Your silence will come, storming
Into me. I will be riddled
     Past your shadowy goodbye.

And I will move,
A tired flame leaning into the shores,
     Glowing like embers all over the land.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

She only tastes
When you taste
Her
Like melted...
...chocolates.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

He was repeatedly submerged
In the water. It lasted days, nights,
Week, but they could not get
A different answer: "No... NO. NO!!!"
He's flesh-- all worn-blue.
And then, eventually, they--
They stopped. Poor thing.

Dead.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

May death do us good,
Before and after
     Our immortality.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

She exploded
Into onomatopeias
As lions tickle...
...from waist down.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

The cream...
...of this craft.*

© 2011 J.S.P.

Sure as the stars are blindfolded
So as to better their listening to our hearts,
     I will make love to you.

I will make love to you.
I shall stitch the shadow of the Sun
     To the sky.

I will make love to you,
     And make you mine.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

And even if you had to hurt her,
And bare yourself like a broken
Promise, shedding off your wool,
     Make her moan in petals,
Let her curse all butterflies, and
See to it that the stars ache with her,
That way, your cheek won't miss the beauty
     Of being thumbed.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Seven Continents,
Too much humans,
     Too much humanity.*

We're misinformed.

© 2015 J.S.P.

This is all, everything,
Our love—
     A string...
          ...of ellipses.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Her warm spirit elopes with her singing,
Sometimes, to kiss,
     Kiss, kiss,
          My ear.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Girl, naked,
In an orange vest,
Sinking ships and hearts.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Her vivid thighs, hips,
Her lissome buns.
     O Aphrodite!
          Aphrodite!*

© 2015 J.S.P.

I want to bathe with our lips in the sea of our kisses,
Luring out the young laughter from the depths of your soul,
Lather the thin foam of the blue poem that is a rose sometimes,
And reconcile your senses to a deep sadness, to the ways of its touch
As though to fish for the ripple, for the boot of your heart,
And wade out your breast, your chest, your tenderness,
Drown fragile towards you, in you, as a piece,
The center, a bait for your blossomlove.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Should snow and dandelions cross,
I might stop loving you.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Kiss, kiss, kiss for me
A tender line, a border--all afternoon--
Straighter
Than the sword of the soul
To divide me, to awaken me,
Somewhere, between the rage
And the calm:

So that my thrusts steady,
Would hurt and agitate,
Bleed and satisfy, winning us
The ancient war.

Then, I am still for you,
For loving, for country
All deep evenings. Imagine
The stealth of the world in effect
As honey drips some place
Inside a hive. The cicadas-- intrigued.
A flower pollinating.

We will burn the known
Elements, even fire.
The shadows, the moon
And the stars will warm
Their hands together
Near the shaking flame.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

From lovers’ stare to lovers’ glance, we go.
We danced only by taking these ranging steps.
And it was I who was forgotten.

The front door opens and I think of you.
The window is lonely
That it opens and I think of you.
And I think of your goodbye.

The wind bears the voice of you.
The sad night trails it off.
You tread so slowly,
Star by star.
Night by night, I have kissed you
Over and over.

It will always be this one train hurrying itself,
This passenger waiting,
Like they should have to meet,
But then they won’t.

It will have to be a chair,
Unmoved,
And you’d come home early,
Finding your bed.
There, lies the space I left.

And this is me measuring my love:
My love remembers,
It would be the last to die of me.

And in this story, love,
I am the sole stranger.
And I have forgotten you only,
When forgetting allows me so.

© 2011 J.S.P.

You are nowhere to be found
By my side, sweetly,
Perhaps, just for one day,
One night, and one
Dream.

One sweet gesture not for me
Was like a time stopped forever.
One breath- harder than the last.
And they say that jealousy
Is also sweet. I wonder why.

My travel is long and hard,
That even the beauty
Of a female passenger, across,
Feet in front of feet, eyes to sleepy
Eyes, did not bother me, as much
As your giggle bothers me,
Sweetly.

Bread does not nourish me.
My mind has lost its old self
From having thought at times,
I have not eaten with you always.
So what would it be like, as
Your head tilts from there, to here,
To this sad shoulder? What would it
Be like to hold your hand, or
The other, sweetly?
I have hungered for days, beloved.
I like what I do not have.

I have felt the December breeze
Lean unto me, and have not felt your
Arms oftentimes, nor the touch of finger.
I just wish my memories
Has flesh enough, that your forgetting
Has embrace enough, so that
Night by night, I won’t have to dream
Of kiss, kiss, kissing you to sleep,
Over and over.

And yet you will ask,
If I can taste
The littlest of your kiss,
But I'd say yes,
Sweetly.

© 2014 J.S.P.

You blew me, simply, into motion,
Like pinwheel,
     Like fire.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

They say,
The more you protect
     The more they covet.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

The diaphanous descent
Of her purity
     On my peasant body.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Here's a vase.
You don't give flowers
To a flower.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

...is a red sock...
...hanging.

© 2014 J.S.P.