Five Poems by Rp Verlaine

 

Exquisite

 

The song she hums

like a siren without

oceans between us

 

illusory windows

tease with invitation

a mirage I welcome

 

To explore the myths

where love drowns those

who come for a song

 

A creature of habit

I make the wrong moves

over familiar terrain.

 

Waves of regret

cannot carry me past

all we have undone.

 

She left these shores to teach

in England while in New York

I learn lessons  long ignored.

 

Hearing the sea

in folds of a shell

I imagine her face.

 

The first and last

I wish to see anywhere

everyday that's further

and twice as distant.

 

 

For Masha Bruskina

 

Her grim face in

black and white

faded photo paper

looms like any

permanent memory

circumstance dictates

with its unforgiving

favour weighing fate

evil or providence.

 

A Soviet Jew

a member of the

resistance tortured

and beaten by the Nazis

yet still she refused to name

other resistance members

Well, at least I won't starve

she said when told

she'd be hung.

 

In the photo

she is being paraded

through the streets

with a large placard

by Nazi occupiers.

Just 17 years old when

placed on a stool

kicked away, her body left

hanging for three days.

 

A plaque there honours her

identified for decades

as the unknown girl.

Killed by evil incarnate

that in all its disparate forms

continues to kick away stools

trying still to frighten away

what good is in us all.

 

 

Drinking To Li  Po

               for filia

 

Explaining the poetry

and life of Li PO  to

the young bartender

who seems more

interested in the

song from the jukebox

unknown to me

as Li PO is to her.

 

He wrote of jewelled

staircases, flowers

radiant in water,

shimmering golden houses

and transitory life.

Always stay drunk

he advised, at this

she laughs.

 

She tells me of

movies she's had

small parts in.

I tell of films that never

knew my talents.

 

We toast to Li PO

dead for seven centuries

with our quiet smiles.

until the song

in the background

is no longer

the background.

 

 

Ever Present Yet Invisible

 

I find a lipstick under

the bed and wonder if it

touched her lips

more than I

in those last few months.

 

I have it on the night table

upright and waiting for the

next set of lips. It has in

its own way moved on

unlike me.

 

Healing slower than

raindrops filling a wood bucket

yet all I feel is the hole

left by the rot

of emptiness she left…

 

Only one lipstick

trapped inside four walls

I can leave but not escape

her shadow in here

ever present yet invisible.

 

 

Hooking Up

 

With the

bars closed due

to the pandemic

seeming to

inch/stretch

past forever

warping all that's

normal into a

game with  Russian

Roulette like risks...

The endless claustrophobia

getting to me

I try internet

dating sites.

 

More like a floating

sex club for deviants

who disdain price tags

any date or encounter

might claim in guilt

due to a lack of,

or it's cheating on

a wife or husband

where till death do you part

becomes a  pandemic 24/7 curse.

inside endless pale walls.

 

For me

single as a dice throw

to expected ruin.

It's undoing the valve

to this constant pressure

of being alone.

It's seeing the ambulances

taking the dead

toe tagged as statistics

away while the  ever present

noose we can't see

we certainly feel grows

tighter.

 

The women come

wearing masks

most refusing to remove

that layer between us

as are the condoms

the small talk

doomed to fail

as blurred irrelevancies

in any long distance

call..

 

After all, these

are quick hookups

compartmentalizing

everything outside love

while involved in

the act.

 

Yet today

a tall redhead

came to my door

touched me with

endless hands

and thin lips I felt

through the mask

she would not remove.

 

It was all

these encounters

seldom are.

A warm flood of pleasure

we would not let recede

until it was over.

 

She dressed quietly

I sensed a smile

I could not see.

 

But at the door

she stopped, took off

her mask and said

a sad Thank You

soft as a prayer.

Before disappearing

into the plaintive

loud echoes of

passion

still in our ears.

Fading to the sound of

her loud high heels

walking away forever..

Rp Verlaine lives in New York City. He has an MFA in creative writing from City College. He taught in New York Public schools for many years. His first volume of poetry- Damaged by Dames & Drinking was published in 2017 and another – Femme Fatales Movie Starlets & Rockers in 2018. A set of three e-books titled Lies From The Autobiography vol 1-3 were published from 2018 to 2020.  His newest book, Imagined Indecencies, was published in February of 2022.