love poem 511


take
lust : fluster
everything my mind making
artificial * coherence of the daily
endures . . . this won't
convince you ?
evincing
kisses which
imagined * don't diminish
what syntax limits : mythical
piecemeal ! expressions
eluding
to what « expression » is : as
if in mid-flight
the bird
of * my language :
I am tired of this metaphor
let it fall



love poem 513


this patchy transparence
treats
the space
between * flow(er) and (re)flection :
once we found the darkness may
move * the movement
to vary
itself . . . shattered : restarting
a beginning new translucency restating
initial forms . . . your face
is this : its angles
obvious
as a false remnant
of the ageless pretending :
your shell * of unhearing stone
fake stasis snubs vibrations
why to * you I whisper :
« what is was once
the past »



love poem 522


my maelstrom
moves * elements only
to which thought
is stranger :
around
you colours forming spectrums
orders anodyne to rise your concaving
cheeks . . .  checking
blushes code :
the face
shows outward
its long pulse through time : its debt
to shadows * indeed everything
which has made it
the lace
to language * proffers
the strange local seemings :
our love * and our
stilled infinite
regret

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Residing in Paris, Nicholas Manning has had poetry and criticism in American, English and Australian publications including Verse, The Argotist, Fascicle, Free Verse, MiPoesias, BlazeVox, Cordite, Eratio, Otoliths, Galatea Resurrects, Dusie, EOAGH, Shampoo, among others. He teaches comparative literature at the University of Strasbourg II, France, and in 2006 was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His first chapbook, Novaless I-XXVI, is out now from Achiote Press (www.achiotepress.com). He is the editor of the video-forum for contemporary poetry and poetics, The Continental Review (www.thecontinentalreview.com).