Read Of Wanting and Rain: Collected Love Poems of Paul Hina 2007-2009 Page 5


  91

  her skirt—bright as

  wet paint—drip-drops d

  o

  w

  n the creamy

  length of her laughs of legs

  92

  your little light still breathes,

  fades in and out like some dying

  star, and your absence casts a shadow

  across my heart, makes holes in the

  places beneath my sleep, stains my

  dreams with smeared kisses and

  hovering hands, hiding,

  buried in the mud of years, making

  mischief with your most elaborate hair,

  those lingering licks of legs, leaving lyrics

  like puddles of wishes for me to reflect

  on when your light breathes brightest and

  i can see your shape shine and stutter in

  the glittery glow of a memory melting the

  sleep off this star

  93

  her face is small and sweet,

  plucked by the fingers of flowers

  to smile sweet as a kiss

  and the breezes of spring sway me

  back to the sound of her breath

  before a whisper—teetering over the

  edge of almost words—saying nothing,

  saying everything

  and she touches me with helps of hands,

  forgiveness fingers,

  hears me with reach-me-arms,

  and wipes my face with hesitation hair,

  floating—softly down—atop lose-me-lips,

  kill-me-kiss,

  bang-bang-hips

  94

  we can’t go back, i know,

  and the places we were have

  aged, grayed, and wrinkled

  with the fog of a somewhere ago

  photographs,

  but to see it, to see our young faces,

  swimming in the light of new love,

  to rest in the flesh of this death’s

  forgiveness, enter into smaller eternities

  with your hands, making whispers ripple

  into these waters, brushing away the webs

  and showing your face, the light making

  angels blush, and your lips—yes, i

  remember your lips—taste like the tiniest

  truth that grows in a kiss—

  but we can’t go back, i know

  95

  mudslides of hair fall down your shoulders,

  and each clumsy wisp whispers—with softest

  fingers—secrets to your breasts,

  and my breathless hands travel every inch of

  this most magnificent mud for relics, treasures

  from the clearest swamps of the chocolate flecks

  in your eyes,

  but no hand can hold your skin’s thinnest warm

  vibration,

  every intensity, a new reason to try, attempt over

  and over again to grab hold of the giant hush of

  your hips,

  but tasting the ripest strawberries of your kiss does

  not exceed the need to hold you,

  and—like trapping a butterfly—such cruelty makes

  hands fold, and palms crave that hidden hope you

  carry when you fly,

  and you fly all the time

  96

  as the day fades away, and the stars appear—

  slowly, like pixels opening their eyes—and the

  moonlight peppers the atmosphere with the flavors

  of the night,

  the air is a sleepy gust in your hair

  and your body folds so neatly into a perfectly

  tired thing, constructing the smallest little boxes

  of sleep for me to carry in my dreams, visiting each

  contraption in the noise of the night,

  and your breathing is a better brilliance than the

  bluest moonlight

  and your tiny planets are like caramel and milk

  pouring into the mouth of a star, stirring the sleep

  of a mighty meeting of celestial bodies,

  tumbling from one box into another,

  closing and opening new ways to wake the waves

  of our night's water

  97

  we are dawdling in the dust of a past diddled

  with dream dots that ignite pictures,

  a movie where the specks and strings decorate

  the amber paradise where water and mud is the

  color of your eyes and hair,

  the decoration of your body, nothing more than

  flesh and hands

  —my hands—learning to love you,

  like teaching myself a song, and your instrument

  never makes the same noise twice,

  never sings deeper than drooping into a dream dried

  in amber, buried in the mud of your hair, where that

  perfume—the smell of our gardens—is still guarded

  by your butterflies—brilliant and bright—biding their

  time,

  tickling the petals with their kisses of wings

  98

  she teeters on the edge of tomorrow,

  her lingering legs swinging carelessly

  over space and sky, cooing with the

  contriving clouds, conspiring for raindrops

  packed with memories of old fingers traipsing

  up the bare back,

  like little wet whispers sliding down

  her neck, as if her hair were long again

  and she were younger

  and—down yonder—there is a kiss hiding

  in the hills and a yesterday opens like a flower

  waking to the sunshine

  and she presses her face against the scene until

