Poetry — June 23, 2014 9:55 — 1 Comment

Red Diamonds РJ̩anpaul Ferro

You are beautifully concise,
like a rower on the Charles,
liquid when I try to hold you,
accidental music when I try to leave,

all through the New England evenings
fire shivers orange/gold amid the campsites
down below the mountains,

we make up stories to keep each other
amused, men who turn into elephant cinders,
women who fight like moonlight in the sky,

“Don’t kiss her,” you always write
in your suicide notes.

“Don’t marry him,” I always scribble over
your wedding invitations.

No wonder no one else wants me,
no wonder everyone wants to know me,
someone tells me you are the art of fiction,
I think you are the sound of wind in the palms,
a million little prayers to God from all his misled children,

I want to share you, but only a little,
a naked piece here, a naked piece there, naked on the rooftops,
I want all the good Brazilian pieces for myself,
the ancient, smooth parts like the inside of cake,
some parts that are as old as Jerusalem,
some parts that are pierced and narrow and need a vow,
maybe I will take all of you, you’d like that,
you’d like turquoise waves over your bronze body, too,
you’d like it if we rode turtles across the Indian Ocean,
you’d like it if I wrote poems, like this one,
with your curved and brown body turning on every word.

Bio:

Jéanpaul Ferro is a novelist, short fiction author, and poet from Scituate, Rhode Island. A 9-time Pushcart Prize nominee, his work has appeared on National Public Radio, Contemporary American Voices, Tulane Review, Tampa Review, Columbia Review, Emerson Review, Connecticut Review, Cleveland Review, Cortland Review, Portland Monthly, Arts & Understanding Magazine, and Saltsburg Review. He is the author of All The Good Promises (Plowman Press, 1994), Becoming X (BlazeVox Books, 2008), You Know Too Much About Flying Saucers (Thumbscrew Press, 2009), Hemispheres (Maverick Duck Press, 2009) Essendo Morti – Being Dead (Goldfish Press, 2009), nominated for the 2010 Griffin Prize in Poetry; and Jazz (Honest Publishing, 2011), nominated for both the 2012 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Prize and the 2012 Griffin Prize in Poetry. He is represented by the Jennifer Lyons Literary Agency.

One Comment

  1. kteale1103@yahoo.com says:

    Great poem! The last stanza moved me–Made me wish I was the person you were taking to… Lucky girl..:)

    -K

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What am I?

Bioluminescent eye
That sees by the shine
Of its own light. Lies

Blind me. I am the seventh human sense
And my stepchild,
Consequence;

Scientists can't find me.

Januswise I make us men;
Glamour
Was my image then—

Remind me:

The awful fall up off all fours
From the forest
To the hours…

Tick, Tock: Divine me.

-- Richard Kenney