by Paul Hina
religious
whispers when tradition breathes
into puddles of a dizzy drunken how
(whom words can not know) regaining
perfection in the unknown language
of a duet
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between then and now which
once prevailed a space is no
space and every then is now
and now a then
but no instant does not come
or go without coming to go or
going to come yet we are neither
coming nor going
only in accepting the instant
spaces can we come to go into
now
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a line perhaps is drawn covering
great wide space with painted stones
that from roots of fragile portraits
scatter and distort forms that move
into the shapes your magnificent
intense body creates in each possible
dissection of seconds
those stones however fragile in
their immense spreading across the
acres of my mind are shrines to
every possible laughter you construct
in this museum of memory even in the
shadow of your dimmest gesture coming
true
and one particular now sculpture
uncertain of its divinity crumbles
into the reckless debris of any
movement yet to occur staining only
inches of what art has since burst in
the flow of what you had just performed
in the simplicity of five lines connected
to palm swimming through the fields of
hair in the sweet color of home
and yet the gravel maybe now stirring
again carving winter breath into a world
going spring(even though december stones
often represent a dying thing) while rising
dawn is stunned by the sun in your eyes
64
i picture you in the middle of this
place i see disturbing the wind to the
point of breaking under your stare that
wrestles even necessity to its very
knees begging for a mercy swim inside
your eyes causing the breezes to break
apart at your convenience for a cooling
off of your sweet warm face placing a
series of slight changes to the color of
your precious skin stretched directly by
the fingers of newborn vanilla caressing
your already perfect hair to jump just in
the right places where your scalp tickles
your mouth to embrace each smell of laughing
candy to carry each chocolate strand to
flight falling all the way down your heavenly
neck's curve playing hills for all who admire
the shape of one more reason to wake into a
morning that tastes of clowns
and you move softly closer in small patient
steps with legs dangling never touching
ground in their glide massaging hips to
approach the always simple comfort of my
embrace while this rapid heart stomps shovels
of life to my head barely drinking some dizzy
you to spin me dancing into the scent an
evening with your hands plays with purpose
in my years being young and brand new with
you
65
climbing through the circles of
your twilight sight drains all
my next life's sleep to hang
below a memory that your
looking-at-me eyes caused in
my guts when i was able to
stretch those erratic trails of
disfigured pictures so near to
light that you might represent
almost tears swallowing more
future hope of touch inside your
life world of flesh embodied by
those orbs echoing sound like
the soft praise eyelashes create
when you shut out my insatiable
waiting
and all those daylight wishes i
hide under when you, as close
as truth, move my mind from
middle sprint
these wishes get lost in that last
circle racing to keep you from
darkening the night with your
tired lids so heavily covering sky's
most precise circle of green day
and i'll climb through each hollow
ball of left behind light to ignite
as many more memories as takes
to fall gracefully into that place
where making sleep is finished
in your eyes
resting somewhere familiar and
away
66
only the poppies' scent that at once
embraced her radiant napping curves
can remember how calm her whole face
shines with that moist sweet mask of
heather that naturally gathers itself
to pour from her mouth to easily
consume the wind when its breath
kisses each exhale with those discreet
smiling lips
and from that scented garden flows
the water painting its natural spring
landscape to quickly dry in the humble
mystery of finding what color glows as
green to sparkle something like her
waking eyes that simply wash over the
stream to flow into lighted dream
and even on days of disquiet weather
when the water freezes over what life
she has fed it with her little voice
there she will be to open up her
hair letting out each strand of
soft silent sunlight to reveal
where the flowers roam in the
winter
and when each nuance unfolds itself
from her body and every whisper that
graces the air emerges from beneath
her flesh the world will be left a
better nature to walk through
knowing that she exists in each
flower
and flows with every water
unrelenting
undying
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just beyond twilight hangs a moonless
bloom swollen like a tear approaching
tumble from its tender perch called
horizon to allow for one more sweeping
light to fall into my lazy brown eyes
that dangle suddenly still at this young
beautiful thing swinging from a rope
tied to a single plank of modestly aging
wood that hangs from the extended arm of
tree waiting to be held
seventy summer degrees breeze the hand
of this tree open into sway testing its
subtle strength that measures the weight
of her perfectly patient body in tree's
palm carefully clutching limbs with her
gentle always fingers while tree squeezes
tight its power protecting not to crush
her lovely body's art for the attainment
of another singular immeasurable smile
her toes point with each lean ankle
splitting synchronized in motion so as to
swing her free from the dirty dust that
is kicked full in the air as she eases
ever closer toward the sky laughing all
the way into clouds
and the tear swells shut as the bloom falls
without moon that wipes away twilight only
after it reflects he
r sweet taste of child
savors it
believes it
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when her face opens up to alive in the
morning the roots that are her feet sink
further into toes that shiver from stillness
just as her body starts again to grow
only god and desire know how she makes a
manic out of me when i feel the inner skies
of my face trickle nerves through mind and
spine like nowhere rain moving in the knowledge
of the elegance she portrays upon every half
sleeping turn of head to spray her falls of
hair on my once thirsty flesh
i would tell her i love her special if not in
constant act of question when every splendid
stirring of almost awake throws me asking if
she is someone's there
and if her not being here means she must exit
bed for better worlds then dreams will crumble
into sleep as joy leans her hips treading legs
like water as she swims so perfectly out of view
and when lying alone in the floating beside of
pillow sheets under her old warm body blankets i
can linger lazily for days sustaining on her scent
which will direct at me always the depth of her
blue infinity
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one hundred revolutions turns my life around
a huge massive light of cylinder innerspace
from which can be seen many absolute chambers
containing either dust or diamonds held by my
breath waiting for some visual clarity instead
of these shining rooms of bottled tranquility
curving imaginations
these bottles feed new lights with moments
something like air bells blowing surprise
trumpets on cold dry autumn illusions exploring
things such as forever or her hand that time
brushing my hair from my face
and in just clicks some mind with rooms opening
turning whatever dust to diamonds exploding lights
that remind one that memories sit so quietly full
of life like children seeming to be asleep or how it
feels to pass the instant color of her touch to
someone simply through words
and i just write things down around these revolutions
just so that someone might any day remember to hold
brightness so deep in their cupped hands that opening
them gives better reason to laugh anyone spinning inside
another's kaleidoscope
a dozen roses for sarah
first rose
we have had little time for confessing
the inconsistent nature of want for no
other reason than its lack of appropriate
home when we touch
i will taste many new rejuvenations
as our life treads puddles in further
time and yet your lips easily can part
my jaws to explain sunrises with the
soft elegance of a secret somewhere
being told in that delicate symphonic
voice where you hold the breath that
refreshes the water within me
and where my
