December 2016
Walter Ruhlmann
wruhlmann@gmail.com
wruhlmann@gmail.com
I live in France where I teach English as a second language. I have been writing poetry and publishing mgversion2>datura for over twenty years. I also run mgv2>publishing and edit the lit-blog Beakful. My latest collection, Crossing Puddles, was published in 2015 by Robocup Press. My blog: http://thenightorchid.blogspot.fr/
Snow Can Wait #6
I counted the tears of a thousand men
and clasped them in my arms
they almost suffocated.
My god I feel dizzy
and the ground is giving way
under the weight of the nights
spent with them
I felt weak
today when I think of it
I was rather brave
to have dared to spend
so many nights in caves full
of violence and absence,
of bodies going into trance.
first published in Magnapoets (Canada)
Many Slit-Opened Heads Later
to Julien. B.
I want to write something for you
something special
but it seems that won't do.
You were something far beyond us.
Some unreachable star.
Already.
Ten years back — seventeen —
Late nineties.
All of us craved for you.
He did more than I,
he was probably right.
But he died
not from it —
from something closer to what he had always been
— ludicrous —
but not quite
the same.
I want to write something
because I surfed past you a lot lately
and saw how grown-up you are
half smiling
bare naked
in front of cameras
reading your poems
& prose
to audience
everywhere
you go.
I wanted to write something special
but it seems I didn't. Do
you care if I hate you
now?
He'd written something for you.
Something special.
Something good.
Let's not let the tea go cold —
it was called.
He is cold now
and so are you
lost in the Swiss snow.
first published in Magnapoets (Canada)
With Love from Euphor
On the tiled floor, I saw strange forms appearing.
The head of Spartacus
or that, more exciting, more modern also, of Actarus.
Princes
whether they come from Thrace or Euphor
always haunted my frozen mornings,
my capsized nights.
Later
— much later —
it is by their laughter that I was started the most.
The princes always had an open throat
and amazed eyes
in bed.
I saw their wings growing
at the same rate as their sexes
who were spread out around me
everywhere
in me
on me
in my eyes and the clouds.
I flew away too
far from this nest
to join
in dream
in the bathroom
unreal colourings,
small encrusted gravels,
in the shape of happy princes,
in the shape of dark princes.
first published in Poetry Super Highway (USA)
Snow Can Wait #6
I counted the tears of a thousand men
and clasped them in my arms
they almost suffocated.
My god I feel dizzy
and the ground is giving way
under the weight of the nights
spent with them
I felt weak
today when I think of it
I was rather brave
to have dared to spend
so many nights in caves full
of violence and absence,
of bodies going into trance.
first published in Magnapoets (Canada)
Many Slit-Opened Heads Later
to Julien. B.
I want to write something for you
something special
but it seems that won't do.
You were something far beyond us.
Some unreachable star.
Already.
Ten years back — seventeen —
Late nineties.
All of us craved for you.
He did more than I,
he was probably right.
But he died
not from it —
from something closer to what he had always been
— ludicrous —
but not quite
the same.
I want to write something
because I surfed past you a lot lately
and saw how grown-up you are
half smiling
bare naked
in front of cameras
reading your poems
& prose
to audience
everywhere
you go.
I wanted to write something special
but it seems I didn't. Do
you care if I hate you
now?
He'd written something for you.
Something special.
Something good.
Let's not let the tea go cold —
it was called.
He is cold now
and so are you
lost in the Swiss snow.
first published in Magnapoets (Canada)
With Love from Euphor
On the tiled floor, I saw strange forms appearing.
The head of Spartacus
or that, more exciting, more modern also, of Actarus.
Princes
whether they come from Thrace or Euphor
always haunted my frozen mornings,
my capsized nights.
Later
— much later —
it is by their laughter that I was started the most.
The princes always had an open throat
and amazed eyes
in bed.
I saw their wings growing
at the same rate as their sexes
who were spread out around me
everywhere
in me
on me
in my eyes and the clouds.
I flew away too
far from this nest
to join
in dream
in the bathroom
unreal colourings,
small encrusted gravels,
in the shape of happy princes,
in the shape of dark princes.
first published in Poetry Super Highway (USA)
©2016 Walter Ruhlmann
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