Homage to Neruda and a little bit o' crazy

Edit 3/21/23: I removed this post for many months, embarrassed by the BOLDNESS of sharing my own poetry. Because honestly, the first one especially is just too...overtly sensual. It begs some subtlety. I recognize that now. I write differently now. I hope. Though I never felt that I was the one writing back then. It always felt like the poems wrote themselves. I miss that. I wonder if that will return.

I've been reading The Creative Act, by Rick Rubin. He mentioned that sometimes artists are afraid of sharing their work, because they feel they will be identified forever with what they put out into the world. Rubin says any work we publish is only a snapshot of who we were. It's merely a chapter - not the whole book. And "overtly sensual" was a surefire chapter of my life ten years ago. I haven't written poetry in a long time, but if it returns, I hope the sensual is still there. But I also hope it will reveal itself via hints and subtle simmering.

10/3/22: Many years ago The Louisville Review was gracious enough to publish two of my poems in their Fall 2011 issue. And now, thanks to the modern miracle of digital editing, I have just written then deleted multiple qualifiers and apologies for these poems (in attempts to appease any critical readers). But no! I'm going to let them stand alone. (The first poem may not make sense if you haven't read Pablo Neruda. Here's a nice sampling: Pablo Neruda poems and specifically his love poems)

Reading Neruda for the First Time

Tonight, my love, while you were gone
I did not go to bed alone.

I opened slowly to him, this new amante,
this vineyard giant with hands
the size of mountains. Every
movement took me to a different country.
His tongue spoke a thousand languages.
He fed me sweet plums, his fingers
sweeter than the fruit.
He had a hundred hands,
each held a small bird, an emerald,
a cluster of grapes, an ocean.
My breasts to him were columbines,
my ears salty shells,
my lips roses,
my toes delicate daisies.
I was his fish in a turquoise sea,
flowering coral reaching toward light.
I was mist over the vineyards,
rising dew that melts into sky.
He spoke and caves sprouted diamonds,
fire danced on stone and shadows
called out, "Ven!"
His breath was heavy with musk,
moist and slow.
His rain was summer,
drenching and warm.
I was earth - thirsty, pulsing
and wanting more.

I still am, my dear,
come home.

Passport Dreams 
In Antarctica the natives wore fur-lined parkas 
with sturdy zippers, tennis racket shoes and 
guns slung over their shoulders. 
“Why the guns?” I asked.
“Yeti,” they answered in husky whispers. 
I looked down to see white fur covering my body. 
Had I killed the great legend or become the beast? 
They watched for the cold to seep from my bones. 
A small boy coughed. A gun was cocked. 
I felt the fur grow between my toes. 
“Wow,” I said, faking a shiver, 
“How about this weather?”

In Germany I took a lover. 
I know, I was supposed to do that in France, 
but I had a cold there and the wine made me sleepy. 
I liked his guttural ichs and funny shoes. 
I didn’t mind that he hadn’t showered in four days. 
Afterwards he liked to smoke. 
I pretended I was trying to quit. 
While he talked politics and soccer 
I daydreamed about us swimming 
naked in the Rhine.

Africa didn’t like me. 
Rhinos shouted. 
Elephants stampeded. 
Hippos wanted to swallow me whole. 
They would have, but Tarzan 
swept me away on a vine. 
We made love in a tree. 
His howl shook the jungle. 
I wore his pet snake 
like a corset.

England offered nothing but 
rain, double-decker buses and 
Shakespeare’s empty house. 
Bowler-hatted men in bars 
enunciated every word 
with precision. 
Then Tarzan appeared. 
We made love in the alley. 
Big Ben drowned out my howls. 
The English never noticed as they 
plodded past the Palace at Westminster. 

In Italy men with lascivious eyes 
watched for rustling skirts 
and redheads in cafés. 
Their love was dark and selfish, 
their sighs like steam. 
The fettuccine was amazing, too.

In Spain, red capes hung 
in windows of closed shops. 
The men were gone looking for bulls. 
The women gave me a flouncy peasant skirt 
and we danced like confetti 
on cobblestone streets.

I rode a rickshaw through China. 
I carried bits of meat in my pockets. 
Dogs loved me. 
A woman selling tea 
stopped me in the street. 
“No thank you,” I said. 
“But you’ve never tried,” she insisted, 
holding out the steaming cup. 
It burned my tongue and tasted like steel. 
The dogs stopped following. 
My clothes grew tight. Buttons popped. 
Muscled arms bulked and flexed. 
Monster feet dented the earth. 
I stepped over The Wall and 
pounded toward the sun. 
I was a giant silhouette, a distorted shadow. 
I walked straight off the edge into the fire. 
I didn’t feel a thing.