Light

There’s a bit of sunlight trapped in your hair

just there

I think I can capture it with my lips
if I am careful

and maybe I can transfer it to your mouth
with mine

give you a taste of the bright beauty
you’ve brought to me

RCGA,2010

Tantra

I am holding out my hand to you.
I am the Earth…
I am your Goddess Lover
I am deep, and warm, and as fertile
as the longest of your full night dreams --
naked as the Moon,
blinding as the Sun,
more intoxicating than swallowing Stars.
If you touch me,
you will know what it means to be alive --
you will understand how the rhythm of your breath
is the axis upon which Eternity spins.
The fire of inspiration
waits, banked, to light our joining.

RCGA, 2010

Inebriated

I am intoxicated
by the cadence of your voice
by your playfulness
by your eagerness
by the shape of your being.

I would like to let you protect me
even though I don’t really need it

just because I imagine
how delightful sleeping in your arms would be

tipsy from
your scent
your sound
your way.

RCGA, 2010

Listening

Once I woke in the night
thinking I heard your voice
calling my name

and ever since
I cannot sleep for waiting

to hear it again.

RCGA, 2010

Respiration

The long day stumbles,
falling into sultry night

and I am so tired

I breathe,

remembering what's been forgotten,
surrendered
to the hypnotism of life...

Spirit rises.

Sweet
silent shadowed space
surrounds,

soft shelter of soul,

transcendence.

I breathe,

abandoned to the swell,
the slow rushing wonder
of air and ether joining,

swaying lungs
like a ship's sails filling,

rippling taut,

releasing.

Somewhere near
the sweating cicadas rouse
and talk to the moon,

counterpointing the cycle

with rattling timbals.

RCGA, 2010

Twined

I dreamed about you last night
tantric twined
above and around you

and all the while I knew
it was a dream

and all the while I wondered
if you were dreaming too

If you dreamed me
above and around you
rising and falling

if you knew it was a dream
and that I was dreaming too

RCGA, 2010

Rattling the Cage

Not one word.
Don’t open your lips
even to say you love me

because

it would be too much.

I am already at a crisis,
a flashpoint,
walls buckling with the tension
of holding all this in.

I do not know how to let go
after all this time.

What if I opened my hands,
unlocked the cage,
opened the door?

Ah, you would run,
don’t think that you wouldn’t.

No one standing could face this,
and lying down, much worse…

You might instead
scramble into the cage,
shutting yourself in,
and then where would I be?

Tending you,
a wild thing mastered by freedom.

Please do not speak.
It would be too much.

RCGA, 2010

eNothing: POEM OF THE DAY "Love" by Pablo Neruda

eNothing: POEM OF THE DAY "Love" by Pablo Neruda

Ah. Ah. Ah.

Shore

I believe in the infinitesimal diamonds
living in the sand,
thousands on thousands
clinging to your feet
as you pace by the sea.

I know you like I know myself,
which is not too much,
but enough for now…
scented of salt water
warmed in summer sun,
oceans within you shifting,
pouring out and extending
towards some far horizon.

Look, there is a shell
empty of its passenger
weathered and half-buried
reminding me that today is not the first day
that the world did not begin
when you looked at me.

RCGA, 2010

Daddy's Girl

A long time ago, it seems
I was born
in a Hollywood hospital
to a Southern Belle
and her intemperate Hispanic husband…
and I was loved.

From the time I came into the world
I always knew I was Daddy’s Girl.

Daddy
who walked me to sleep
who lifted me to the pulpit to sing
who paid me to shine his Sunday shoes
who gave me free range of his library
who settled my rebellion with a look
who told me nobody was good enough for me
but that I would make a lousy wife anyway.

Daddy
who in the pain of parting from Mom
gave me to her because, he said, she needed me more
but really, he knew he’d be living hand to mouth
to support our separate households alone.

Daddy
who every year on my birthday
tells me the story
of the nurse coming out of the delivery room
and saying, “Mr. Gutierrez, you have a daughter.”

Daddy.

I’m glad you finally said you are proud of me.
I’ll always be your girl.

RCGA, 2010