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

by Paul Hina

if the time ever comes for an

  end to lullabies

  then let all the long nights

  softly lay me down on the whispering

  good night horses of merry-go-rounds

  singing like children loving in a

  never growing garden waltzing in

  darkness as we forever rest on

  aging beds

  innocently

  34

  as slow as death is intertwined

  with love is stuck a man like an

  unshakable tower with tired black

  rimmed eyes sketching portraits

  with a pen just to reach the woman

  he adores

  sometime during this process of

  almost praying a song seeps into

  his ears to clarify a bleeding life

  to paper that creates a moment

  that at least happens in the singular

  mind of his heart’s broken image

  waking from dream

  like violins every word a symbolic

  melancholy scraping across a tentative

  touching of speed for that single invention

  of a moment’s happiness

  silent as his voice hesitates and screams

  the highest note that writes a single

  stroke of that thin veiny part of hand

  caressing her cheek feeling centuries

  pass replacing time into increments

  of solid warm red flesh only speaking

  for the deep sinking rush of the cello

  as strings are tied somewhere with

  copper wire fingers of his mind

  approaching her hair

  and words collapse like a thunder

  drum as the cello strays back and

  forth deeply strumming soldiers as

  the brass marches in like a seizure

  creating stoic caves to echo the

  distress of the flute whistling

  her not being near

  and he will never create a song so

  strong that he could hear it from

  her ears

  but still he tries

  35

  i have taken to long night walks

  counting every frail star that hangs

  as low as snow might make them melt

  if i pretended to touch their walls

  of every night growing softer thinking

  of your eyes

  and if i dare to ask your stars’

