The pillowcase

Barely spoken, scarcely wet. One of my favorite places on earth [...]. Pressed between water and water, stupidly standing upright. No fingers.

Though my histogram of scenic negatives has no entry on that, since I was ten its landscape has regularly been invading the medulla of my chemical devices.

These have reckoned for a substantial part of my fictional being, promoting a never ending urge to understand them - as far as nature can be understood, as part of what I desire.

The rotation of the meridians could have an odd effect if you're driving on the N125 from east to west.

Let me offer you a surreal sunset and

a pillowcase

in about 3 hours [That’s about 167km at an average speed of 55km/hour,]

if you’re heading for Sagres

mostly crossing every village and city on the last slopes of land before joining the sea

The side of the road went as pale as my inner thoughts, populated with pink and ultra violet flowers as soft as dreams under a linen sheet. Let’s have some sun to start with and allow our microscopic pores to readjust and play a tune in the scent of this harmonic field.

If you’re heading for Sagres you might get stunned by how arid, windy and flat the landscape can be. The perfect scenario to avoid thinking and await auguries; so the last thing you have in mind are bed sheets and pillows. But then, just on the right side of the road as you slow down at the red traffic light, because you’re driving too fast, there’s a typical house, middle size, all white with a green strap, horizontally painted with some green text as well – linen.

Bizarreries are such a common place in this land that you don’t stop to question yourself any more how it happens? You just stop the car and accept it as it is. As walking to the store, all doors were closed – there was a sign inviting clients to step in by the back door.

I could only think of one book I read 20 years ago with a misleading title and an absurd content – can’t remember neither, but the title could be something like “Winter in Paris”, I think the author was definitely French.

Once inside we were friendly helped by an English young man that did his best to show us all the good quality available.

We ended up buying some very good stuff, the best local linen, in white.

Let me offer you a surreal sunset, she said from the top of the wooden stairway, Thinking she was buying me a drink, but not wanting to show it I said, I might accept if you tell me what that is. She rambled about

regeneration of body and soul within the realm of earthly sins. Somewhere in the middle I heard her digress on paradise – green gardens and orchards spread among the swell of the land. All yellowish!

[I could only think of one book I read 20 years ago]

Somewhere between pale brown and yellow, sparse house concentration and most important, a singular feeling emanating from each particle, promising you a happy blue.

Will I end up singing as the sun slides across that idiot rock pointing up from the sea? Will we watch it hands in hands or most certainly forget all about it and sip little gestures as words flow from our mouths in search for transparency.

Just before the sunset

all together, the pieces blended.

No fingers.

© 2014, José Eduardo Coelho

Blunt Resolutions

Blunt Resolutions

But. Far into the west
where an ocean dwells beyond reasons
our cells expired

doped up on pheromone
claims and lips
touched

chromatic pitfalls. Never!

Wings of body
literacy
snoozed words as love, sex, cocoon

ageless sparkles, forever. Yet.

© 2014, José Eduardo Coelho

Just Numbers?

Just Numbers?

I've always collected little notes
jewelry, personal letters
memories of memories
or just memories
mine or those of
beloved

She used to write down the address number
of relatives
including husband, daughter, brothers and sisters
She used to keep them
with a solid line in one of her notebooks
small entries on charcoal
meant to hold her dearest alive
faraway from oblivion of the
living remnants

It’s hard to know what it means
if you’re not the one searching
among the rests
of hundreds

           you can get lost as in the desert
           holding the weight of years gone by in
           drought and many to come
               s  t  i  l  l
           you could feel the throb below the skin of your throat
           paralyzing
           your mouth glands avoiding lubrication

There is nobody here! Just
unknown, undefined dust scattered in rows of
History, waiting
sometimes decades for tears
to pump their hearts, their home
their present

She was relatively prepared to
take place in her row
she said
I think

Not me, I'm lost
imperiled while I linger among the names in this pale
graveyard.

© 2014, José Eduardo Coelho

I am looking at sound

I am looking at sound
Imagine yourself
wakening
your eyes are open, but you don't see
there is no color
not even dark
your mind starts searching
for references
inside
the solidness of your past compositions, melting
for a tiny second the notion of
you
is swept into this black hole
of memory
lost in loops of anxiety
Imagine the fear
as you never thought of it
the real panic that
suddenly
nothing to be named, is there
no meaning of plural I, exists
around what?
in a last futile attempt
you scream
                   a long convulsive cry
I was able to see you
then, but
it was too late to
have you
back!
© 2014, José Eduardo Coelho

Therefore I exist

Let's see: the inconstancy of things is the core of our quest for the balance we never reach

and that quest makes us materially fleeting, always at a fringe of the intangible, always falling short of the moment, brief, plausible.

I speak with uncertainty of the roundness held by the words when we recall the softness of a meridional moon, the glare of greasy hair rippling, speaks to me within eyelids that uncover

I speak artificially of the nights' roundness and her eternal light, in lukewarm breasts that I fondle, I speak to you, now, so round, soft and complete between breathed commas and though subordinated, included prepositions

I think as a delicacy that one devours, slowly, I approach you as a shadow looking for shelter in a plain, of such brightness, obscene, I squeeze you until the skyline's accuracy, where you decay, resting and I find you again in the dodged ramble of my committed hands

I think you, therefore I exist!

© 2014, José Eduardo Coelho

A Gapped Starfish

A Gapped Starfish

When the title leads you to the subject being addressed, are you keeping control of your own will?

Often, in order to appeal for a poem’s subject, I would search in my bag of special memories for a short take that would fire up some real feelings.

Fitted with personal emotional material, I would then let myself recreate the scene, slowly, observing details through the loupe of time and the subjectivity of passion. This would then lead to a new, exciting film, familiar and fascinating at the same time. The replication of events in time has a startling effect due to the impossibility of remaining faithful. Which brings us to a sort of evolution theory, applied to memories.

Theories apart, the whole thing reminds me of this girl, on the beach, trying to move her just finished wet sandy starfish, threatened to be devoured by the sea. I mean, I wouldn’t have done it better! You could still see the starfish, though pieces of it had fallen apart, like if they had given up the effort for replacement. After some embarrassment and dilemma the girl took a positive action and made a beaming sun out of the gapped starfish.

Anyway, no matter how you pull it together, you still have to write it down.

© 2014, José Eduardo Coelho

Barão Reports – The Thorp’s Picture

Barão Reports – The Thorp’s Picture

White & Blue

         Dark Scented

A melt of green cultures.

The moon enters its crescent

gaining some allure

as dusk moves in

into a soup of barnacles

My hand reaches the ground but

doesn’t understand anymore

the meaning of grasping.

Breathing is always a

possibility, said she, while I stun upon

the evidence that

pudency is a lost word vanishing

into the deepness of the sky

Again the promise of plenitude

gets cast across the walls

of our visual memories

she said, I think

maybe

tomorrow we shall have some

swell for the

booze

And the moon                   Silhouettes

tracing the lives of many

somber souls

erases the apparently

heavens like land’s nature

off this place

[holding each other’s hands

we say goodbye]

Worn out by decadence

poverty becomes the sentiment

behind each pregnant fig

each dormant almond

awaiting a hand to caress its

genetic velvety

opening

And the water claims for bodies

impressed by the moon

in crescendo

SWASH

Dissolved in yellow drinks

happiness flows easily

into a sea of unborn love

subsiding to the core of

its destiny

slowly but firmly

At night

the softness of her skin and voice

gets my imagination talking over a new series of drawings [I never made]

hanging on the wall

How I would love to be able to describe them

[and you]

in words.

© 2014, José Eduardo Coelho