  she falls and the drop is a swirl that sinks into

  the gut, and is only known in the deepest down

  hunger of love

  99

  your light is latched tight

  around my thoughts,

  my heart swinging open

  like some summer screen door

  pounding on a wood frame

  and crashing open a memory—

  a run, a kiss, the ache of that first embrace,

  the greatest ache—

  and i rise,

  float above the heights of sleep,

  touch the tips of dreams with

  mouth stained fingers

  and sing songs for you,

  and the city opens and closes

  like a box where lights go to hide

  the daylight at night,

  until you wake me up again,

  with hands full of posies and rain,

  sunshine and the softest rain

  100

  the arc of time slips across our words,

  muting their meaning, obscuring their vastness,

  and the measure of the heights we reached with

  poetry breathing—in the space of our kisses—

  is a vacuum filled with wanting and rain,

  absence reaching for reflections of sentences,

  verses dripping from some old cloud,

  in collusion with the gods for splashes and whispers

  that rise from the puddle and fall from the

  pouring skies, stuttering the heart, waking the words,

  shaking the kisses from the wettest leaves,

  scattering the scent of mimosa and memory

  101

  the sky shakes its dark streams

  of hair on our hands,

  like mist exploding from up above

  for hours of sunny showers,

  rainbows running to chase the children away

  for the golden game of sunshine squeezing

  and a space is left in the gap of this joyful noise

  where i drip these
lips onto a taste of the

  strawberries of your mouth,

  waking up the thrushes on the vines,

  and there is still time before the stars

  wash away these splendid sins with

  their blue secrets of fingers

  102

  i celebrate all measures of this madness,

  each craziest climb of you i do,

  where every flash of flesh,

  each flitting filament of finger sets off new storms,

  and these dollops of rain,

  these buckets of breathlessness,

  drown out all the stars at the back of my heart

  but one light rises and recedes,

  like a shadow chasing the merest hint of moon,

  minding your lips,

  grasping your sweetest kiss in

  the palm of every warm, white dream

  103

  somewhere the breeze blows your hair

  in your face,

  and fingers ceremoniously stretch it back

  behind your ear,

  a gesture that shakes memories from the trees,

  and the leaves tumble and toss—in the sway—

  the breath of your name,

  blowing me back into your wind,

  breathless like a falling whisper,

  waiting to linger over that most willful

  wish where your neck meets your shoulders,

  knowing i might be tucked neatly inside

  by your fronds of fingers

  104

  i’ve tied the knots of this dream so tight—

  and the night is a scurrilous lover,

  untying and measuring the meaning

  of the darkness,

  unraveling every yesterday’s kiss

  into a sensory stream

  where the somewhat light washes my hands

  from the stain of your skin,

  the swim of your smell,

  the breath of your hair moves toward the falls

  of your shoulders

  and i breathe in the nape of your night's sleep,

  fidgeting with the endless strings you have

  left me,

  tying and untying all these old secrets,

  all these other skies

  105

  i will chase you like forever circling

  the softest circles of the sun,

  those rings burning lights in my eyes,

  etching your curves into my memory

  with the smell of deepest spring,

  knee deep in your flowers, your kisses,

  and i will carry your words,

  wake them in the winter for

  the miraculous immersion

  of your melody,

  singing in the swim of your sunlight,

  warming the snow—a melt to the touch—

  like our mouths catching fire again,

  our hands building flames on flesh,

  fingers climbing across summer's skin

  106

  the weight of her body on mine.

  her hair wishing whispers across those

  slides of my shoulders.

  those breasts—tender to the touch—

  make a shiver when she breathes.

  her stomach, that brilliant belly,

  heaving—stopping for a scream.

  her hips shake suddenly and then twist.

  lips are bitten.

  her thighs squeeze answers from my

  mind like a million yellow birds

  concealing the view of the sun.

  then her face opens for the light—

  the afterglow.

  we shine in the shush.

  and a brilliant breathing descends

  over us.

  and all that remains is the quiet hum of

  every nerve vibrating.

  a song swims over the surface of

  our singing skin.

