…pause…

by Cynthia Silkensen

Posted to Poetry on 2001-09-26 16:14:00

…i would like to be…

She said, “I would like to be honest,
so honest that flowers would recognize my presence.
Like a two year old who runs naked
on the beach and marvels at her own body.
Like a man who massages his lover’s ovaries
while deep inside her grotto.
I would like to be honest like the wind
that arrives without warning,
like sensitive young poets
who die from consumption. Oh to be honest
like the skull of a buddhist monk…
the tongue of a Mexican female poet.
I crave to be truthful and forthright:
to lie beneath the lilac sky ___________ forever unfolding,
exposing myself to the sacred groves.
I wish that I could tell my lover who I really am.
Reborn from the supreme sound of syllables,
from the goddess who created words,
from the womb of the secret mantras.
I wish that my sisters and I could be honest enough
to realize that we are all descendent from the sacred harlots.
“Om mani padme hum,”
the jewel inside the lotus.
I would like to be honest like a Sufi mystic,
to hold my lover by his flanks and sink
my teeth into his flesh, like a pagan witch
who gyrates to the joy of lust and passion.
I would love to whisper into my lover’s ear,
words that become self-fulfilling prophecies ––––––
thoughts that journey into the physical world.”
She said, “I would love to be so honest
that my sentences would rise like ______________
beautiful wings of words up into the clouds,
and my poems would rain clean upon the earth.
I would like to speak the truth, to say
that I too, have bent over in dirt


while the rock of my soul mate pounded me raw.
To admit to loving the juice of his body
upon my face,
the feel of his hardness within my flesh,
and his hand firmly around my neck _______
pressing hard while he takes me underground.”
…”Ahh, but,” _______ she said, “I was taught
in order to be pure, a woman must mince her words
into a freshly baked pie that smells like a perfect life.”



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