Constellations

A roadmap of our galaxy,
Intricately placed to create the Orion belt
introduces  the --
Taurus and Draco.

Discovered: given
Names and epithets that act as
bandages of history and hope;
pillars of the past, broken and shattered;
not only good memories do the constellations hold.

A roadmap millenniums aged
and still cryptic, enigmatic.
There for the fall of the Roman Empire:
A witness of the fallen bodies and cracked glass
human hearts of Auschwitz.

Constellations: surrounded by onyx, stars doctoring the constellations,
creating stories -- undiscovered and renewed.

A galaxy of muted midnights, murky blues,
darkened purples, vibrancy and life present one day,
muted and cloaked in obsidian
The next.

Wineglass

An hour to midnight
     low lit lights
     gentle undertones

    stained clouds of moisture
in a glass of wine
as thick
         as ripe layers of fog.

hums of symphonies,
          swells of low pitched voices,
              crescendos of conversation.

     murmurs, whispers of fine China
      and the newest editions of
       oil paintings from Italy

                                      Midnight at the gallery

Once
clear glass, stained with
lipstick and breath --
     Laughter, light and
     undertones of ripe berry
lingered on the tip of glass.  

eyes wandering
over canvases of
lavish art
While stained clouds
of  moisture

are as thick as
ripe layers of fog.

Grandmother had told me tales of the past,
Fairytales that we’ve all heard of,
The maidens in the scullery maid attire,
transforming to the princesses with the
embroidered and jeweled gowns; rivulets of silks and satins,
blue as the sea, greener than the highlands, more purple
then the dusky skylines, a true stamp
of royalty, poise, eloquence, and beauty.
And ensembles topped off with gold
encrusted and amethyst crowns.
Sure, the fairytales were what I lingered
onto during the years of my inexplicitly
innocent childhood, that I wished I still had.

I missed it, the tales, the anecdotes
that shaped my perception on love, hope, and faith,
far off from what I viewed in the looking mirror today.

I missed my grandmother’s hands, brittle and worn,
but kind and warm; I still thought about them
as I cleaned out the attic in which I’d forgotten existed.

And I grew up, my memories of it faded,
now covered in cobwebs and bristling wind
that sent a chill up my spine, but I found
much more than what my memory had allowed me to collect.

Amulets from what I assumed to be my grandmother’s youth
were stowed and tucked away in the alcove of a velvet shelf,
hidden by the splintered of decaying wood.

Next to the swell of the dresser, the door of the
furnishing remained ajar, revealing manila
colored increments of letters, some harbored
by the envelopes, some pierced out in the open.
The edges had crippled away,
flecks falling to the sandalwood bottom.

They were timeless, old, maybe not important,
to the wandering eyes of a stranger.
But to me - they held a mystery
that was waiting to be unraveled.

A story of my grandmother’s life she never shared with me,
just as private as she was open, perhaps I’d find in those envelopes
the same mindset I also had when I was young.
Perhaps she believed and dreamt of fairytales I had once done,
paraded around in the jewels and bangles hidden way,
basked in the ambiance of a sweet love
that was doomed to end in the decay of both parties.

Little figurines of silver and gold were placed under one
of the drawers parked away in the furnishing,
toys form her childhood, weighted by standard and price.

Her words I had adored as a child,
ate them up like sickly syrup and supported
them as if they were undiscovered treasure, but
now I finally got to “see” my grandmother’s
treasures deposited in her attic, the very place she
had hidden the most interesting stories that she
left for me to discover after she left.

Give me a bit of your love darling, burn the soft petals of my sanity too

a world so crumpled in the folds
of black and white exhibit
no color, no individuality
or hopefulness.

  a world of conditions,
agreements, and contracts
dwindled the creative senses
of the budding youth and
the creativity of the
newly implied, fruitful minds,
but the youth never entirely failed.

   when pushed down into the
heaps of ranks amd despair, a
dew hopefuls remained.


  youth used the broken bits of
crayons, of whole pieces and
shavings to apply to the crumpled
corners of the world,
starting off with a few swipes of color
among the horizon
and the skyscrapers of the world.

  the once black and white world
began to blossom in shades of
violets and yellows, bleeding
down the white pages, smearing
among that of shades of
blues and greens,
creating a world that was once
referred by legends or stories
as being a
a world full of color,
a world so fruitful in love
and perseverance, and
it ended up being strong
enough again to become reborn
once more from the hands of the
youth.

The room we shared our
first laughs in, our first hugs,
our first touches, our first kisses.

   Wasn't it precious?
grounded in reality but
fulfilled through fantasy.

   the shallow breaths we both shared,
the way our bodies pressed together,
discovering one another
and learning the bounds of
our movements,
the curves of our hips and
tides of our love,
the way our bodies responded
to our words, our lips, our tongues.

  the bedroom is where we gave
ourselves to one another, the
place where we could share
that of our deepest secrets and desires,
the place where I felt safe with you.

don't you remember that?
you must, if not, maybe it
was im fact memories grounded
in fantasy instead of
memories grounded in reality.