Immersions

let love be the more of it

than it is 

more than the merely be

and the more 

is the wondering

wondrous trouble of love 

the wandering lazy maze of 

tempting flowering lanes

the wanton careless pleasures 

of honeysuckle hung from mossy stone fences

being lost on an abandoned beach

by an abandoned sea

immersions of the hand in hand 

in open meadows 

lifting woods

trill of her every word

her jealous 

chirpless 

birds

stumbling in its intoxications

toxicity of a drenching kiss in hard rain

I take just enough of the stunning poison

to stay alive in her embrace

celebrate the extinction

of old love 

loves

salt of a 

consuming

immersing

thirst

jppestana december 29, 2016

Delayed

is this silence

any different

than any other silence

mild suffocations

it is like our silences are part 

of a buried world never heard from

some mythical atlantis drowned out

beneath our small jersey town

I am part of what's left

of this quieted night

crowded out by the shadowy ghosts of crow

their shadows belong to these streets

this side of town

I long for more shadows

crossing my little river of words 

i am delayed at the muddy backwater 

of bass pike pickerel

slippery banks and 

submerging animals

the memory of them 

my friends' shouts

proud catches

tug at me

reward me

with a splash

of morning

light

jppestana december 28, 2016

JP Pestana

he Man In Zebra Socks

the man in zebra socks is sipping

his honeyed whiskey

the mason jar warmly glows

he hears the whiskey bees

believes in them

the drinking room is a cold wind

a starless darkness seeping through

papered walls through

their whispered talk

they have nothing at all to say

but they say it anyway

jppestana december 26 2016

But Is It

is this the love poem 

you wrote for me only

only me

your love 

of all ages

of all verse

adoring

me

is this the poem that worships 

my lips breasts tongue curves

my eyes that light the fires 

of eternal passion imprisons all

that would look upon me 

is this the poem that all will read

to end of time when love ends 

and the earth retreats  

to dust

from me all poems 

are the fate of love 

but is it you

or the you

in me

is for

you

to 

be

jppestana december 25 2016

Looking Glass

she looks through me

like only a woman

like you
can do

each transparency

of me

(too many to poem)

like I am not with you here

never existed in this or
any other form

a piece of invisible mirror

suspended from a dimming dream

a useless image

some magician's trick

you and me

magic of a million years of light
in birch

the smile that steps you through

this mirror

back to the loneliest
of me

jppestana december 25, 2016 (in progress)

Gustavo

oh gustavo look

the sun is rising higher

than the gods ever intended

hear the wind gusting

in its ancient hills

spilling wildly into

its wild sea

the waves

the waves blue green

have taken this nightless moon

away from me

here I am hostage

oh gustavo see

the bottle is deeply red

lets drink together

ripen in our favorite café

celebrate the draping rays

reflecting hips of this waitress

lusty memories

of our lying

life

jppestana December 23, 2016

Commoners

intrigue me

become this sleepless fate of mine

a little giggle of pleasing moon

blizzard of moons

go ahead

turn on me

against all odds

against the godlessness

of my cold hands

religious eyes

lets for this once pretend

we are who

we are

seekers lost

in a blinding fog

longingly searching

for a common

heart

jppestana december 23, 2016

So Angels Do Sing

a shapeless day

of angels gravely made 

evades his looming mood

belated seasons 

dreamlessness

in splinters of minutes

this may mean something in time 

not in this impossibility of angels

humming tunes between 

their sun and moon between

full hearts and hearts drained

a choir of stars bright and dull

let the angels sing 

let the piercing shrill

shatter the spheres

chase the stars

take the beating hearts

from the heaving breast

of a dying

sky

jppestana december 21, 2016

Guessing Genesis 

for only now 

or say forever

I am my own bible

having read every page

over all these yearning days 

churning nights

hearing years

I know it inside

and out

from the old

to the new

my genesis through

my many resurrections

I know my stories 

as well as the tellers

like the virgin snow 

melting in warm grass

like a blinding sun

behind my shut eyes

like the scabs and scars

that mark my body for what it is

I weakly read from my worn pages

waiting for some fresh testament

to arise in a transcendent death

the simple sex 

of some 

unearthly

creation

jppestana december 20, 2016

The Roost

the dove above

nervously fly this mist

fly in the long rain that never reaches

this thirsting reaching earth

the dove are too common for words

even in this murkiness they are quicker

in their dove ways than I

with my cloudy eyes

I listen for the brushing air off the tips of their wings

the spinless wind in their leafless tree

I am in no rush

I am just the misty murmur of me

in the dim coos

cool rain

soonly coming

to my dry

tongue

jppestana december 20, 2016

Maybe Spain

beside myself
I want to believe
there is something 
before or after
or more in
the in between
the sharp edges
I say we are in the same place
with different names
for the moment I am spain
broken strings of the guitarra
a flamenco stomping in the flames
of an unsung sun burning itself out
burning away the last shade of day
sparks of darkness
I am here no less broken than you
our pieces strewn across the years
hidden lost in lost places
we curse what we lose
there is no other way
I am no less whole than I have ever been
and none of it less so
when the trembling earth
spins its crazy ways
and we fall from its face
amateurs in costume
scorched in a
strumming
dance

jppestana december 20, 2016

There Are Crow In the Arroyo

there are crow

in the arroyo

I don't know why

is this the first time

I have been too close
to what I mostly see

are these the spirits I have heard

in the feathered clouds

crowded whisper

of the junipers

shadowed ghosts

of light seen only

in the sleekness

of their streaming

bodies

is this something else

for me to feel

in the creeping numbness

of too many things to feel

they have dropped into
the deep recesses

of the arroyo

they are out

of my sight

the

pulse

of me

jppestana december 19, 2016