Let me take your ego.

Have a seat give your ambition a rest.

Put down the mirror

And look at me please-

Toss the keys to prosperity on the nightstand

And love me tonight

Let me brush aside that contradiction

Here, take a sip of warm desire

-it’s not bad to accept.

Rest your arms on the pillows of my thighs and breathe.

It wasn’t that long ago—-remember?

Let the world go back to work.

Speak to me in soothing wafts of perfumed contentment.

I’ll draw closed the curtains on your reality…

And we can believe in us tonight.

–wear this happiness like a peaceful shroud.

Quietly. and like a cloud that hovers suspended too low to be  part of the summer sky, too grey to be real, too close to touch, not really there, you hover in my mind somewhere in the background. Watching me.

how to explain the need to see your photograph, to read your words.

Little pieces of something. The random drops from that same cloud, too few to quench a thirst, or broad to give shade. But they linger. And tempt me.

And I would rather have you appear throughout the day in my travels on some indiscriminate road when I look to the sky for relief from the noise of the world around me. A silver form placed off to the right and centered, just for me. I see angels in the background, as I feel your breathe on my cheek.

If I wanted I could reach out and touch  the surface, if I could believe I could close my grip and feel the substance of so much strange emotion. To soften  my edges and give me comfort.

If I could touch your hands, and feel the tender release of so many defenses. Hold them until substance is emotion. I could hold them to my lips and in silence find peace.

Like that single floating form in my illusion’s caress, let everything I feel that you could be absorb into my frame and stir something like a kiss on my lips.

Yielding everything, being nothing.

It’s better that way.

If I take you to church will you forgive me?

If I let you sleep in will you cook me breakfast?

If I answer the phone will you call back?

Again?

Take this dance and make it as awkward and unnecessary as the future
called “the morning after.”

Take my hopes
and scream them aloud
in the wake of every failure, of every destruction of dream my dream of
love has set forth;
to the world. To my horror.

Take the time to speak of your beautiful, treacherous, independence as
you douse the lights and turn down the covers.
And I agree with every word.

Because in these moments
when everything is possible
the end has already been written.

It breaks my heart to laugh with you
and it makes you uncomfortable
that you feel so at home with me.

If time wrote the past in strokes of compassion on the memory the soul
wouldn’t fear it.
And pride wouldn’t be forced to force “reality”
down our throats dissing illusion if only to ‘protect’ our hearts.

And as our senses dull to the brilliant shine of possibility
the possibility of something that might work
gets blurred by impatience and lack of faith,
in people,…
In ourselves.

And in those few awkward and unnecessary phone calls that follow I
will know why.
And you will know why we don’t work.

But for tonight-

Let’s speak of the need to be sober in love. And imbibe the reasons for
why
we’ve failed in a series of allusions to some common thought and
inference. Let’s share in the drowning of those shared emotions,
as we move further away from what we’ve always sought. Because as we
gladly watch our cynicism grow drunk and faithless, the sparks-
the similarities between us-
fade too in a feeling of familiarity that whispers ” a match…” before
it’s gone

Desire and need get “blurred” with objectivity and the many reasons why
you
And I
Deserve better.
I’ll trade you a “how could she?” for a “why would he?”

And as the wine turns time on it’s side and the reason that brought two
such
Splendidly, similar people together slips into the past we can speed a
lifetime of understanding into the vacuous hours of this night and live
a lifetime of possibility til dawn

AND,
If I find your arms familiar at daybreak,
If I kiss you’re forehead and slip back to sleep-

Will you let me?

If I don’t ask YOU for more-
Will YOU do it for me?

Please…

If I answer the phone will you call back? again?
If I call you first will you respect me?
What if I then make you wait?

How many days does it buy me?

Us?

Give me the sense of a simpleton to know what soft skin and questions are worth.

Make my dull mind a genius if it means I’ll change. Understand love and people.

