Unraveled

I lingered silent over the geography
of your spirit,
and inhaled its saffron valleys,
sunlit with lissome lilies,
as I drunk deep from its coaxing wells
of cool electricity.

I have tasted the Spring's first blooms
in your glance and wondered
of the half life of our words
and the extraordinary struggle
of their anxious disorder.

I stopped cold with your slight
"hey mister" and all I could think was
of the fate of crowned angels
in the silvered milky way
watching over,
washing over
my desire to be lured
and unraveled
and...
did you really call me
"mister"?

We shall run away far from all
that is familiar,
toothy fear and excitement our fuel,
until the burdened chatter of others
becomes inaudible,
until all that is unspeakable
is spoken,
and our voices,
clear and charmed in its
undressed debut,
sings.

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Love Is The Only Rational Act

"Love is the only rational act."
— Rainer Maria Rilke

If we don't breathe to speak of love
then we are wasting our breath.
If we aren't eating to have the energy to love
then we are still hungry.
If we aren't moving to love,
then we are moving in the wrong direction.
If our every action, movement, thought, word
does not lead to love
then we have failed as we may have before
and if we do not pick ourselves up
and love ourselves and others even more
then we have declared the ultimate
war upon humanity.
The only true war on war
is to express love
and to share it with everyone
even in the most unlikeliest of moments,
especially in the most unlikeliest of moments,
we must share love
and reach others with it,
teach it, preach it
from the rooftops,
from the mountaintops
to surround every ounce of our being with love
no matter the consequences,
past and future,
for herein lies
the present
and future
for us
all.







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On This Splendid Day

As if blown over hot embers
a drowsy wind blew soulless
over the zoo that lined the Boulevard.
There was no redemption
found for those on the 181
as it jerked toward its destiny.

Highland. Vine. Western.
The bus lurched forward,
its captives silent with a lifetime of
guilt and indignity,
their endless untold stories
already forgotten.

In Little Armenia an elderly man
boarded in his Sunday best.
No one noticed the music
that twinkled unashamedly
from his eyes.
Vermont. Los Feliz. Central.

At the Galleria,
I stared out from the bus,
now in disrepair and half emptied,
at the old man
meeting
his loved one,
their imperfect bodies
suddenly perfect,
their arms wrapped around each other
like silk ribbons around a gift,
as they kissed
and kissed,
and kissed for what seemed like
an infinity of moments,
each moment intense and delicate,
soft and unbroken,
with an urgency deep with patience,
I watched
as others soon did


and I soon
discovered too,
unashamedly,
on this splendid day,
how
the broken song
can find its notes
and live
forever.



Poetry copyright (c) 2009 Paul Matsumoto. All rights reserved.
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