Circle

Walking the dark streets

travel logs in back pockets

youth with an order of fries

everywhere kissing bodies

collapse upon each other

thin rain blurs a stranger’s face

softening the hard edges

we are fractured lyrics

repeating the bridge, piena voce.

Reflective streets light us up

someone picks up a human tooth

slips it into a pocket for safekeeping

remember when you OD’d

you reminded me to keep breathing

strum suspension wires, rhythm

five points away from each other

You’ve used up eight lives, you

only have one life left to live, sotto voce.

Good fortunes are too fancy in copper

bowls, echoes collect on voicemail.

All our lives are hidden in pieces

on hand-held devices. Deities

sleep in white shrouds, secluded.

Our words seldom match our thoughts,

if it weren’t for the rain we’d char

each other’s edges. The scent

of burning wood stop us in our tracks. 

Listen to the hush that befalls us. 

All artwork, photos, and text © Copyright 2008-2013 Liliana Almendarez unless indicated otherwise. All Rights Reserved. Any downloading, copying or use of images on this website is strictly prohibited without express written consent by Liliana Almendarez.

Five Points

Fingertips strike out seconds, push

along in a jagged momentum. You,

wrapped up in blankets, poetry and

careless entropy. 

We strive to cross off our time

together. I offend you when I laugh

loudly but my quiet mouth

puts you on edge. Your chatter

marks away more light.

A bottle full of water is best left

untouched, save it for a rainy day.

I hop from one foot to the next

waiting for hours to melt me back

onto a train, heading home. 

It’s been awhile since we laughed

over vapid movies and I smelled

your raw scent.  Open a bottle

of wine, pour us a taste.  We belong

in a song’s refrain.

Six a.m. writing lines, a nest of notes

built of scrap paper bloom at the bottom

of my purse.  I promise to throw out

the next poem about rain no matter

where we wind up. 

Black ashes and oil across our foreheads

ten lives out of mind.  You are concrete

when you cough, second hand moves

only when the scaffolding comes off.

Keep talking without stopping, so what

if I’ve left the room.  A dark sky, a red hand,

a grey goose circumscribes the dull ache of living.             

All artwork, photos, and text © Copyright 2008-2013 Liliana Almendarez unless indicated otherwise. All Rights Reserved. Any downloading, copying or use of images on this website is strictly prohibited without express written consent by Liliana Almendarez.

Winter Fire

I sit in the mind of the snowfall

blanket the earth into slumber

come spirits and visions

insect-ideas writhe under flesh

itch the skin, bubble along a surface

shovel snow off a balcony, a frigid day

cold seeps into bones, etch marks

cools the hunger, a fire-thirsty brain

mother’s expectations press down

excess flesh bears up the burden well

dogs bark to scare a black squirrel

who sits on the fence eating a nut.

I enter the music of a dreaming cat

stretched out against an in-box

come prophesies and cantos

delight on a soft woman’s belly

gravity and age pull her breasts down-

ward point the way to her thighs

or a wet sex or the earth or the coffin

or the grave, thin red lines bury me alive

dark matter, universe turned upon itself

white dwarf star collapsed

meteor shower covers us in stardust

tastes of wine, cold space and silence.

I walk on the wing of an owl

reminded of acts of flight

come incantations and elders

read psalms with open hands

soft fingertips, curled tongues

longing to be a version of God

stretched across night clouds

illuminated by the full moon

shaking away a webbed cloak

of tangled sorrow, movements

loosen the knot, ride out a wave

of wind, flood the tongue, wisdom.

   

All artwork, photos, and text © Copyright 2008-2014 Liliana Almendarez unless indicated otherwise. All Rights Reserved. Any downloading, copying or use of images on this website is strictly prohibited without express written consent by Liliana Almendarez.