  vision to dim there would be no

  sound of earth to crush the perfectly

  intricate whispering of your lips

  unfolding like they had always been

  stored by your mouth’s dangling

  silence like a stillness

  but no stars would dare to shine

  deeper than the sky in your eyes

  and as the clouds part like your

  body had suddenly stretched the city

  to become thinly aware of its

  insignificance i see the skyline

  of every majestic metropolis could

  not hope to match the architecture

  of your divinely arranged waist that

  tears away the feeling from my fingertips

  that so quickly, vaguely, drip from

  hip to thigh in a single motion that

  bends time into a multitude of

  illusions that fade, slightly dreaming,

  into sleep

  and as the night ages into a cold morning

  wind there is a shiver where all the

  inspirations that writhe from your

  body drive me to follow closely behind

  every massive second until a capsulized

  version of your image almost breathes

  into me with that steam that sweats your

  scent so precious in its every grand

  pushing wave of crashing water that kills

  me complete

  36

  just a thing as simple as walking

  the way you do could easily cause

  me a severe bleeding attack of heart

  as your merciful hips hide your body

  behind corners of many never understood

  stories of love that blankets streets

  like rain

  and to lose those hands that tangle

  correctly winding my skin with your

  sliding tickle of touch could steal

  my better judgment of view to miss

  you smile your last tender face

  though i was only able to breathe

  your hair successfully on a one

  night occasion of accidental ecstasy

  i would surely scream incessantly

  for you to roll me from the other

  side of the earth

  and please know that i could've held

  you with the splinters of my arm's

  tree never cutting the fragile little

  intense heart in your chest where i

  know that blood flowed like milk into

  the swans that fly from your mouth

  when you sing

  and exhilarated as my suffocating

  will appear as you turn the corners

  of world behind me i will forever

  wonder where rooms are for prayer

  without such hands as yours pressing

  death to air like an angel's wing

  had cut the very church of your

  throat

  because there is no air as holy as

  your hair and angels know nothing

  of how hot blood becomes when your

  legs fit like a perfect strategy

  around my kiss

  and where are your swans when i need

  the milk of your song to move me from

  this dry deaf alone

  37

  taking to measure desperately the

  length in rhythms of pulse skipping

  walks on your far too still eyes

  crossing journeys past death trying

  to find broken self pieces to connect

  your puzzle to mine

  with eternity falling as silent as

  destiny scurries throughout these

  two half soul lives we pull our

  distant corners inside out to fulfill

  the wayward fashions of imaginations

  peeling worlds to barely brush by

  our enclosing circles so tightly

  spinning into pirouettes

  and though circles tend to spin dizzy

  distant scents of almost loving that

  lady so close a fate like a bubble

  drags approaching minds from the

  thought of an almost severe touch

  38

  how absurd are those little collections

  of carefully visited memory that keep

  me waiting shamefully near the edge of

  an incredible empty fatigue that threatens

  new romances with the certain crumbling of

  universes that barely move as a too sweet

  rendezvous stands on her misty face on

  the affair of a fountain flower plunging

  into the sparkling waters of random

  circumstance

  and then a piece of always terrible almost

  extends no particular push of certainty

  with its terribly soft petaled features

  remembering her way of fitting into the

  grooves of my flesh like her remarkable

  breath had been forever sleeping beside

  me

  and the brighter forgotten i fall dwindles

  into that tight trembling strike of the

  eternal falling sound of lips resembling

  a listening light that speaks through the

  detailed puddles of finally looking laughter

  that her perfectly embraceable shaped

  silhouette spr
ays through me

  and so i will fall silently above that

  proud shape of her shoulders softly wading

  in that kiss of beautiful echoed heart

  where skin covered mouth throats quiver

  into a redemption where i will understand

  how untils fly into the pure rapture of

  children

  and so we play swimmingly in fountains of

  flowers

  39

  there has never been a darker night

  that covered me so completely with

  dreams than the moons i spent inside

  your sleepy hair

  and the honey that surely drops from

  your mouth to mine is sweeter than

  every morning mist singing as thick

  flying rhythmically into the sounds

  of birds

  and if you were in that mist shyly

  holding that sound with your hands

  (carved directly from the breath

  of god)then i would stand as still

  as a frozen flower hungering the sun

  of your releasing that angelic spectral

  rain

  but when you hide there happens a

  cry where every breeze freezes motion

  until it melts into the scar that shows

  the very wounded nature of not witnessing

  the world of joy that blooms when you

  appear

  but when you open your hands even

  if only to allow them to brush by your

  hair the night meets the day and hours

  of birds fly into the deep tranquil sun

  of your face as songs seep into the

  ears of a perfect world

  40

  a fool has fallen again like a

  feather into the emitted breeze

  of mouths from the same old remains

  of eyes i remember blowing me into

  that always dizzy memory where every

  fragment of flesh held to your hands

  like a slightly drifting smile

  and those smiling lips have become

  a hole so big that feathers may fall

  forever twisting trying to catch any

  smell of air besides the sudden

  plunging you've caused in the music

  of me

  there is no easy reminder as soft

  as pillows to catch my overflowing

  pastures of veins from diving into

  that always easy death of your many

  lost kisses that swim through me

  like a perfectly thin ice

  so there was that defining moment

  where you blew my equilibrium

  throwing it from its axis and the

  space that was made let me fall

  through you never catching

  and i knew

  i just knew

  41

  hanging on for the rain where

  every near goodbye i try pours

  from the lungs of each empty

  flying cloud storming dry to drink

  one more breath of you

  and if you breathe a drop in that

  very small talking throat of yours

  i know that a voice will overflow

  with kisses filling already good

  days with always better reasons

  for your whole sound to dwell

  inside my limbs to reassure this

  shivering boy of your immense

  warm breeze

  and i won't fall hard enough until

  you shake the leaves from this

  tree of tired life where we could

  have built houses from the growing

  arms of our quiet embrace screaming

  one body silently to the heavens we

  might have encountered if the world

  had remembered rain

  but if in the winter of life i can

  still rise and stand with a cold face

  towards heaven i will ask for that

  last hum of perfect wind to whisper

  your voice as you almost hold my

  hand with those deep rooted fingers

  of a world descending into snow

  then i will blind my eyes from

  world's sky and allow its once

  black rain to cover time as finally

  happens to experience the white

  everywhere of your kiss

  42

  as small as a man can become

  is me feeling that necessary air

  of breathing someone else's paradise

  as an explanation chokes a reason

  to hold tight to this huge everything

  that has lost grip on our lives as

  long as our lives ever allowed us

  together gripping anything but the

  death of what could have become

  of forever

  now as all those places of hiding

  begin to hide themselves from my

  longest finger of hope it looks like

  a world might regain the consciousness

  of always spinning to increase that

  dizzy pain of how big nothing is

  when we believe it

  and the features of the very mirror

  we become will finally glare at

  something besides a piece of

  relocated happiness as a light comes

  on to enlighten the heart to feed

  itself from the blood that flows from

  your veins into my waiting life

  and being simply anything as close

  to you was like briefly tasting somewhere

  a planet being born from what memory

  produces in the ultimate misery of

  eventually sleeping outside of your

  dreams where i will never feel as

  completely me as when you held

  something so smally important as my

  hand

  43

  it is strange dreaming like a poetry

  where standing still makes like collapse

  into little nothings that keep the mind

  balance simply from awakening

  worlds of wonder bounce across the

  resting eye where an unquestionable

  immediate translation flickers just a

  little to postpone those many other

  aching disturbances from growing

  near as cold to the frozen touch of

  revealing another personal injustice

  and the mathematics of language

  don't believe in poets or will ever

  know how a word has no meaning

  in the logical version of living that

  caresses the hands of many cosmic

  lovers breathing emotional medicine

  like the air was words collecting form

  on the page of a predestined symphony

  but life is not a poetry and poetry is

  nothing more than life(never standing)

