Ephemerae

I could not sleep while you slept.
Any little animal might have sheltered
in your body; and I kept
leaves from your eyes and things from your hair
until your lips revived, bending
back my fingers to the lessons
of water and thirst. Fires that night
digested the wet, and when their long viridian
became your arms and a delirium
became our legs, threads
relinquished us, and we were not puppeted
by earth, and we were not puppeted
by heaven. We became
larger than form and texture and scent--
something like clouds--and fear was driven
from the manger of our bellies, and anger's thin
lips could not diminish us. We ate everything
that was red,
and everything red
was delicious. My sap was greening
your milky body, then your legs slapped.
They slapped into fins and you arced
and my chin and
ear separated, and silver and more silver and silver
again, I quivered behind you.



Ephemerae [#47]
© 2000 Fammerée


* * * * *

“Ephemerae” appears in Lessons of Water & Thirst,
a book of poems by Richard Fammerée.

* * * * *

Richard Fammerée
fammeree.com
fammeree@att.net
director@universeofpoetry.org


* * * * *

Ephémères (Français)

Je ne pouvais pas dormir pendant que tu dormais.
N'importe quel petit animal avait pu se réfugier
dans ton corps; et j'enlevais
des feuilles de tes yeux et des petites choses
de tes cheveux
quand tes lèvres se ranimèrent et revinrent
à mes doigts aux leçons
de l'eau et de la soif. Les feux cette nuit-là
digérèrent l'humidité et quand leurs longs viridiens
devinrent tes bras et le délire
nos jambes, les fils
nous lâchèrent et nous n'étions plus pantinisés
par la terre et nous n'étions plus pantinisés
par le ciel. Nous devînmes
plus grands que la forme, la texture et l'odeur--
quelquechose comme des nuages--et la peur était chassée
de la crêche de notre ventre, et les lèvres pincées
de la colère ne pouvait nous entamer.
Nous avons mangé tout
ce qui était rouge,
et tout ce qui était rouge
était délicieux. Ma sève verdissait
ton corps laiteux, puis tes jambes claquèrent.
Elles claquèrent en nageoires. Tu te cambras,
mon menton et
mon oreille se détachaient, et le vermeil et plus
de vermeil et le vermeil encore, je tremblais
derrière toi.



Ephémères [#47]
© 2000 Fammerée


* * * * *

Richard Fammerée
fammeree.com
fammeree@att.net
director@universeofpoetry.org


* * * * *

Sang-froid (Living With An Actress)

You touch as if to remove lipstick.

There is every shade of blond in the lock
stopped by the authority of your right
eyebrow. Editing annoys you.

Green bees upon a field of chartreuse annoy
you. Conflict between fabric and design
is unpardonable. (Napoleon and Madame R.
may have favored the symbol, but all this
belongs to a previous denouement.) After
your mother died, you did not come
home.

Last night you did not come home. When you
were Ophelia, I untangled each blossom
from your hair.

I fought past Hamlet into the grave.
I expired before you upon our tomb, assuming you
would follow.

You unloose your hair and the chimera
of a smile; I choose the long face
of a Sadducee, for in this next scene we deny
the resurrection of the dead



Sang-froid (Living With An Actress) [#46]
© 2004 Fammerée


* * * * *

Richard Fammerée
fammeree.com
fammeree@att.net
director@universeofpoetry.org


* * * * *

Photograph by Susan Aurinko

* * * * *

My Last Hour (Upon Paros)

Shakespeare would have introduced me
earlier, roaring forward into a high halo
of reflected light, bursting into
constellations upon the tomb of that Capulet
wall.

My heart is not ready
to be unhorsed; my horse is not ready
to be lead from unwashed dancing. What god
can offer a dispensation?

From a cold throne of seven marble steps,
I regard blades of hair and slopes
of shoulders, schooling forward in stripes
and prurient florals.
They are closer to the stem;
it is not this late for them.
The proud pennon of my smile flies before
the teeth of my defenses, but there is nothing more
and no one left to vanquish.
Archers and cupids relax their
wrists; and the statue of my head begins
to assume the face of a cloud.
I admit exhalations of every lung, leaf and
thing.