            That the value of the equation is greater than the sum of the parts of transient things

NO- than the best result the catalysts the world offers may yield.

Bring them to me to wrap myself around them and feel every inch of them. As if wrapped in good and purity.

So that I can be for those moments washed pure and made good.

Give me their eyes, glistening, sun like with wisdom of kings and ages so that I can again understand life and suffering.

Hand me their hearts so their strength can be palpable and I can recognize the power in every beat of will and resilience. They’ve withstood my pain with the courage of warriors who come back again and again. And again.

Watch me run – the coward. Selfish and afraid. Confused by nothing. Filled with everything and feeling empty.

Study this fool, this idiot, and learn.

Learn what not to do.

If I call this elephant a guest
and ask it to sit down
And take it for a walk
Really parade it around

Will you ask?
Or will you say you understand?

When doubt impregnates cynicism
Issues are born with the frequency of words

These thoughts underneath your gaze
are like baby elephants in your favorite neighbors room

Does your courtesy lead your comments about them?
Does your conscience explain what you see?
Is it easier to turn the page, look away
And claim you understand me?

The more I explain
The more you know
The more you know
The less you’ll want to hear..

So I’ll put the elephants on parade for the world
And let them gaze in wonderment
at the splendor of ambiguity
Certain that they know the “real” truth

I think I have a crush on a city from my past.

I find that I think in its terms now.

I measure the effect of events in my life now by how they compare to what I felt with the hardships of those days.

Would sadness in paradise be any less? Yes.

Although far from paradise it was a nice imitation of a cheap vacation

And I can’t stop thinking about it

I view present moments of my life from eyes stuck in the distant environment I sauntered through in 2006

Strangely, new feelings have developed from that long and tumultuous encounter.

What was once a tedious recollection of events has evolved…

Now my perceptions are tinged with the accents particular to _________.

I can taste its morning sunshine on the hills sweet and clear when I awake here

The tanginess of its cool afternoons spinning through the valleys and into my days today tease me leaving a smile

Sharp bursts of heat and sweat coat my mind like the hot days there stuck in traffic with a slurpee and a the roof back, breaking the dull temperature of these stoic afternoons in a warm nostalgia

Once the busy nights there were so empty to me as I drove alongside crowds of cars alone in a familiar city

Now a canvas of mist lingering from an evening rain and lazing dreamily over the horizon of hills drenched with little stars hangs heavy over my dreams at night.

If only we could get a few “do overs” in life I’d fashion our introduction differently.

I insulted the city upon our first introduction and it holds quite a grudge I’ve learned.

It closed its doors,  locked its windows and spread the word like a bitter gossip about the new girl.

And round and round I went through loops and hills trying to get a chair before the music stopped.

Trying to find a place to rest for a moment and gather my courage for more.

Even the music pauses briefly in the game but not in ______.

How do you get out from under a bad sign?

The sad truth of a hundred days of failure is that for all of the regrets i don’t want to forget a moment under that city’s sky.

I search my mind now for more of its mornings and evenings and their smells and sounds, eccentricities of its environment.

Oh the fierce dominance of nature in all directions that was __________.

I miss it.

Like a misunderstood relationship I want to go back and try again…

What if it was all a misunderstanding on my part. And this time with humility and good will I approach that foreign world anew?

What if I live our new encounter like a friend not a competitor and I allow myself to think kindly about its inhabitants?

If I find virtue in its mountains and strength in its seas surely I can find the inspiration to engage its stormy society and calm a corner of its many chambers convincing it to submit its shelter to me and my family too.

If _________ personifies happiness perhaps someday I can perceive happiness, even live happiness, in its arms.

When I was in college I first began to truly exercise my individuality. Probably more because I was increasingly alone than because I was a “late bloomer”. I began to take an interest in making the space that was mine my own and that meant decorating. Myself, my rooms, my car, everything. I realized that there were a number of opportunities to take to become my own individual. Working and going to school opened my mind to an ocean of tastes that I had for a long time left up to my parents.

