Such Deliberate Loveliness: Collected Love Poems of Paul Hina 1997-2006

now i become

  26

  tracing steps to those lips

  from where you released that

  mouth to just squeak almost

  into laughlines bursting the

  balloon shaped flesh i brushed

  past outside your throat

  straddling a kiss onto your

  thickest region of leg so

  whitely scented of fingers to

  veil collapsed across my naked

  face covering silent moments

  with your eastern oval eyes

  dancing five legged palms

  clutching quietly pressing

  those pink breasts to savor

  flavors floating into the act

  of salting great lakes into

  goosebumps

  leaning against narrowly

  sinking hips revealing rich

  hand spread soil where a

  crimson night rose laid star

  to ground falling deep as

  whale songs in your thornless

  garden

  27

  she yawns for poets

  twilight stretches precisely

  the jaws of my muse like flutes

  to allow for sleep wanting

  a yawn that she sends tends to

  articulate my intoxication

  where breaths of musical air

  pass lazily into this infinitesimal

  moment that flies by me getting

  caught in her wings

  and if thorns stuck like tulips

  to my cheeks i would understand

  how an arm so slender as to rest

  subtlety across my gardens of heat

  leaves that peel away another

  exaggerated palpitation could

  slip me into that faintest place

  of mouth corners colliding like

  two metallic silvers opening

  natural springs from which pours

  forth little breeze whistles

  that fall across these awkward

  words to touch lips like barely

  breathing birds coming uncracked

  all these gifts enclosed in her

  throat like christmas strawberries

  in the mud

  28

  spring as an obtrusive warm green

  hour pokes gentle so ever waking

  me from this tender rest to inhale

  visions of your naked shoulder

  peeking just past this painting

  we’ve created with our little last

  night whispers submerging the thickest

  of morning air

  the hand i am trickles mist in your

  hair like water that spreads from

  my eldest fountain finger chasing

  age from where your hip used to raise

  and lie under my brush for new colors

  to surpass your flesh so pale like

  life had escaped this framed world

  to leave nothing but dreams to blanket

  the absence from my cool retrospect

  in searching limited boundaries of

  portraits we once lied onto i have

  certainly twisted every flower winding

  the stems to uproot all the love-me-nots

  tasting the kiss of the throat lipped

  petals to savor the flavor of your most

  delicate inspiration

  but the mouth of every blooming seed

  tends to dry frozen on thinlet sprouts

  of streams being as heavy not to flow

  in the direction that once ran where

  tears couldn’t dry like the paint killing

  your mouth so eternally farther than

  kisses could reach into the art your

  sleep portrays on mornings of spring

  and as sky minute walls fall heavy as

  tongues of misery rain infinitely placing

  your heavenly body on wet paint pillows

  of our flesh slipping untouched into the

  eternal undone our too proud nature of

  want brushes our perfect tremendous away

  29

  to examine the slightest gesture

  that causes your arms to twirl

  as you walk

  is to me the very lightest color

  surrounding me with spirits of

  the more glimmering bells of

  cathedrals

  to fight your hand that struggles

  through that dream that falls and

  dies at every turn of your head

  is to lie afloat on an almost

  unsubmergable body of not giving

  into the world that forms as

  another flighty beat of heart

  could always drown my floor

  to caress that ankle so thin that

  my whole mouth only might taste

  the truth on your tenderfoot

  is to lie awake every night until

  seeing you is again

  and even then you are so every new

  that i can only comprehend you to

  be too much love to imagine me being

  anything more than drunk by your

  image of god touch not touching

  anything

  30

  there was a certain elation in

  witnessing the distant swagger

  that becomes so fragile as to

  break every curling flower from

  the scent of the stem it was

  placed upon

  and to watch every unworthy glare

  drizzle the alert as she leans

  and melts every living eye closed

  so that a little wondering can

  dance dangerously close to the

  flame she is

  and the thought of how delicate

  a single touch could strip me to

  barely jump with a swollen vein

  to die and gulp another bloody

  reaction to her butterfly dance

  strolling through god’s least

  miracle step swaying before the

  great noise of every slight

  movement so as to attempt a

  heroic motion of the internal

  feminine light folding every mind

  chamber into coughing sugar and

  sucking dead candy petals as

  she kneels before me

  and the sweet fire she is flickers

  an old movie delusion that is so

  lonely in the hot permanence of

  her breath

  and like movement with flower candy

  she soon withers away haunting me

  with hands and heartbeats vaguely

  turning me into the chalk outlined

  disturbance of stillness

  and so she is gone dancing with

  tendrils and butterflies as i am

  left confronting silent movies

  31

  at the great intricate leg of a

  trembling foot is born a simply

  magic ghost of timeless wine flowing

  atop my shin rubbing that drunk

  heat so skillfully chilling me with

  your almost beautiful clumsy toes

  and if only inches move to kill a

  motion that faints like my reminiscent

  ride through the most splendid dream

  i may believe an illusion before my

  eyes like child lips tasting great

  arches of moon shoes

  to struggle to know nothing but

  the broken fragments of sprawled

  flesh only silences me with the scent

  of this girl's sleeping breath blowing

  another paused death

  and every portion of skin glows from

  lighted windows to allow an examined

  pleasant whisper like a breeze falling

  to fields swaying a clean wash of

 
thread lightly winding silk to lie on

  pretending water

  to say very little of the million

  elaborate hairs sweeping the exposed

  waiting head of innocent white numb

  drops that experience every slow

  hand never cutting a dull heart deeper

  than smooth impressions of unique you

  32

  there has been arranged leaves of

  such honorable portions of sliced

  sustenance falling over me in the

  shade where words of the sweet

  spontaneous rearrange tastes of

  that asleep tongue so dreadfully

  curling under me for the preparation

  of growing silent windy reminders

  pulling such new breath breezes in

  the direction of your harmonious

  prisons being shadows hiding me

  ever so close to crime

  and the bite of sinking teeth to

  contemplate the beginning fruit’s

  sweet juice of satisfying leaking

  lips all over that fantastic broken

  reassurance of embracing limbs

  across your tangy only kiss

  every thought untouched and hanging

  like newborn kindred colors of strange

  angels holding heavy water above the

  thirsty mouth of wait being as quietly

  patient for that distant voice to crease

  the clenched singled drop of nectar rain

  to crash suddenly into today’s miserable

  tree of empty hands

  and a piece of simply sun sets a

  warm guide beside me that leads

  cracked hearts from old loves to

  new leaves blowing freedom from

  the confinement of shadows

  33

  music box

  if ever those radiant trembling

  jewels of your eyes peer into

  a drowsy loneliness that clouds

  your glorious mystery that so

  endlessly allows my light to

  shine

  then please let those star

  creatures sigh in their natural

  glimmering pools to slide you

  comfortably close to that old

  tin music machine where gardens

  blaze symphonies of our laughing

  children hiding behind their

  enormous smiling hunger

  if ever allows you to find our

  rosy cheeked creations feeding

  on the want of bursting all the

  walls that hold us inside this

  dreaming playground

  then dance once with me behind

  our last favorite wall standing

  on its feet of tendril and vine

  waltzing us like little boxes

  of sleep bells opening for your

  last gasping yawn of legs gliding

  into toys

  if the miserable time has come

  for you to shut the door on our

  house of sleeping music where i

  will patiently descend the stairs

  of this dark castle with only the

  candle of your last touch to

  guide me to our empty yards

  alone

  then don’t forbid me to dream

  of every upcoming moment that

  will be opened to play our most

  gentle furious passion to lie

  atop burning gardens of play as

  we slowly sink into mouths of

  wax

  and