Saturday 22 July 2023

Five Poems by Rp Verlaine

 



A.I. Interactive

 

Every unwritten segue

promising escape

our novel approach.

 

Tactical engagement

of unspent collateral

in linear talk.

 

Suggestion surrenders

impulses to tease away

discarded warnings.

 

Uninvited

in my own body

I want yours.

 

To be captured

in forgotten and

redundant exploration.

 

Immobile until

inertia surrenders

remote possibilities

 

Until a  recognition

beginning ends

amid pretensions

 

A skilled retreat

remorse coded trails

we navigate alone

 

Past indifference where

intelligence is artificial

or else  remotely akin.

 

 

Plethora


for Natalie

 

These talents you posses

a whirlwind of

antecedents, wild colours

bringing lustre

new words even

an image starved poet

can claim to have

after picking

them off streets

discarded, otherwise

denied such radiance

alongside your violet

lipstick traces on

half inhaled cigarettes.

 

I need a lost simplicity

to capture

what in essence is

formless in

a pose that is

what is fluent

in a careless smile

or unplanned backward

step or too forward

a joke to register

with others

with the camera

that loves you

for having such talents.

 

The lenses, flash film

dare an intimacy

inspire a jealousy

with each picture

staling a moment

truly not mine.

Yet it is enough

for me just to

make that happen

far easier with you

than anyone else.                                            

 

 

Escape Has Its Benefits 

 

Kicked to the corner

where she said

I’d find company,

 

I walk outside

where the wind lies

it's fresh.

 

The corner girls

spin their stale tales

that I’m next.

 

I pass the bar

three times then

traipse in.

 

One whiskey

becomes

five.

 

Then I see

tattoos too dark to read

yet her smile says enough,

 

beckons me to lose

for I gather quickly

her victories are small.

 

We leave seeking

a temporary respite

letting stars kiss our wounds

 

with only the moon

truly golden

over a closed for good

pawnshop.

           

 

That Drunken Night

 

Your lips

were Picasso's

artwork

when drunk

with unsteady hand

in paintings blue as

eyes of emaciated

pale orphans of hope

with beauty

captured still.

 

Our stories

predictable as if

stolen from

paupers knowing

little charity

yet with a smile

illuminating only

the obvious

with all its measures

of diluted

clarity.

 

I took her back

to my place

to finish a story

that cried for an ending.

Revealing we lacked

one or two in sundry

nights that followed

as they began

open ended

like they do.

 

 

Inside The Parenthesis Of Being 

 

Then

Under

a tall tree

(We kiss) whys

away under branches

dividing

the light.

 

In Stasis

As if

in a dream

we (sleepwalk)

in shadows

away from the light

in each other's eyes

looking at

others.

 

& Now

A harsh

daylight on

dying)roses

she threw

in the trash

clinging

to life.

 

The Future

waiting as

always to throw us

(together) anew thinking

this riddle (inevitably)

can be remade

to find out otherwise.

(again).

 

 


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 latest book, Imagined Indecencies, was published in February of 2022. He was nominated for a pushcart prize in poetry in 2021 and 2022. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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