  107

  i smelled the summer rain yesterday,

  breezes blew in from the yard,

  patterings sung through the screen

  door, and that sound—

  the soft heartbeat of june—

  sent me back to our summer,

  standing outside waiting for you,

  peeling poems away like pages of

  fallen ink,

  like hands chasing kisses in the sand

  108

  we are alive with dancing and dust,

  dreams filled with water and light,

  where brilliant breezes of bubbles

  wash up your thighs,

  and i sleep with kisses cupped

  in my hands,

  carry them to your water,

  shake off the dust before

  i dive into this loveliest liquid singing

  109

  you are a slower dream coming undone

  in the sunlight of dying spring,

  and most of your tiny features have hidden

  away in my sleep,

  buried your face in the subconscious fields

  where words are whispered and the winds

  run our engines anew every night,

  leaving smoke trails back to our old kisses,

  peeling away every petal of this past pretending

  110

  when you’ve held beauty in the cups

  of your bare hands,

  when you’ve caressed a kiss with the

  most naked laid down fingers,

  when her body has rubbed all the smudges

  from my smear of a body

  —uncovering the coolest of clarities—

  the only thought left is the cruelest collusion

  of time tumbling toward absence,

  of the loss of this loveliest of lunacies

  111

  i chased you down—a dapple of red,

  on the dull bridge of surrender—

  i walked miles, peeked around corners

  just to catch hints of your hair,

  to hear your sway, to smell your air,

  all traces, all ghosts of your legs,

  had moved me here, to this place,

  to this poem,

  and all i can know is that you,

  and the prettiest power of your,

  maybe,

  presence made a life in the world,

  this world today,

  and i’ll wait for more chases,

  trace more ghosts,

  following the flow of your reddest trail

  112

  i’ve watched your body dissolve

  into the great sun,

  the light breathes a silhouette

  into a glare, a glowing

  of your loveliest lines,

  swallowing light until you burn

  away, brightly and beautiful,

  bursting like some star into

  a spin of softest stardust

  113

  your poetry has left me again,

  drained of words and shapes,

  empty of sounds and pictures,

  absent from the glow and the music,

  and yet i reach into the sky,

  cut my hands on the jagged stars,

  and watch the stream for your reflection,

  never losing hope that somewhere you shine,

  no matter where you hide in the world,

  there is a ripple you ride on,

  a wave that bends like your body, and

  wakes up the words

  114

  where do i find those old flowers,

  breathe the breath of those old blooms?

  do i dare journey the length of your hair,

  wipe the wisps away with my most naked hand

  —burnt to the wrist with inspiration—

  waiting for a kiss to blow me away again

  into the flowers,

  into the breath of birds,

 
where your hair—as wings—has smeared flumes

  into my floral fingers

  115

  she skates in,

  flowers on her feet,

  carrying her heart on her sleeve,

  and wishing me wakeful kisses with

  her breath buzzing in her hands

  —closing and opening for little verbal

  butterflies to float across her flowers—

  and fingers rise and fall,

  fumbling across my face,

  finding something that sounds like a

  —softly now—‘remember’,

  like a voice resembling home,

  the place your mind plants you when

  your dreams have warmed in the spring

  of this slowest touch,

  the trace of sunlight i make on your lips,

  tasting nothing other than the remarkable

  rush of impending rain

  116

  you are a wish wading through a song,

  a sweeter sound that opens near the snow,

  a touch that tickles the tendrils of my hair,

  tugs a little tighter at the strings of my heart,

  raging against the waters of wakefulness,

  a taste that kisses the delightful lips of dreams’

