Paper House~

Eve sat before the looking glass

hair, a river of gold bathing  delicate shoulders

as Lilith brushed each wavelet with a pearl handled comb

made of old world bones

 

Adam reclined outside a memory

smoking a fine Cuban cigar

a wine glass in his hand

watching the women play at an art

delicate and profound

 

Eve brushed her cheek against Lilith’s palm

whispering

"Rescue me."

and the dark woman, with eyes like mercury

and hair the shade of violet deeps

smiled

as she bent against her ribtwin

to smooth her long hair from the nape of her swan neck

to kiss her

there

at the base

of all dreams

 

Adam closed his beautiful eyes

to the mysterious perfume

enveloping the painting

moving

with women arms

embracing

and women dreams

blooming

 

In the reflection of a mirror made of Pan's bone flute

Lilith saw his reflection

shifting just the slightest

out of perspective

and Eve whispered

"I am tired of it all. It hurts too much to hate now that we are here at the end of the world.  We have won, but what have we won, my ribtwin?"

 

Lilith thought about it for a while

standing against the silk presence of her Eve

as outside the paper house

the sky turned to metal

and the winds whipped an olive tree

 

Adam sipped the wine

tasting fragments of beauty

watching a reflective screen

where women dreamed what they were always meant to dream

before men forgot what it was to be a man

and tried to eat all those sweet biscuits

from those delicate palms

and drink all the magik

from those fiercely beating hearts

below which

children grew into possibilities

nurtured on an Eden grown inside

 

Lilith braided Eve's hair into golden pleats

and Eve watched the storm build around itself outside their paper house

"Lilith. . . ." Eve caught her hand "We're all guilty, you know."

 

The women looked at the man reflected in their looking glass

the storm shivered the origami folds of the roof

Lilith sighed

and took the hard way out;

she turned into the room of candle light

and unwound the unspaces between her and him

she slipped through like velvet antlers through the snow

into him

"Adam." she whispered

 

He put the newspaper down

he placed the wine glass on the floor

the cigar in a holder of red clay

"Adam, do you remember what it is to be a man."

Lilith asked

and Eve held her breath

her hands clenched around a ruby fruit

with two smile bites on either side

 

The storm outside the paper house paused

the olive tree leaned toward the moment

as if listening

"Lilith. . . ."

Adam said very softly

"I remembered what it is to be a man the day you forgot what it is to be a woman."

 

Crystal tears rolled themselves like dew

from Eve's eyes

leaving tiny cuts and trickles of ruby down her cheeks

as she stood

and walked to stand between the man and the woman

and there she tossed the ruby fruit

over her shoulders

shouting to the above

"ENOUGH!"

 

There

at the end of the world

inside a paper house

with origami walls

a woman with mercurial eyes

touched her forehead to Eve

to Adam

reconnecting a circle of Life

as they held hands

while a bitten fruit

red

and polished

disappeared into a funnel cloud

and an olive tree uprooted from the ground

and turned back into a kind of man

with scales like silver and evergreens

 

The kind of man with eyes dark as liquid oil

bent into the circle of Three

 

Lilith opened her eyes

and pulled the kind of man

into their creation

"You, you are what was missing all this time."

 

Complete

the paper house dreamed itself into a swan

as a little boy

folded every side

understanding what a treasure it contained

 

He hid it in a fountain outside of Tokyo

where a koi fish

swallowed the blush origami swan;

the koi fish

lived forever

with a dream in its scales

manifesting . . . .

 

~It could be this easy

it may be this easy

if we just remember who we are

and stop trying so hard

to be what we weren't ever meant to be~

 

 

 

 

copyright:2010vssmd/pa. inc

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 

 

 

 

 

excerpt from

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[TAO]

...now...that was an intense piece of work. One that demands the reader meditate on its meaning, and see something of himself that he has forgotten; what he was meant to be, instead of playing at what he wasn't. I liked the question Lilith asked Adam, about if he remembered what it was to be a man. Made me think, and I found that, even as I see myself, I lack an answer for that very question. This poem went very deep, unbearably deep, into the darkness, and to a place hidden by it where an inner light refuses to let itself be smothered to nothing.


The ending...I don't know why, but I was thinking of "Men in Black" the whole time, the whole "galaxy" thing at the end where the alien peoples were playing marbles. Don't ask... It just popped into my head.

Selene... Priceless.

[Jūdan FyreHeart]

Wow, such an incredible story with profound and beautiful meanings crafted into each line. The final stanza sums it up and really kicks the reader into accepting the truth of the matter.

[OT]

oh wow! your creativity is unbelievable!! the way you describe certain things is just brilliant -

"Crystal tears rolled themselves like dew
from Eve's eyes
leaving tiny cuts and trickles of ruby down her cheeks"

complete creative overload!! sheer brilliance!!

[nono]

I love this. I can get many things from this. Its beautiful. You really made a poem that could have been simple, and made it into something that's unique and just pure beauty. When I saw the title this is not what I had in mind. Beautiful, the words of expression are really impressive. Very nice work! Defiantly something to admire!

[A.A.Romanczuk]

My brains are swirling, twisted by the profoundness of your sateen words...lost in the deceitful woodland of wondering why...dancing through the darkness...trying to answer the questions you so cleverly pose...are they questions to be answered or answers to be questioned...I scarcely know...only I once more must bow in acknowledgement of your skill :)

[FireWoman]

I love this point of view, it questions everything. Is our world so very, very big in the great scheme of things? Did it all start out with 2 humans? Or, are we all pawns of the Gods entertaining themselves while smoking a hookah.

[Maurice]

I was late getting to this poem because I was on holiday. This was magnificent.

[Emily B]

soft and seductive, I was mesmerized all the way through

[Closedown]

Captivating from the first word to the last. My mind is blown. Your words create such clear, lingering images, that stay long after the final line.

[Pax Analog]

Wow. Adult Asian Grimm sister.

Rebooting Eden seems always a matter of root psychic check, psychological refresher.

The real world sag is in the lack of integral core structuration. Addressing your Lilith/Eve encouraging Adam to find his original spark and vice-versa, I'm reminded of Transcendentalist Emerson's meaning in "Is not a man [or woman], better than a town?" The individual who distills and liberates the mind. One does homework re world reality codes and responds w/improv rigor.

The shorthand of even Lilith/Eve/Adam is the wave/particle sense of identity. Tilt toward the wave -- instant Buddha; tilt toward the particle -- all the other ironic twists and turns and slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Pioneer Swiss Gebser precision-tooled worldview lenses informed by a priori satori.

And the way you fold it all up. . .this piece begs for theater, film, animation, and one of those 3-D image-springing books. . .;-)

And that intriguing touch of pulling masculine energy out of the earth, as if Adam is ever doomed to be partly a child of text. S**t, the new dude could be Swamp Thing!

As always, your work has its own magic and spawns endless ruminations on its components -- the primal meme mission of poetics, I'd say.