Sinuous

Nature isn’t graceful. Beautiful or fearsome it twists us in knots; let us then be sinuous

as a thunderbolt is, as a riverbank, the limbs and twigs ‘neath our flesh, as meaning is — not easy but sinuous

I saved up all I was, hadn’t done, not yet killed, forgotten games I had played, and whose fine afternoon unravelling by the book, both taking both, then you unceasingly perfect, we sinuous 

Sparkling butterfly, sylphlike innocence ensconced and rising lissom on lithe greenery, to you I write. Rose butterfly observe my inkwell: it’s not empty. The dagger’s quill carves sinuous

At early blue, hope is at its weakest: perhaps a slow fall, silent the conscious drowning. Desired hope stays to mix with the day’s sweat and salt, to be inhaled in the lung, to proclaim: beloved, we fearless, we sinuous

Aged from time and weather yet defiant still to what is no:

I am carried to fire in a foreign hearth, a chambered forest, light blooming at night fragrant and sinuous his curls sinuous

I accept everything, I accept nothing. That yes, that no, that something: poetry like love is and isn’t resurrection — does it change opinions, bring a change of heart? Lament and celebration, poetry and love: involuted, sinuous

Images 3

This mountain

Stone beyond war

Enduring stone

At its foothills I live

I plait thread for lace making

Winding it in spools

Filigreed designs I’ve yet to wear

Evenings I gaze at the summit

Slowly it melds with night indigo

Such hours I long to hear your voice:

a vine fragrant

beads of waterfall upon the parched
dappled river gleam, 
tapestry of mosses 

I hear tales 
wild things nurtured in your solitude
a unicorn roaming sleepless

And I rest quiet upon the unknown.

Ana Kyriou

13 September 2017

Scent

I pick one up and score

each pole circling — but not too deep

I draw crescent moons

cutting superficially, merely grazing the orange with my blade

Tough skin

From slight incisions

dimples turn fragrant

at a moment’s notice or when the time is right

Peel it, taste

moist orange orange

lips and tongue, saliva and sweet juicy flesh all one

my green scent for love

Unless

postponement takes a knife to desire

unless I’d rather not

because I pretend I’ve forgotten how

Crunching the fruit, a crunchy orange

imperfect joy

grainy beneath

white round

and time round

battered into shards

piercing for universal reminders

all wide long

curving

moving mounts farther out still  

evening hadn’t yet approached nor had this been

a perfect day, although there was joy in it still

the woman with cigarettes and coral lips

the young man sitting by the entrance, his tousled hair

a girl with the skin, she thought, of a giraffe

none of us happy although joy to the day still

I placed my hands beneath his arms and we walked

clear translucent
warm, always brackish in these parts

and rows of grapevines heavy with fruit:

there’s no joy taking things for granted.

for a while I could find the indentation of my footsteps

then my toes started kicking up dust

startlingly beautiful, a perfect disk approaching the horizon

swimming back to a metre and a half standing

but sometimes the sea tried to bring me to my knees

The sea can be funny that way. Thalassa, I like her.

as I was saying, some things are heartbreakingly beautiful

the night breeze arrived, it knocked the salt off my gums,

that kind of breeze.

I’ll wait as long as it takes

waiting slowly —  slowly obscured the brilliant orange

the solitary dot near the cloud-empty horizon

but wondrous our earth
apart at red green spectrum 

but luminous, and myself alight

sliding below the line of the horizon

to a sunrise

my lost love, my love 

Circles

At the café, they set tables on a narrow stretch

A wedge of shorn grass giving way to rock, to sand, to shore

Staged by an unseen hand to entertain the wanton inclinations of fate

A tale unfolds: chance in the fading twilight 

The woman approaches in silence  

In silence resting

Her cheek against the back of his neck —

Done quickly lest time run out,

Lest he say no, her arms

Encircle

It’s needless, he thinks, and after all this time too much of a liberty

He pries them apart with easy execution 

Half annoyed half curious he stands to bow in greeting

When he spied her at that table with her chatty friends what did it matter?

The hour was late and the ache buried.

Unobserved

He focused west into the riot of purple-saffron hues.

You’ve grown a moustache she says

I’m thinking of shaving it off he replies

Her voice is mellowed by resin-wine

And sea mist has settled on her lips. 

He remembers the taste of her lips 

They stroll at the edge 

Where broken waves drift ashore

Pebbles and shells crunch 

Quelling stretches of silence

In this diffused light of their twilight 

Let’s climb there, the woman decides

Where will it take us that path?

Below, the deep is wine-dark 

Its belly resembles the wine-dark within us all

“Don’t let go.”

“I won’t.”

Choppy water travelling in circles