"bernini" poems
St. Teresa swoons to herself.
The angel’s impish face laughs
At her pain.
Bernini’s operatic sculpture bound
Behind bars.
Perfectionism, restorationism,
OCD.
Outside, a gypsy woman begs
For centimes.
Inside, scaffolding dims Teresa’s glow.
Art sacrificed to the future,
Content to die in darkness.
A monk dozes in his rosary.
Recitation of dreams.
No legend in the sacristy:
Teresa’s book remains
Unread, dull behind glass.
Ecstasy of love: her path toward God.
Aug 15, 2018
Aug 15, 2018 at 8:20 PM UTC
an unmade bed
captures an out of body
experience.
the marbled habit of
Bernini's: The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa of Avila.
whether in a lover's arms, ones own arms--
are the arms of sleep...held by the only Lover.
pillow case, bed sheet and blanket...
crease an inescapable faith--where you
for all the world, and all the world for you...
disappear.
faster than peopled dreams, losing their mark
and place...off they-you go in dreamlessness.
therefrom to rise at your fixed height, warm in
the cold light of day--looking down at an unmade
bed.
parallel and perpendicular rungs stripped
clean with a stretch.
Jun 18, 2018
Jun 18, 2018 at 1:00 PM UTC
Outside our window, Bernini’s fountain played.
At night it often soothed John off to sleep.
My friend was frail and fragile, facing death,
without the comforts that Believer’s seek.
The poet had grown fearful of the dark,
so I kept candles burning through til dawn.
By then he was too weak to write or read,
but took some pleasure in a Robin’s song.
He grew anemic, and Rome’s winter chill
had penetrated into flesh and bone.
His love was far away, dear ***** Brawne.
By Love and duty, I tended him alone.
He coughed up blood, and by its color knew
the hour of his death was growing near.
He summoned me to prop him up in bed
The pain had mostly past despite my fears.
For seven hours thus we both remained,
beyond the help of Doctor, Clerk, or Priest.
There beside the Spanish steps he lingered,
It was nearly midnight when his breathing ceased.
In the Protestant graveyard you will find
all that was mortal of my Poet friend.
“Here lies one whose name was writ on water.”
I disagree, but I carved there what he said.
Mar 26, 2012
Mar 26, 2012 at 8:36 PM UTC
The past few months have flowed and bled together.
An intense ocean of passion and emotions which simultaneously nearly drowned me and sailed me to the most beautiful shores.
Where days turned to weeks and nights were spent losing track of where my skin ends and yours begins.
Where the rest of the world melts away as the tip of your tongue paints masterpieces that could rival the Sistine Chapel were the act of creating them holy enough.
Where your presence is the only thing I can feel, as though the only place that is real hides behind your Brazilian flag and green curtains.
Where my fingertips trace "I love you's" as your breath slowly slides along my neck.
I am intoxicated by your lips and addicted to your skin on my skin.
My fingernails begin scratching "I want you's" and "I need you's" into your back which you reciprocate with hands sliding down my sides, gripping, carving indentations into my thighs.
I am in ecstasy and your hands, like those of Bernini, masterfully mould my body into Saint Teresa.
Our faces inches apart, your breath becomes mine.
Our chests touch, is it my heart or yours racing against time?
Time.
A paradox.
If it seems impossible for something to be both finite and infinite, all you have to do is love someone.
Limitless and all encompassing; love has no time and yet I count down the days until your smile becomes only a memory, one which I find replaying on the backs of my eyelids as I try to fall asleep at night or in pixels on a screen when, in a moment of weakness, I break my promise to myself to never open that album. The one where I can find your brown eyes staring into mine, the one where a genuine smile lights up your face and I feel the happiness you felt in that moment, the happiness we felt in absolute, finite, infinite love.
And I know that I will not cease to love you once you disappear behind metal detectors and Hawaiian shirts.
Because I love you. Simply.
And I don't mean that I simply love you. No, I mean I don't love you in a simple way.
My "I love you" finds it's way into "how was your day?" and "don't forget lunch". It slips between your fingers and squeezes your a hand a little tighter just to feel a little closer. It presses it's lips softly against your cheek in the early hours of the morning while the world still sleeps, hoping it's gentle touch dances with the dreams in your head.
Thank you for everything, I (still) love you.
Aug 29, 2016
Aug 29, 2016 at 8:13 AM UTC
All the soft astrologic
The tight squeeze
My brothers and foes
Searching for you
You used to look me in the soul
We thought we would never pass
We've danced, and cried
Dined in the hills
I'm a lone boy now
Lost in arctic lows
The lust to last centuries
Villa heights and afterglow
With sunny sailing
I'm here, calling for you
Torn and frayed, with blankets
Resembling Bernini, teasing me
Of my long, near-forgotten palace
Where is home now, I ask
I feel fearless, I am sorrowed
Take me with you
Teach me the way of your flight
I can still hear the stadium chanting
Make my stamp on this beauty land
And seek refuge in the jewelry box
As they cry my name to the heavens
When it's real quiet, I can make out your whispers
Humming in the ambience, so sweet
I'll complete my mission, dear
I promise I will make you smile & weep
Aug 23, 2019
Aug 23, 2019 at 8:00 AM UTC
Look at this Moor,
with his dolphin
held like a bagpipe
splitting with water,
while beside him
tourists stack three deep
grabbing at their beer,
pretending to ponder
the veiled Nile,
while their eyes slant
towards the open seats
at the cafe and the Aperol
that issues so freely
you'd think Neptune
was pouring it out, too.
The sun is wincing citrus
above the high windows
that overlook the plaza,
laughter cresting above
the tourist scrum, and
children scream with gelato
strung between their fingers.
People like to be close
to history, but not too close.
If the old stones spit water
pleasantly, so much the better.
Browse the pamphlet,
tell the wife it's Bernini,
not knowing that Bernini
once paid a servant
to take a razor to the face
of his mistress because
she slept with his brother,
because history's scrawled
as much in blood as in marble,
and the colossal Pantheons
of the world are easier
understood with a dizzy
laugh and eyes shining
with afternoon wine.
Oct 4, 2019
Oct 4, 2019 at 10:03 AM UTC