I breathe, I am, and I am
the sum. How I have occupied myself

with disappointments and intrigues,
amassing a coat
of many things and thorns.

I remove my shoes.
The vast ultramarine (for air is a sea
where we, the anxious, feed at the bottom)
claims the blue veins

of my feet. Ants crawl darkly in farewell.

They were first to play with me, too.
I remember.
I destroyed many with my heel and toe, grinding
them into pepper.

Why would a child do that? What did I know?
What did I remember?



My Last Hour (Upon Paros) [#45]
© 2009 Fammerée


* * * * *

Richard Fammerée
fammeree@att.net
director@universeofpoetry.org

* * * * *

Photograph by Susan Aurinko

* * * * *

Gone

Now, Lucille is dead.
Her executor had all photographs raked
to the center of the living room;
but the tarnished
teacups from Brussels are gone.
Robert's water colors have left
only white rectangles, and the cardinals
Lucille embroidered after their marriage
(two lobes of one heart seeking
with identical beaks) will never again
support her back or mine.

Who sits in that chair beneath a clock now?

I have nibbled and sucked at
chocolate-dipped cherries
as my fingers pressed and left their breath
upon the Christmas-cold of this window.
I have sat here with my mother, with both
of my parents, with would-be wives.

I arrange us by holiday, decade, generation.

Here is my great-grandfather
in a churchyard in Belgium. He is not yet
my age.

If this single image were lost,
our nineteenth century would be lost,
and his death would be complete.
I lay him and his daughter Eugenie and her
daughter Lucille to the silk of a suitcase
which once belonged to his mother.

Here, everyone who is gone is together again.



Gone [#44]
© 2010 Fammerée


* * * * *

Richard Fammerée
fammeree.com
fammeree@att.net
director@universeofpoetry.org


* * * * *

Green Man (A Song)

If we were one God, we would feed each other
everything; and everything would eat us,
and we would never die.

My tongues would serpent in your temple
where water becomes blood;
and the pink imprint of our lips would be
a talisman above the bed.
We would not need
to protect our skin from light; we would not need
to protect our skin from skin;
and nothing red would be unclean
at the mouth of the Tigris.

I know what the dark book teaches, but the garden is within us all.

I am a green man, and I am my messiah now.
I am not embarrassed, I am not alone, I am
not afraid.
I cannot lose anything, for nothing is mine.
And I will never be hungry, for everything is mine.
Where, then, is the throne of heaven.

If we were one God, we would not appease
fathers of don't.
We would kiss the tips of each other,
for lips are the spout of the fountain
and eyes, the light of the fountain.
Nipples are ready to blossom,
and a rose is a mouth of the mother.
I am a finger, and you are a finger.
Our hand is a leaf, our leaf, a wing,
and leaves and wings will cathedral us again.


Green Man [#43]
© 2005 Fammerée


* * * * *

Richard Fammerée
fammeree@att.net
director@universeofpoetry.org


* * * * *

“Green Man” appears on Lessons of Water & Thirst,
a recording of poems and poem songs by Richard Fammerée.

* * * * *

Photograph by Susan Aurinko

* * * * *

A Boat

Your toes to my bow, a knee
to your aft, my fingers inside a strap of
your camisole, your arms vining
and rubbing
and the movement of my right shoulder

I untie from my God and every god story-- Come the wind
and the wake and the rain


Sap fattens and ovals our lips, blind
petals of a previous crossing
They are tart; they are wet
They are plum; they are asps


Look, the water is tarnished. It is the first generation
of leaves dying

Down in our belly
we are happy. We twine in the delicious
deciduous mess of our
pulp



A Boat [#42]
© 2000 Fammerée


* * * * *

Richard Fammerée
fammeree.com
fammeree@att.net
director@universeofpoetry.org


* * * * *

“A Boat” appears in Lessons of Water & Thirst,
a book of poems by Richard Fammerée.

* * * * *

Photograph by the artist

* * * * *