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

by Paul Hina

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

  Paul Hina

  Copyright ©2006 by Paul Hina

  the trilogy of curves

  I. little births

  1

  the day before, or the morning

  to no man that listens is the sound

  not heard and to no man who knows

  god is there not a place for holes

  to be buried in when she sends you

  for rest and if she’s rubbed your

  heart then you, as i, can still hear

  the breeze of her movements closing

  in and

  the breath of her mouth as it swept

  by and shook my eyes free of death

  with a kiss (a kiss that is lost within

  the silence she possesses in my throat)

  and as her curling mouth was shutting

  me down i sunk with her in sleep and

  she turned me over and into her love

  leading me with forgotten hands to

  fall into the breaking day and as the

  day breaks away her lashes wave me

  farewell and

  the air and i are tiny as she leaves

  us behind breathing and listening to

  her hair run slightly, unearthly, across

  my face whispering birds and

  i will remember all the angel’s dust

  falling on wings as sweet as the cotton

  that blows from a spring child’s mouth

  and

  i can’t forget the innocence of that

  same child’s tear as its softness

  nears the ending sky’s eye with the

  wind and

  can you hear her hair?

  2

  i reach towards a twinkle as tiny

  as my eyes are allowed to imagine

  and as large as the ocean’s sun

  drenched gleam

  for a single moment an infinite

  wave curls me into digging deeper

  towards the breath of all the

  drowning children scraping towards

  the sky

  and, me, falling under in the

  playground of tranquility wishing

  upon the yellow light that drips

  through the cracks every time i

  speak her name

  to whom does this star speak or

  answer his wishes for (as it hangs

  towards the last moment)

  grant me the little dances our

  legs create swimming near one

  another to waltz slowly past a

  place we used to swing our hands

  and like children gasping for laughter

  we’d lose each other’s sorrow in the

  holes left inside our smiles

  give me this second as i fall away

  racing towards heaven

  and the light i see shines the soft

  hair on her chin as white as a new

  snow and as innocent as the night

  before the white falls on a time of

  trees

  3

  a blanket of grace her presence

  presents me inside is as still

  as the air that hangs outside

  her

  all the wishes that succumb from

  within my world tremble from the

  view of all those diving horses

  as they hiss inside their white

  breath

  the noise of twilight sits beside

  my turn as the cowardly face being

  scorned by the steps that she crunches

  on the fall

  and our love is being joined by a

  goodnight kiss that is being smoked

  from the spinning fields of my memory’s

  impotence

  i can’t recollect the texture of her

  lips and all the knowing of smoothness

  that infected my fingers when i brushed

  by her face

  and the push of her breath like a dancing

  execution on my palm that never ceased

  to shut my eyes

  if my lids would live then maybe, only

  maybe, i could stop trembling

  losing the summer of her grace

  4

  (why if wings spread like fingers

  do we squeeze our hands so tightly

  around our flightless feet)

  so our infinity is disturbed by the

  awakened girls shining over moons

  of blue light cities and shares a

  tendency to scare this young child

  who has lost his mother to a storm

  of the same caliber

  and because she is gone does the

  distance mean to swallow every

  gulping heartbeat like a paper

  song covering the truth and protecting

  the threats of making him miss one

  more day of trains or noise of softly

  smothered spirits

  he can never move fast enough for

  pictures and his tiny fingers so

  full of youth and love are yet to

  touch the frailty that was placed

  inside the woman’s eyes that once

  tucked him inside her womb with a

  constant kiss that smelled of hearing

  the ocean’s calm

  her stare turns him inside the outer

  regions of sanity because of the dreams

  that smile green like her eyes and

  will she ever look at him again?

  this night child struggles in his

  thinness looking for a larger remnant

  of her moon’s closeness to feed his

  pale hunger towards a lighter relief

  and why if her face is in his head

  burning out the night’s silence is

  she not less than ash and more than

  rain?

  how do you whisper death when the sky

  she spoke of in fairy tales turns black?

  (letting go and learning to fly)

  5

  a tragedy that is standing looking by

  hushing for less breath than is her face

  is moving in her smile that sprinkles

  words of candles surrounding baths of

  fingers and flesh

  his chest swollen by her dancing and his

  eyes paralyzed inside kisses of timelessness

  that fall from his drinking glass of her

  shade (slightly less pink than her movement)

  she glides pulling up her dress to reveal

  her feet and he knew if only in a dream

  that nothing as precise as her feet (not

  even death) could approach standing still

  in their delicately placed cases entrapped

  by toes to move nothing but slow

  her steps softly whispered in the air of

  the doorway’s darkness and he sat rubbing

  tears from his fingertips dwelling far

  beyond the untouched

  and he stands waiting in her vast country

  counting snow as it calms the cool ground

  in the key of a traditional waterfall

  6

  weightless in sleep reaching

  for a lucid face in the

  interior of midnight’s sister

  her kiss removes

  a gleam from my

  eye like spiders with

  cr
awlers

  deeply stretching

  throughout this america

  i swim in sanctity of once myself

  in mind will echo through pages

  of graffiti on her neon walls

  and my death will smile

  upon her moon by

  stars

  that now are eyes

  but i can not harm

  the lady

  for even my feet

  when embedded in her

  greyest of sands

  still float

  farther than any imagination

  and because even her pools

  are more than

  all of me

  and deeper than all dreams

  7

  there is a tunnel some song travels

  through taking me towards the holy

  ground that was our church where we

  worshipped inside each other’s eyes

  and got lost in the inflection of “i

  love you”

  and your reflection in the window is

  still sticking to the glass unstained

  by your smile and even though the

  pictures of you i’ve developed have

  begun losing color from too much

  recollection it is still clear that

  all i ever knew about life dwells

  inside that smile

  and even though the words you spoke

  inside our story are fading from a

  thousand fingers turning pages for

  every crying eye your voice is still

  prominent in my sleep

  and i relax on the walls of an apparition

  and kiss her at the top of my lungs

  stirring another lump in my throat sugar

  coated from all those tiny breaths that

  caused me to drown in her mouth

  and so i fall like water collecting

  puddles of little pieces that are her

  steps brushing away like a criminal’s foot

  and she can’t blow kisses that taste

  like the life i knew beyond her skin

  and so i pray

  has anyone written a song that travels

  deeper than tunnels?

  8

  there was a window i saw you

  through being wrapped knees

  inside arms and eyes inside

  sleep with face slightly

  falling form neck to shoulder

  and i watched for forever to

  disappear before i thought of

  allowing myself to blink

  because an image of sleep is

  slower dying than a picture

  of something smaller that falls

  sooner than rain

  so a