A fine mixture of smoke and breath escapes my lungs
as this letter flows from my pen this evening.
"This evening:" What does that even mean?
A moment in darkness, shadowed is the life-giver
high above us,
well,
me.
Strawberry tobacco smothers my face from hookah pipe,
eyes fixed on the lines before me,
and I have nothing to say.
We have nothing to speak, I assume.
I am wordless but maybe in the moment,
this evening, you have a tongue of prose
and no pen to mouth emotion back,
no way of knowing that your time is time is now,
and it's my turn to listen.
Wait, no no, not emotion.
Just "being,"
ways of being, strewn out like a fortune teller's
knucklebones. A lie, the truth, the way that
your eyes wander to the door as you lie
on the pinstriped couch across living room
from me.
I see you glancing, I feel your yearning
for skies where wings can spread against
a star-sun-lit moon and clouds of pink and red,
a longing to dive toward god-given green earth,
near to here, but so so far.
Needing clouds to dream-slumber in, as beads of water
mask your body in my mind, mixed with
thoughts of pure love and pining for your growth,
as dew drops form around my long blond-brown-blue eyelashes.

It's all I see, I've seen,
that's all I write to you this evening.

Look at the skeletons – they’re dancing in the yard –
And the violet smells in the new day forward.
Yesterday is so far, and the party is done;
Gone are the petits fours and the sound of the drums.

Today the wine is red and I push with my thumbs
Some leftovers of bread on the table, some crumbs.
Wasps are nibbling the grapes and the time can’t rewind:
How cold are the graves; I am losing my mind.

They’re clicking the laughters and clapping all the bones;
Their pidgins are swishers in cages of the zoos:
Mariette and Amir went all the way up there,
– Like an old souvenir – and it makes me shiver.

Look at the skeletons – they’re dancing in the yard –
And the violet smells in the new day forward.
Amir was a poet and Mariette a dove.
Who can tell that the death is watching out for love?

Yesterday the river saw us throwing some stones,
And drinking cans of beer. The sunlight and the glows
Of tiny water hints: we had to fold the eyes.
Who can tell that omens were these water lilies?

Mariette was wearing her pretty yellow pearls,
Her simple golden ring. The long mane and the curls
Of Amir, and his mood, were like hot butterflies
They were so young and proud: Why can't I stop my cries?

Look at the skeletons – they’re dancing in the yard –
And the violet smells in the new day forward.
Of what kind is this waltz, this triple meter dance,
This strange time with no source, which always starts and ends?

Yesterday, tomorrow; this day: a stunning ride
On horses of sorrow where I cried as a child.
Knucklebones of my hands, and my feet in the snow:
Of what kind are these wounds spoiling red my pillow?

Mariette cried and laughed, this all at the same time,
As Amir depictured the story of their fine
And very first kisses under the almond tree.
Their sweet and calm faces have fired poetry.

Look at the skeletons – they’re dancing in the yard –
And the violet smells in the new day forward…

(c) Quitterie Kerlach

at non effugies meos iambos

If I were to wipe away the constellations from the sky,
You alone would shine,
There in that,
Devoid of all the light,
Which too often clutters
Your radiance and your mind.

And lightheartedly I say this,
While scrawling desires on yellowing pages,
Which I hand out at random
(et ad absurdum).
And throwing little glances,
Lost in endless distance
Or translation.

There is a grand complexity to sight and sound
Which I with my inherent limitations
Fail to grasp.
Depictions wrought by my hands
Could never do the forms of these things
Proper justice.
And instead of facsimile
They become ruined.

And so I blur the lines
Between the real and perceived
As done with paltry sketches,
When the artist has no more good to do,
And so becomes not a bearer of beauty
But a butcher.

I write dis
Jointed poesy
With you in mind.  
(No better subject could I find.)

And fill the lines,
And fatten the meter out
With syllables and sibyls
With diacritical marks and dieresis
And critical remarks
By means of
Playing knucklebones with words.  

But I’m no Anacreon,
Or Tibullus,
Or Sappho.
And though I may be just a boy reading Catullus,
Anachronistically,
My poems are just as good
Had I been
A wordsmith
Like Wordsworth.
(at non effugies meos iambos)

Scattered around are the ashes of all that I ever knew
A light sprinkling of burned snow-cover on the charcoal of my house
My silent friends, skeletons, lie face down in the dust, passively smoking my memories
I can’t remember what happened last night; must’ve been one helluva party

Kicking around in the bones of my past
Looking for a scrap of fresh flesh from my future
Here, in history’s graveyard, where the forgotten rest in greater peace than the loved
Where falling tears don’t spoil the sacred ground, I kneel

I clutch someone’s knucklebones to my ***** for comfort
Who were they? Were they of any significance? Would they offer an arm?
To wrap around my shoulders in my present predicament
Did I love them? I long for them now

Yearning for an excuse with which to sew the tatters together
And trying to remember what started this Hakuna Matata nightmare
I chose to forget about the past
And stride boldly on into a future that wasn’t there

as i cast a spell into the gap between the
knucklebones of your toes.we
dangle before

fetishists like raptors

a little too costumey for you to hold me
well

******* ****** toothbrushes to encourage
their
*** of pink
foam into the basin of the sink.reaching
down
the gullet of the drain.my

eyes rinse  past you

in hopes that my blasphemy
will be
as beautiful as yours

though i sort each hair on your head one-
by-one.across my
satyr
lips

in
crepuscular finality


.

(as T. S. Eliot might have written it)

Lady, three blind mice sat under the wainscot,
silently waiting, sightlessly waiting, while in the garden
the blackbird sang and the children
played at knucklebones. The farmer's wife
entered the kitchen,
entered the warm kitchen,
preparing to prepare the meal for the children.
Crumbs fell from the table
but the mice said , We are not
worthy we are not
worthy. And they all ran
after the farmer's wife.
     Well, I ask you. Did you ever
see such a thing? Did you ever?
Quick as a flash she was,
took the carving knife to them,
chopped their tails right off.
Sorted them out good and proper, I'll tell you.
Did you ever see such a thing in your life?
Did you? Did you ever?
Three blind mice!