DLW Pesavento SIX POEMS

DOPPELGANGER

When you sleep I live your other life:
Black Dahlia of light, lantern-illuminating
Catacomb honeycombs abuzz with martyr bones
Whispering to lost loved ones in the dark;
Broken-heart pendant counterparts, ebony-cross
Crucifixed on burnt-sienna uterine walls, closing in,
Smothering all that might have been…

And I watched you again, tonight but you
Didn’t notice the Scandinavian Harvest Moon
Peeking through the Halloween-cirrus clouds
Changeling-moving silently outside your window
Or my gaze, imprisoned in its midnight mirror.
Pull back the chestnut-hair curtain
From your face, and see me, sister.

FLAMENCA MOURNING

How shall I pronounce you? Me, a doctor
Stranger who came to visit after you were gone;
Your young-year dancer’s body lying here
Like the unstrung-serenade Spanish guitar
Standing against the Get Well card-clustered wall

Still echoing sorrow, wind and the Novio rose
Christmas leaning-red over the nightstand’s green vase
Near your braided brunette hair as if
To whisper into your pearl-corazon earringed ear
Por favor, dance once more…

But your little cancer-thin legs that pranced
And tiny cupped hands that clapped
Now lie covered by a hospital-white sheet that
Like new-fallen snow on a darkened cobblestone street
Mutes the clacking of pony steps into silent castanets.

And from your window overlooking Lincoln Park,
Fifteen pink-gold street lights birthday-candle
Glowed in the blue-winter Lake Michigan dawn.
I closed my eyes, wished and left:
A flame, extinguished by your closing door.

I DENOUNCE YOU, DEATH

I, the one, self-incarnate living voice
Renounce the squirm-worm in your brain

Reject you, science without love

Deny you, smirking executioner of innocents

Refuse your hand, helping kids into boxcars

Banish you to Soul, without parole

Dismiss you with one command: Christ

Condemn you to empty space
Caged inside a circle of life.

And when the Future sarcastic, snicker
So where’s this insolent poet now?

Let them look to the night sky
For an asterisk *
Nearest the open parenthesis moon (

BECAUSE LIFE’S A BYOTCH

Because the world can become too real
I bequeath this surreal shield of poetry

Because people may be monsters
I give you this sword of love

Because things can get nutz
I share this word-respite from the rat race

Because places may get kraaazy-crowded
I offer you shelter in this refuge of solitude

Because life can seem a desert
I pour you this tiny-teacup poem
from the oasis-wellspring of my heart

Because you may find yourself down
I hold up the one of a kind beautiful-mirror-you

Because life’s a bitch and then you die
I skip the pep talk and
soul-shout out this warrior cry

Because days may taste diet-bland
I make you banana split
with 3 maraschinos on top

Because you may think this baloney
I flavor it fantabulous filet mignon

Because you might be vegan
I bake you strawberry-rhubarb pie

Because you may become too serious
me do seriously silly-faces for you

Because you may feel uninteresting
I raise my left eyebrow, intently

Because you may see yourself plain
I raise both eyebrows

Because you may be estranged
I write you this strange love letter

AFTER READING

WILLIAM HARVEY’S

EXERCITATIO ANATOMICA

DE MOTU CORDIS

ET SANGUINIS

IN ANIMALIBUS

Red-river rafting as an erythrocyte
Cerulean-bathed by a dark-violet sky
Inferior venal caval rushing towards
A superior-cava confluence estuary
I Chianti-poured into the right atrium

Splashed over tricuspid chordate-tendineae wiers
Right-ventricular propelled up the pulmonary artery
Windswept through alveolar freshets, sailing along
Rivulet vortices eddy-swirling pulmonary vein
Waterfalls cherry-spilled into the left atrium

Cascading down mitral rapids
Left-ventricular locked and loaded
Shot-out pulsatile from an aortic canon
Coming to rest in calm-backwater capillary creeks
And wanting to go on the ride again.

SELF PORTRAIT

Romantically inclined, preferring the company of women,
Pleasured by pleasing before being pleased
Self-centered to a fault, easily laughs at himself
Adept with a blade, bold when necessary
Hurricane-centered in the blink of an eye

A feel for words, pencil and brush
Passionate about movie-magic and music
Teary-eyed by Cathy’s death-bed scene
Prone to rainy over sunny, night before day
And October in lieu of July

Migrates toward private, yet gravitates centerstage
Opinionated, but porous in politics
Knows that love rejected doth love reject
And hearts unsettled oft settle for second best
Fashion intuitive, demurely liberal

Light-footed, able to carry a tune
Naive about the talents of others
Young at heart, knowing that’s where home is
A subscriber to the art of science

Given to hugs instead of handshakes
More engaging, one on one
Comfortable with I love you
Feels humor is pretty dang paramount
And tain’t a feer’d a $20 words

Not overly self-absorbed (except this once)
Cautiously empathetic, relates well with dogs
Guilty of more than one bad habit
Idealist by nature, realist by education
Adroit at opening and closing emotional doors

True believer in the power of love and
Acutely aware of this dream called life.

DLW Pesavento poetry-dreams from the Heartland’s deep wellsprings, Ulysses-like fastened to a storm-swept mast, enraptured by Siren-seductive sultry voices nocturne-calling him nearer in the night.