Flowers, Debris and Lost Towns

Flowers, Debris and Lost Towns

Walking again on thorny stones, naked 

feet cooling off the desire that bursts 

from the earth beneath; like little butterflies 

sketching hearts 

in the sky

and a sort of imagination setting feathers off 

onto mountain peaks

To you, now, the hand that observes 

yours 

as it slides between my fingers

down to the sides of your

sex. Or maybe us walking 

above water, whereas the realization 

there's no end 

to the distance, left alone the touch

the learning, the living

pops into my mind

As rivers fill, I must secure 

ripe fruit from drowning. Two minutes 

will be enough. To die not

i feed my hunger, holding my breath the closest 

to the memory 

and jump diving into the cold. There 

I search among flowers, debris and lost towns. But 

yours is nowhere to be found

A bird's chanting 

makes its way to the sky. Its sound 

is the trigger that shall mean both 

men and nature's rise

One day. Near.

© 2018, José Coelho

Measurement Tools

Measurement Tools

Which are the best tools for taking measures?

Her waist is thinner

when I have my hands on it -

my hands are a tool

for caressing, for pressing, for mapping my understanding

of her waist.

At dawn, my eyes can trace the contour of her ankles

up to the ribs.

They too, are tools of measurement.

Once I spent hours holding a stranger's

hand. And we became two and a half.

My heart couldn't arrest the thing slipping

between our bodies, so it grew and shrunk, again and again

swelling as in a vessel.

It felt like crossing the Atlantic.

The heart is a measurement tool as well.

When I write I'm measuring

my thoughts and putting it down, through my fingers -

they
measure the decimals of everything.

© José Coelho, 2015

Fragile Fingers

Fragile

fingers, submerging thoughts

mine

long enough to cuddle one’s dance by

the vertical                         axis

pressed famine veins’ lust

draining my hand at

6 o’clock, the blood

inverted direction

causing a disemboguement recess

around the meaning of

pleasure, never to be

fulfilled;

her gasping fingers roll

over my forehead

climbing latitudes

now

as I measure their slenderness

with the touch

of tropics

echoing in the limber voices

jamming between us

now

just fingers

bathing their folds

under the bless of a full

white moon.

© 2014, José Eduardo Coelho