In their absence I was able to redefine who I was not only in a spiritual but tangible all be it materialistic sense. Which led me to William Bougereau. being Catholic I had a strong sense of being cared for even when my parents or others weren’t around. So when I saw the paintings he’d made of angels and other ethereal creatures I was instantly a fan.

Some of the first paintings to cover the walls of my new apartments were L’inocence (the first picture which I still have today), The first Kiss( I used to have a copy of this don’t know where it ended up by still haven’t been able to find a replacement), and Le Cupidon (have a copy of this). Many people have taken the angel phenomena and made it gaudy and cheap, but something about Bougereau’s work maintains a quality and authenticity not found in other artists paintings. And as long as they aren’t framed in gold, spray-painted, plastic frames or printed on velour in flourescent, glow in the dark accents, I still love to look at the pieces. (lol)

I recently found a few I hadn’t seen before that I wanted to share. One, the one with a mother and child I posted along with a poem I wrote for my daughter.

Enjoy.

-william bougereau

BE BEAUTIFUL 

Be beautiful. Take the time to tell yourself that it isn’t vain to notice you are unique.

Every band of light wrapped in your dark hair flows like mothers milk, enveloping your face, neck, wrists and trickles down to my life’s fascination your perfect little toes.

Each one picked like flowers from the Virgin Mary’s garden.

You are everything I ever wanted to be. You are perfection.

Your voice breaks the silence with each utterance drenched and heavy with the importance of life. As I watch you form each thought and tell your brain to search for just the right word my heart skips a beat, awash in the significance that each moment is wholly and completely new.

It is new to the world and to creation because it is you who are speaking it for the first time. Using that brand new to this earth, blessedly, beautiful voice and body no one in the entire world before or after except for me, right here, right now has heard or will hear again.

Not for the first time.

You are power and substance doll, you are promise and hope angel, and never forget that at one moment you held all the beauty of the virgin mother within you. Her child.

Own your blessings with honest humility and be beautiful like God made you.

Teach the world to be gentle and show it honest intentions.

True beauty of body, mind and spirit is the most sincere of honors.

To the memory of this mother who also knew purity when she saw you for the first time and to the one who had the beautiful idea to create you.

(c) 2007 Crystal Martinez

Were you ever in a place-

a situation

a sad, a hopeless

event in time?

Were you ever face to face

with the inevitable-

the predictable?

Have you ever walked toward

a room

a person

a situation

knowing what was there was all too real?

Have you ever known:

been told

the information

the prognosis

the betrayal?

Have you ever walked out into the rain

without cover,

Called-

knowing who might answer

Visited-

knowing it could be the last time….?

Have you ever done all of this without

feeling

anything…

 

In the face of these things you are numb.

In the place of so many possible emotions, you have none.

Have you ever been numb?

In my thoughts I’m uncomfortably aware of a sensation as valid as emotion

as tangible as air-

………………..emptiness.

Is that what I feel? Is that the emotion?

Lack

of feeling

leaves a

void

that

CAN

be felt.

Have you ever

felt

emptiness?

I wanted to see

what it was like to be me

before I was ME.

I was ready to pry open it’s petals

fight the resistance

force my way

into the newness of a distant day

but to my surprise

it stayed.

I sat on the cushion of it’s petals

and saw every flaw

every crease

every mistake

it was beautiful

the soft breeze lulled me into the dream of morning

as it lifted my spirit among the pollen

and carried us onto the dew

I drifted to sleep there and

awoke with a start

in the dark

the flower seemed scared.

With the familiarity of self I slid

into the night I hid

and awoke again

in my bed.

Drawing closed the blinds

and even closer the covers

I retreated into my mind

folding my arms tightly

drawing my legs close

I felt like the flower

at night

I rushed a flower today

and learned along the way

back

that the mornings

of my past

are moments away

from the evenings of today

and

a gesture of petals in the breeze.