1
“Let us build a friendship” She stated.
“Nothing more.
“We will never have any memory of dying.”
Then she slithered away into the wanting parking lot,
nestled within the city’s gut.
A generous light,
splinters its way through the foliage of the buildings
and blesses the multi-colored flowers,
scattered impulsively about the cracks,
amongst the broken bottles crumbled cellophane wrappers
and crushed aluminum cans.
However, the earth remains silent,
as I pick a flower from her sanctified lips.
I touch her and she quivers.
My hunger seems so blatant.
my stomache makes such obvious sounds,
the texture of my words, such obvious Enunciations.
When she exited the room,
closing the door behind her, I could not help but watch
with the yearning to partake of the Tree of life.
I can say. I have suffered things in the Street,
spread myself, and turned over whole lives,
changing skins, names, beliefs and license plates;
regardless, it was I, who walked this way.
No one else forced me into the ashes.
It was something I had to do;
something I needed to find.
I must face the consequences for doing such.
I can say I lost my heart, piece by piece,
giving too much to loves
residing within the dark crevices of the cities’ walls.
Or was it not enough?
Regardless,
the want to pick ‘em up and glue ‘em back together,
is not here.
I have gotten used to that harsher terrain
where no one wants to love.
By giving no answers,
One can say “I didn’t understand.”
Yet where does that get us?
A little farther from the Great Mystery?
A little farther from love?
I could say that I walked those streets,
without seeing, without feeling, without longing,
but I would be lying,
for, I am of man.
I watched every time she walked.
I could feel those firm potter’s hands
grip my neck
her fingers press light steady circular patterns
and knead themselves down my spine
and farther . . .
It’s strange, perverse
it’s as if, it is something my body craves, needs
I cannot deny it.
Maybe, it is not a woman I want;
but all women;
and, I hunt for them in those around me,
one by one.
Ask me where I have been, and I will tell you;
however, ask me where I am going,
I could impart nothing.
I only know of the thorn’s language,
and the taste of Red Chilean wine in a flat bottom bottle.
Regardless,
the tracks I have left behind will be hard to follow.
My heels leave barely a trace imprinted in the concrete,
they will disappear with the walking of the wind;
as the day’s newspaper circulates the night air.
You will not be able to find me.
You will not know me by my tracks,
but only by the skins and tears I have shed
2
I have paid dearly for learning how to die;
so much so, I want to live.
But having seen death,
can one truly be alive?
Can one continue, knowing that the outcome is for not?
Is that what the prophets mean by the Great Mystery?
Perhaps our natural weakness is suspicion and anxiousness.
Our only strength, hope.
“Here’s my place.” I declare.
Strip myself.
Lie face down into the earth.
I use a piece of paper to keep the ants from nesting in my nose.
But it seems, this course of inaction was but an experience,
not the prevailing wind.
I am not the ground, dirt, nor rock,
which is to be tread upon;
however, I do know how it feels.
Though realizing it is not my path.
I stand up, brush the dirt off,
and announce, as I walk out into the world. “I am free.”
“Free from what?” the wind gustily inquires,
blowing the ashes of my own destruction into my face,
reminding me: what I am, and what I have let myself become.
My ash-filled eyes
bleed forth such an unboundable light.
My tears act as prisms to show me rainbows:
The dreams that fade as I wake.
But how can I hold on to those patterns and shapes,
the images of my life?
Blinded by my own darkness and desires
I crawled about the ground;
buzzards began to circumvent me,
while they waited for the immanent death;
However, by my thickening want to live,
or by destiny itself,
I killed those buzzards one at a time
with word and bite;
I plucked the feathers off each
to construct a pair of wings for myself.
When I finished, I spread those buzzard feathered wings.
The wind gripped me and hoisted me up into the sky,
elevating me above man, and his seven deadly sins.
For a moment, I almost believed.
However, I got so close to the sun;
its heat caused the feathers to combust.
Gravity did the rest.
I plummeted,
and realized, in trying to be free,
I was only attempting to jump while already falling.
I plunged into the ocean.
Submerged within the womb,
I siphoned fluids through my stomache.
What can I say without wanting to touch the Earth
with my hands and lips,
to taste her soil across my tongue?
I have been in the water so long,
that I have become a prune.
My fingers are no longer plains;
but deep valleys cross their width.
3
The river is constant
always flowing in a circle
not as the snake which in the end eats itself,
that is death.
No, that of the sun and the bear,
false deaths and resurrections.
the longings of the ways of skin,
to suckle the water and honey of life;
the surge of my body buried into hers,
flexing ambiguous staggering perfection,
Drenched in my own natural waters,
I come of age.
A little late it may seem.
A secret reserve gave it back to me.
A blue bitter song, I learned so long ago,
Unmoved by itself,
helps me recall my unique disclosure,
which pulsed through my veins
as I stood naked before her,
presumptuously barking out words
and sentences with my guttural rasp.
& She, walked around like a holocaust,
no tangible discretion
nor flimsy consistency.
“What are you really saying?” She probes.
Her eyes were unbreakable,
and her voice,
with words cooked low in the heat of her rage,
began to elevate about the room.
No, I have not forgot it, that wet leprous kiss;
then suddenly seeing the fallen face of an angel
peer angrily through the window,
as my hand reached up to unsnap the clip.
Nor can I deny the want to do it again.
I guess, there was a desire for every woman;
I wonder if these things were that well hidden.
Can I look at a woman and not want?
but that is the man,
the spirit wants something different.
How can I satisfy both?
Can it be found in one woman?
copyright 1996 Emory Laughing Wolf
Smyon-Pa 