exerpts from the White poems

I.

A flirtation of language. I paint the barrenness of blue. I paint your body of water, whisper language silently down skin. Hush. River water. It is the silences murmuring. The scent of a lover never tasted. Is this the same for you? Fragrant, blossoming sweat? Poet tongue? And I wouldn’t know, but these hands know. Pulsing of touch. Fragrant. White. I paint the barrenness of the body. In the empty forms I paint the poems of lovers, a yearning that overflows, overruns. Permit me two fingers to trace your shape. White blushing red. Hush. Let me write the words of red. Let me paint the taste: apple red. Peeling of skin. Permit me two fingers on skin. Permit me ink on skin. Fruit on skin. Permit me white red. Blushing. I want to write poems on white. Say forbidden. Say wanted. Say white. White. White. Hush. Write the story of two bodies untouched. Barrenness. I am refusing language. I paint two lovers drowning. Brushstroke silences. I do not wish to harm. I have not yet held you. Desire like writing. Fragrant words burning red.


III.

Desire is language overrun. Spilled paint. A mouthful of fruit. I have changed the canvas. Show me the delicate flowers. Enact. I have pulsed from red to depth blue. Blood flower. This is poetry searching through skin. Damp. Rhythmic. Imaginary. Shh. A woman must split herself for this. Fragrant poppy. Pillow book. Sliced apple. I paint a name blushing red. Silence the canvas. Refuse you. I write out the forbidden syllables. This has everything and nothing to do with skin. I’m writing past you. Desire is white heat. Blue veins blistering. Thirsty. Wanting. Reopening. Scent blossoming. Skin burning to a violet haze. This is the canvas of desire. Skin. Damp touch. Current. I have lost myself in this garden before. The split and separation. We refuse sweet fruit. We want to believe this wanting won’t diminish us. Whisper. Obsess. Say these words. Say them. White sheets. White. We are pushing toward the edge. There is no us. There is just us. The wanting. The words. The blossoms.

V.

Body of desire. Pure white canvas of silence, forbidden syllables. Blind white. Names embodied in color. I am not speaking. I have closed my eyes to words. This is about senses. Like forbidden I go within. Your red heat skin blushes a deeper shade. You start at my fingers. It is enough. We have never touched. It is enough for a current of river water to rise. You climb the wrist, trace round the wrist bone. This is the first poem: our hands. I will not write. When I place your fingers in my mouth it is just to taste the way you have touched. To know the way you have sensed language. To take hands in. This is another poem I will not write. On my neck you trace our forbidden names. You spell the word hush, again and again. I take your ear lobe in two fingers. Taste the thickness of wanting. I trace the hairline around the neck, mouth all the names for red. I trace the jawbone. We are thirsty, licking lips. You open your mouth. I trace the white poems from your cheekbone down. Your mouth tasting. Your tongue. Your wet lips. I place my finger. Trace your name across lips. Your painted lips. Your thirsty, red lips.