by Paul Hina
picture that is a space
being filled with time will
someday grow inside this moment
where a promise was forgotten
by a girl that awakes inside
a life smile that is as tiny
as tomorrow
9
sleep is not for every man who
staggers throughout hours of the
her and me that now only arrives
inside rest that is larger than
somewhere in my imagination
but a dream is never so far as
her whimsical light that seems
afraid of this dark
and the moon is so small that i
can’t find that light of some
rain that has fallen to remind
me of a belief that sits beside
our forever half sleeping
all the while i had been lying
on a sound that is a dead flower
scattering away a thousand pieces
of memory inside my heavy hand
but if i clasp fingers to palm
and believe in roses i will feel
her charms lying on me with a
disease that will stretch my
flesh so as to find the nerves
that feel, as always, the existence
of mortality in the shape of
love’s last hour and wounds my
already burning bed with its
clothes of preservation
but she is there anointing me with
the rhapsody of her words and even
if my blindness, that dwells inside
this half sleep, were to last past
heaven i would rest a finger across
her throat so that i might feel a
voice as quick as my blood would
know a journey to a heart of all
sounds
and if i were to touch her lips or
even hover beside her breath i could
allow my thoughts to falter throughout
this infinity of restless harm
but i can’t promise not to open my
eyes in dreams and for all roses know
a piece of life is only as slender
as a ghost resting her head on my
chest listening for unity
and awake is fighting short breaths
to not fall behind the perfume that
is of herself so that i might sleep
and even as i sink through rooms of
us i fear i’ll never smell roses
again
so i just lie alive and wait for the
sun to grow through a disease
10
lying so tiny she breathes quickly
being born under blankets of a city’s
ceiling but it is not enough to cover
what she is or means to a man who
watches her quietly being beautiful
and although darkness forbids him to
see all of her body’s silence there
is a star growing from a window seeing
only her face
her hair is reaching towards the tip
of her nose and half covers an eye
which he suspects, like the other, is
sunk behind lids kissing rest and her
mouth is barely open to catch what air
is in dreams and her lips must know
how to glow when a light tries to find
them
and the light on her face made me feel
like being under water when a sunbeam
moves into you and warmth is known
and so i watched and thought of oceans
i thought of the largeness and the
depth
i thought of the color and the life
and i knew that she surely must be
an ocean inside of me and my body
aches to be a part of what is drowning
because there is no such thing as dying
while you watch an ocean sleep and,
when opened, nothing but life flows
from those eyes
and now fallen down(unclosed by her
cleansing) some love drips from a
nowhere hanging hand towards a taste
of finally learning how to swim
11
i've got all these little births
in my pocket that sing wishes like
sounds of dropping coins for hope
and they all move towards a life in
a hole that holds a place for every
kiss that will come from a person
who will fill them with more holes
and though you let every tiny truth
slide from your hands you know that
everything now born is running for
death
and you watch each hole swallow every
newly born dream but maybe once you'll
see a wish get away from the night
being somewhere else making dust
and a situation will occur called
crashing moons and will now be
referred to as broken stars
12
shaking form under her hands
there is a man being quietly
away who has dropped his wings
and who can’t give anything
to a woman that speaks so softly
to all the snow that falls
around him
and he tries everything to forget
the smell of fire but this man
can only stand as still as flames
when his eyes see this woman
turning beautiful
and as her mouth swallows him dead
he understands how soft the rain
must feel when it falls into snow
and if moments froze like flowers
kissing frost then we would all
know the beauty of dying in the
hands of warmth
13
across from nothing there is me
and a window of fall only being
distant from a spring ago
she was where nothing is now
drawing a picture of me being in
love by a window of spring that
lit a reflection of us on a book
i was reading but can’t remember
and though now she is nothing
more than a somewhere ago i
know she is here among many pages
that are too tired not to fall
but if finding her were to mean
a different color of love i
would be afraid to harm the
spring’s reason for
a fall
there is now not enough light
for pictures of pages that now
fall from trees i can’t remember
reading when she drew a picture
of me being born in spring
and though many seasons
will continue to die i’ll always remember
knowing more love than nothing
14
a voice of always may be forever
dying like the one sleep interrupts
hoping to not be seeing those things
that knew you then
and where is a how when you can’t or
won’t even arrive into hearing often
one more night and less a day me
thinking you and you being then
and a what makes another noise that
can’t or won’t hear me grow no more
15
in the middle of evening a storm is
being crafted with care by some force
beyond this thought
the rain falls slow into static and rushes
on my overhead like miracles in chaos
and rushing from my view i see all these
lonely victims colliding
into one another
for a shared moment
all of them running safely hopping above
collected windows and ignoring reflections
of childhood tongues catching tiny visions
that from smiles grow laughter
standing inside i think of myself not
being older than fear or younger than
storms so i search spinning the world
for some light to shine newer than now
and there abandoned by use is an umbrella
holding up a woman that stands politely still
with head up and one hand out catching youth
her eyes fall to me and a smile is becoming
everything across her face and she laughs
with hair clinging in front of her eyes
streaming magic down her new hope
and i laugh like someone who knows
the name of rain and run into a wall of
wet that stops me from being anything
but alive
she comes to me and finds her hand
behind my neck and her eyes are so
familiar to a life that had forgotten that
even wet fingers aren’t cold when they
love
and her umbrella falls from her and
she drips inside all of my loneliness
and kisses me with all her storm and
a flood falls across all the rainy children
laughing at rolling umbrellas
and i remember i love her
16
a reaction covers all the composure
that was you before she doused you
with herself gracefully moving like
a cloud slightly glazing blue heaven
and you would know home to be a
place where she exists past here and
beyond now into your admiration
that would cause even angels to burn
joyfully in her light
shivering like candlelight in the
darkness she drips silently away
with a smile that makes your whole
self quake and quiver victorious
and your eyes fill up with tears
blurring every image of the world
around her and wrecks your very
core with the clarity of watching it
happen
and knowing it could again
17
and it is her
moving in slow motion towards
me being toppled over end to
end suddenly spinning inside
a rainbow dream summertime
morning
and it is her
smiling as the sun wraps the
sky and swallows every blue
with the brightness of a million
shooting stars rushing like bullets
hitting one right after the other
tastefully melting over my flesh
whispering memories of cold
mornings wrapped in blankets
wishing for her warm fingered arms
to tangle me into a frenzied excitement
and it is her
numbing me with a downpour of
falling ecstasy pouring a heavy harmony
in an uncontrolled throw of mighty
stares that drip rings that echo over and
over caressing the silent pools in our eyes
and it is her
making every breath gasp back into
