Juicy Things About Driving and Restaurants

Juicy Things About Driving and Restaurants

delicacy slides down your throat

the moment rice fields prove their existence

- white storks, chimneys, iron bridges growing into the landscape -

the plausible you

stacks tear drops until light vanishes away

behind cork molded hills

and the mind - starlings, ibis, egrets - sets forth into a drive of its own

mysterious ingredients

cut the surface wide open

and juicy things pop up

at mile 196

parked trucks, big fat cars and signs

blinking – stone soup, fish soup, all sort soup -

the sun splashes its mild winter odor

above the remnants of trees

where chickens, ducks, doves

play one of your childhood dearest scenes

in memoriam

and once inside, the waitress, the ribbed vault, columns, hiding hooks

- are you on your own, sir, what will your order be, red, white?

big screens, one on the right, one behind

merged space

and sound – forks, glasses, someone whispering

seductively about fear while you

attempt one smile

each time the waitress passes by

again last days' rain will keep falling

from north to south

but not today, today every square inch of earth

sweats

impudently

as me inside you, migrating terns – dark coffee

blended hair, naked neck and shoulders, the touch of

my forehead in your

occipital bone -

and then you're finished

- are you ready, sir?

deliciously gorged, one is back on the road

with nothing but tastes swirling

all around your tongue

the exquisite feeling of liquor - left you behind

by the table - now it's only me

and a measurable conviction of solitude

ahead

just another

200 miles

© 2016, José Eduardo Coelho

No Man's Room

No Man's Room

Her description beamed into or from

my mind unintentionally as water ripples listening to the wind

night after night the stairways, old and creepy

announcing the steps

walls guiding the sound of human hands

whispering and touching

each others' warps, seldom preempted

with love – her ass

should be held firmly, within his hands, while

his cigarette and his lighter

crossing the street, approaching

the heavy port

and then the long way up - 5^th floor with nothing

but a lighter and a cold bed

waiting

inside just the promise

of another morning rising ahead and

the instinct of

repetition

undoing, doing – her name – back and forth

into and from

his mouth, as a lenitive

her face, erased, as soon as his eyes

close and the idea of failure settles

somewhere, deep

never mind why a man

crosses the narrow street and joins her without a smile

because he didn't - tonight he's alone

no wife, no girlfriend – the key

should be inserted smoothly

and rotated

counterclockwise

© 2016, José Eduardo Coelho

Hungry For Darkness

Your voice -

there was a dissonance

among an affection -

maybe

the dusk falling

from above the mountain

skyline of birds hungry for

darkness

your voice – damn - so sweetly

played within

my private yard

now the surge of metal feathers

scraping

inside still the memory

caressing our landscape

forbidden crevices, ingeniously drawn

as kisses, daily

picked up from your skin's ribs

and melting

form, content, the strange displacement

of the surface in you, in me

and I – hearing your voice -

follow the track left by

my own steps

forgetting the texture of soil and

direction escaping me

as notion

out

there in the wild this valley

is huge

I wish for the night now

that your voice

is ebbing towards the shore

I'll lie quietly

waiting

to catch its warmth

and drown.

© 2016, José Eduardo Coelho

Há Três Minutos

há três minutos

No céu, o manto do esquecimento

a chuva, frágil, dócil, copiando-se

em gotas, gotículas

temporariamente perdidas no êxtase

da queda

copiosa

e a luz, surda

revendo-se no voo baptismal dos pássaros

ausentes

O olhar

demora-se, pensativo

subtrai-se à inexactidão das coisas -

concretamente as coisas mordem-se, sujam-se

dejectam-se, destruindo-se sem

deixar espaço

para mais que outras

coisas -

cresce asas, por sobre o manto

de esquecimento

e flui

Enquanto te distrais

o meu corpo

- um rio, algures -

cresce

e o som resvala na lembrança

que trago -

há três minutos

os pássaros

eram gotas, deslizando na superfície

do olhar -

e o céu abre-se

troando ais

em êxtase

segredo-te a matéria de que a luz

é feita

e das coisas

nem o nome ou a memória

do espaço

© 2015, José Coelho

Única Certeza / Single Certainty

Não há uma única
certeza
capaz
de se moldar à eternidade;
demasiado liso -
o tempo
-----------------------
there is no single
certainty
able
to shape itself to eternity;
too smooth -
time

Tulips and Cheese

Tulips and Cheese

one

a hundred times the pen

slipped off the paper as quitting or skillfully

drawing a fugue. meanwhile the traveler

announced another change of direction followed by

a streamed woolen ovation recorded by supporters in the antipodes

translation occurred simultaneously into four main idioms

nevertheless nobody zoomed in for more than a few

seconds. and so the speech remained

restlessly living

two

by the end of the road they said

the trees were finally disclosed. that's when the ship's

howling snore was heard each time deepening

the blue of the sky and a small sheep's herd

waved from above. the river

innocent and quite

steamed as always during winter time

people got stressed due to sparse

daylight syndrome

even dogs. today inside the bus a man almost got bitten

by a dog. he looked old and nice

no one was hurt!

and their present continued

three

the air is translucent; birds are chirping

four

the smell of honey and coffee beans exist somewhere

for real. while I cross the street

time changes and gets delayed. the pen amends

the forgotten write. night left overs detach from bodies

as dust

particles fall from cloths – green, orange, red - and last

autumn leaves swallow

certainty is a vague thing wind-spread along

western sidewalks. as bones

melting on a Christmas eve

your eyes

close one last time before embarking

into the trustworthiest feeling. then

becoming lips

five

I stand up gutted. everybody's hasting

to be in time; to watch the traveler you don't need

to leave the coziness of your couch. however

it is required that you face the same direction he's following

if you close your eyes, the landscape

will unroll and flow

as sublime a story would

quitting

can't be!

© 2015, José Eduardo Coelho

The Lilies

The lilies are gone, broken wings

either shutters zap the turmoil

and sing

for once, the razor

has cut a line inside

- meanwhile -

the lilies

anguish their dulcet sap

like name, drop, dye

of whom and why

does the form – sublime

content's placeholder -

regret its loss

The lilies are a sentence of pity

a hole dug in the universe

sucking your eyes along with

mine and conscious matter evolving to

freedom

tonight, somewhere

along the crescent moon and the river

the stars resembled

the lilies.

© 2015, José Coelho