  with the bottom fell out

  44

  so tightly my fingers clenched to your

  hand with as much strength that can

  crumble from the muscles of an

  unmendable heart broken all the way

  to nerves of fantasy where this man

  believed that folding his thoughts tightly

  away from the woman he loves would

  allow another to lie beside his soul never

  really filling her place so prevalent a part

  in me as those thoughts unfold and grow

  abundant gardens around my mind that

  only one can color into life

  not saying much for hope which led

  me as far to hear that voice so crisply

  silver in my ears like an autumn fire had

  blown a burn clear across this universe

  i am inflicted with to allow for another

  planet where i c
ould have tried to live

  in the falling waters of your tender mouth

  catching some breath as you spill a

  little verbal ballet all over me with the

  feet of a million drunken birds dabbling

  drink

  but there is no place to hide from the

  harmony of her that destiny has placed

  on my house where all the fogging

  windows will someday be wiped clean

  by a finally hand unclenched by her eyes

  so highly held with arms of elsewhere

  skies where this universe will sparkle

  everywhere spotlights as the delicate

  teeth of an undying love will pour us

  together down a cloudy throat covered

  with heavenly blue water draining into a

  star

  45

  i really can't stand from losing

  all balance when her face like

  cream melts into tears that for

  many eternal moons had hidden

  themselves in the bravado shine

  of a forever dim sky dying to

  hang proudly with all the many

  stars where real smiles turn to

  easy cries as the sun allows for

  them no shame in pain

  and if thoughts were energy in

  that caressing her of my mind

  then a possible something called

  love might fry her numb skin so

  severely scarred from feeling the

  starlight of living in the barely

  glimpsed truth you see when she

  tries to open those hands to fly

  but there is no touch to cure

  her never shining hands that

  only flew when they appeared

  to be hurting little lovely things

  like her heart when she was white

  enough to touch something as

  beautiful as herself

  there is no nothing as near as

  when an angel can't see that her

  eyes are every freedom trying to

  look inside her soul as she

  suffocates on her own air squirming

  for clearer skies

  46

  there were days in rooms that rose red

  with flowers and bled sweat like heat

  on fire

  nothing would have ever prepared better

  renderings of pain pulling at either side

  of my mind like a romantic tendency flying

  into a bad connection with the slightest

  flavor of fuzz

  windows have froze under the usual touch

  melt of fingers to a face's reflection

  too old to forget love and too young to

  forgive her evolution

  she has met wines with the twists of

  fruit dancing with the seductive kiss

  of that pretty mirror

  and i'll spend forever looking up to

  that picture of you that never ages

  while i smolder at the edge of this

  frozen border body never burning down

  III. making sleep

  47

  only the madness of this whole

  splendid levity keeps me back

  behind a confused wall stretching

  our final confrontation into waiting

  for the first time your eyes might learn

  the light that so purely is true

  in my heart when everywhere you

  move happens on to stumbling

  slowly into eternity

  so patience is a gift for sometimes

  angels who never look for that

  connecting flight to new lights like

  the christmas shower that smells as

  clean as fleshly painted dream on the

  grey side of morning

  and i will bust and bang while sending

  horses straight out of that place where

  your mind just stretches out these dull

  places curling down every smiling

  dimension of world i uncovered before

  i ran through them all like houses of

  paint splashing correct as my hair flies up

  like an angel who discovers new tongues

  to kiss with after tasting the shape of your

  beautiful wings

  48

  a mouth larger than any rage sounds

  strangely golden with truth rising

  forth like solid death wrestling

  itself to the water of the immersible

  everything for an escape from losing

  every lucky listen your voice ever

  gave me

  but even in life with worlds breaking

  like hearts aimed at the sun there is

  a little dried blood on the bullet of

  love's gun waiting to be shot into

  fireworks emulating your fingers burning

  me happy almost making the smoke a fantasy

  where distance smelled beautiful

  but now with no belief that your well

  rehearsed fingers will ever attack my

  back where shoulders grow crazy with

  head to neck kisses there is no smile

  holding back laughter but a closed face

  to tangle the language of this enormous

  aging scream

  and please be far when i pour that last

  piled hurt from my voice just to race

  one more time the distance from my hands

  to heaven, where you surely must be, with

  the sky shining everywhere your eyes as

  silent bells ring a whisper to comfort

  my lips with the pristine gesture of an

  eyelash piano

  49

  something inside me moves when my

  thoughts return to you wondering

  always wherever you are if there

  is something about me that moves

  inside of you

  50

  of the many colors that make myself

  out of all the people that tumble

  on these pictures of places making

  like sporadic happenings

  my favorite color is the one you left

  me

  i have tried to recreate or even find

  someone with that same shade of wonderful

  that was passed to me through your

  breathing body

  but there is no such thing as wonderful

  with you away

  so the sun has smiled its last light a

  long day ago and the clocks have rung their

  final golden bell with the street lamps

  moving perpetually like dominoes to light

  the way towards darkness as if they had been

  pulled playfully by a string somewhere with

  someone laughing while holding an abundance

  of your color in their hands

  and motion