  sounds, opens the mouth of a memory, and places

  your instrument to hum down the throat of a thrush,

  sliding down the wing of a secret, whispering into

  the water where sleep spills into hands and fingers—

  feeling for your most fierce fruits—finding your face,

  your eyes, and diving into the blue music for more

  meaning, more melts of your melody

  117

  for joe

  the light enters the room,

  envelops us in its warmest yellows

  and whites,

  stumbling over shadows of

  older seasons

  but i listen to the birds(for you)

  and hear the flowers(with you),

  and all the great colors of

  waiting wreaths

  sing songs to my memories

  of you,

  songs to lay to the ground,

  softly,

  like birds' feet traipsing over

  the puddles that once reflected

  our dreams,

  a shine across the sky that

  shushes our minds to sleep

  for good

  for better

  118

  she is a garden of hair and lips,

  of kisses that trip down those long,

  dark strands to shoulders—whiter

  than waiting snow, whispering

  downdown that softest skin, splashing-

  splashing like some old echo of rain

  holding tight to the soil of her mouth,

  planting wishes where rainbows wait

  for that butterfly taste of tumultuous

  tongues to return, thrashing away at the

  secrets on her flowering thighs

  119

  your tilted face, the curving cup

  of your jaw, is a wreckless moon

  waning away at your narrowing neck,

  floating away like a flawlessly

  feminine balloon, a pink puff of air

  pressing against the skies for prettier

  pastures

  120

  your sad smile curves away from

  the water of your mouth like feet

  chasing the sand away from the

  wettest edge, but the splash meets

  the skin and the kiss collides to

  curl puddles against the reflection

  of the stars that tangle around the moon

  that mends those blue specks in your

  eyes into threads of currents waiting

  to connive more mysteries in the waves

  of your sway, the tides of your breath,

  rising, resting on your breasts with the

  salt that tangles on tongues and tumbles

  into the night pools and pulls at your lovely

  licks of lips and twirls the stars into a rain

  of kisses

  121

  you are a gesture of softest jazz, your long

  frail fingers feeling for traces of my breath,

  secret smudges from my lips, searching

  the trails of your hair, laying them down near your

  neck to touch my air, the breath i left against

  the blackest night of those sweeter strings of

  marvelous music you keep, making violins

  chase the curves of you, leaning against a

  memory of me tasting your silken skin, pulled

  tight by this youth, and you have grown out of

  yes puddles—in your eyes—and a compassionate

  glow falls against your expression, sliding your

  head into a lady madonna pose, and i surprise you,

  my hands hovering over your hips for that sleight

  of hand that slides into you for sin-making

  122

  she doesn't feel the flowers on her flesh,

  doesn't see the buzz of the bees

  in her hair—

  collecting saccharine and the

  sweet secrets she hides near her

  mouth.

  she doesn't taste the fruit that falls

  when she floats down,

  like feathers easing against the

  air—

  forming a kiss around my hands

  with the buttercups on her

  breasts, the soil of her hips.

  123

  your fingers are fidgets on the pages,

  folding the paper like stems against the

  palm, and you pry the pieces of your

  wrist away for hair spreading—the

  combs of the hands open and unfurl

  across the almost gossamer streaks of

  waiting whispers of hair, and who knows

  the despair of the absence of that smell,

  that air?

  —so rarefied that the birds sing songs of the

  memory

  —flowers reach for the stars they'll

  never snag

  124

  long fingers,

  tracing your hair behind

  your ears—

  such an unconscious grace

  and the birds around us

  twirling in the trees,

  wobbling on a whistle—

  wait for your wings,

  wait for those flights of

  fingers

  125

  your brilliant body is a house

  built atop two of the truest sticks,

  curves of legs that tangle the mind

  to consider them in your absence,

  but when you are near, the unconscious

  travels every hill, every crevice, minds

  the miles for later mapping,