Chrysopylae, poems by Omer Zamir

Chrysopylae

Chrysopylae

Poems

Omer Zamir

DEERBROOK EDITIONS

publish ed b y

Deerbrook Editions P.O. Box 542 Cumberland, Maine 04021 www.deerbrookeditions.com issuu.com/deerbrookeditions 207.829.5038 first edition

ISBN: 9 78 - 0 -9 9 75 0 51-7-7 Š 2017 by Omer Zamir All Rights Reserved.

Cover art by Camille Davidson Book design by Jeffrey Haste

Contents Chrysopylae The Sahara Desert She & He Tonguing the Wound Solitary as a Secret Zeroing In Yeah The Passion Gates Agape Night A Sea Rooms No One Is Coming Rushing Away The Pills Full Throttle to the Bottle Snapshots Twenty-five Silver Lips The Windowless House The Rattle The Candles Matthew All at Once

9 10 11 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 21 22 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

7

Chrysopylae Young, tall, slender, Wind-tangled hair Dancing like fire.

He leans against the railing.

His eyes are dry, His heart flutters Like a butterfly On the pulse Of an imminent Metamorphoses, A permanent catharsis— Then, unhurriedly, He stands on the edge of Chrysopylae, With his hands stretched out, Christ-like— And, back first, With resolute thirst, He leans into air.

9

The Sahara Desert The Sahara Desert Came between us In our little apartment.

Once we used to forget Our bodies in one another, And when waking up It often took us some moments To recollect our separateness.

We were tigers at night, Who hungered and thirsted For the flesh and blood of each other.

We are each other’s scars.

10

She & He She could barely remember his eye color.

The dust on the kitchen counter, Mountains of unwashed arguments, Out-dated cottage cheese, burnt out refrigerator light, Were the things tattooed on the skin of the air She breathed with a fierce familiarity.

He told himself their misfortunes would come to an end Before they met theirs, and she told herself that being barren Was, in this case, an undisguised blessing.

It's been weeks since either one of them went out.

No mail, No euphoria.

But all was not so desolate a year ago.

He shaved, She polished her nails, He flossed, She brushed her vices off.

She came very far in life Before getting too close to him.

He got the best accolades Up until he was sucked dry of himself.

She thought the future would smell of strawberries And lemonade with added sugar, But such fragrances were soon devoured By the stench of their relationship.

Theirs is a life shaped by two opposing architects, And the shape has no name.

Theirs is a taste the world regurgitates.

11

Cobwebs just above the stove, Sometimes spiders plummet Into their boiling pots of purity.

No knocks on the door snap them out of their dreams, And no windscatters away the fog of their fears.

Spilt insults staining the carpet they stand on, Over-cooked plans taste of a future horizon-less.

He’s getting older than the world.

She's a depth no abyss wants to swallow.

12

Tonguing the Wound The slit on the lip I lick and dip the tip Of my tongue Tonguing the wound to keep You fresh on my flesh.

13

Solitary as a Secret Tongue-whetted claws Tenderness to sharpness The iridescent irises Gaping jaws Snap-shut on the nape The awaited rape Ripe as a Dionysian grape The take the slake Solitary as a secret Pure as pain From birth till earth Solitary as a secret.

14

Zeroing In Young and prowling through a god-old forest, Paw-prints smell of its last catch.

Its claws glint in the moonlight— Licked clean.

Silently it stalks, following tracks, Holding nothing back, designed To perfect this act; Bloody moon, green eyes, Zeroing in, zeroing in Hidden, all seeing, Unblinking, heart steadily beating, Zeroing in, zeroing in.

15