Poetry Series
Guillermo Veloso
- poems -
2
Guillermo Veloso (September 25 1962)
a chef by trade, lover of life, it's passions and pains.
3
47
12: 01
It’s my birthday now
No one sings to me but
Crickets, frogs and night birds
My prodigal cat does not return
My prodigal wife in bed has turned
Yet I am at peace
The peace of night
It’s “benign indifference”
47
An ignoble number? ?
What does it portend?
Half of what?
I am now half a marriage
I am now half a love
I am now half a life
47
Alone and engulfed in night
Moon and street light now shine
Through carefully spun webs
And their architects sit silently in the middle
Snug in webs of deceit
I trace their lines and see mine
The nearby highway hums along
47
The world cares not
Nor do I
But…..48…. Maybe!
Guillermo Veloso
4
9/11
Autumn came early to the summer city;
Trees transfixed in flame
They fell as seeds / spores
From the dying trees
Ash and cloud
Steel and shroud
A quenching of thirst
A candle engulfed
Singular moment
Hammered into existence on an
Anvil of numbers
911
81
102
50,000
8
18
8000
300
5000
They fell as leaves from an autumn tree
The passion dance set free to fly
A final leap for the face of God
Born on angels wings and free of insolence
Quiet, resigned
Arm in arm
Delicate in the embrace of the eternal
And brought to earth’s warm bosom
Phone calls
Microwave notes
Final moments in the fierce presence of now.
“Mommy I love you; Goodbye”
Beneath the same sky we share the same life, fears and fragility.
the same terrible moment; the same destined shore.
Autumn came early to the summer city.
They fell as seeds from the dying tree.
Born quietly; arm in arm, angels in flight; To the eternal.
Guillermo Veloso
5
A Cold Vintage
The pain has past
The ancient tears of that century
Have dried and left only shadows of sorrow
The vines of gray you planted
Your lies
Have ripened
Vintage vinegar
Cold and pure
Guillermo Veloso
6
A Dangerous Rose
I picked a dangerous rose
Thorny, precious and sweet
Without blood there is no love
Guillermo Veloso
7
A Lesson in Love
Two swallowtails
Danced a dance of love
Aloft on a summer draft
Circling
Rising
Wings touching
Glances in the sun
Two butterflies
The briefest of lives
Forever entwined
Passionate moment
A chapel of flowers
A cathedral of light
A lesson in love
Guillermo Veloso
8
A Piori Love
In dreams / I formed you
In sweat / I gave you life
In tears / I gave you passion
In the heat / I gave you molten eyes
In the night / I gave you raven hair
In the morning / I gave you dawn’s smile
In the tremor / I gave you love
And with spark of infinity / I brought you forth
Guillermo Veloso
9
A Relativity of Love
Can Love be relative to the speed of the heart?
Can one lover move at the speed of light while another
Perceives a different world?
Love bends space and time
A friction pushes us apart then together on our orbits around the sun
We enter rips in time and emerge together
Young and moist like newborn suns
Kisses bend, expand and contract
Lovers spin, dance and explode
Loves at critical mass
Black hole where nothing radiates
Love cannot escape
And poems dance on the event horizon
Guillermo Veloso
10
Abandoned Love
A single lost rose
Abandoned on the road
Blood red on asphalt black
A discarded thought
A discarded poem
A discarded love
The edges of its petals darken
With each car that passes
Guillermo Veloso
11
After The Storm
Thunder ebbs
Rolls into mist
A storm has passed
And now the silence
Envelopes me
Still
Connected
Rooted in soul
Connected
Air electric
Connected
A road to walk
Connected
Alone
Connected
Guillermo Veloso
12
An Emperor of Fools
I wear the faded purple
An emperor of fools
An empire in ruins
On the crumbling bricks of my trust
Praetorians align their drinks along mine
Guard my precious frontiers
Barbarians pour in and pour more
Brittle laurels festoon my brow
As dry and faded as my dreams
My triumph alone under
A mute sun…………
“All glory is fleeting…”
Guillermo Veloso
13
Anabella at the Trevi Fountain
By the Trevi Fountain
On a brilliant day
Busy procession of faces and places
Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie smiles in motion
Sophia Loren eyes…. dark and searching
She adds drama to mute scenes
Mouths the script to the movie
Café and pastries
Perhaps Fellini will call
In the meantime
The french fries beckon
Guillermo Veloso
14
Anabella in Progress
Her words form
Softly at first, missing a brick or two
But I see the frame
Her eyes came past a corner
Hissing and sharp
They carry meaning
Her hair has the feel of
An untamed ocean
Wild wind whipped and free
And her face
I see her now
There she is! !
Now I dream of its arc
Guillermo Veloso
15
Anabella in Spring
But by this grace of God
The gentle moan of earth would not be heard
On this spring day
The tenderness of green enveloped in
Impossible colors and the smile of a child
Her hair a puff of wind
The sun a golden arc that
Frames her skin
An empty canvas
Waiting for the brush
Life the palette and experience her paints
Guillermo Veloso
16
Anabella Is Sick
Can I hold you?
Your comfort is my comfort
Smell of sweat
Wheeze and fever
I want to squeeze it all away
In my arms I am your father
I can see the sea, sail upon it
And envision the furthest shore
“You are a daughter of the sea”
In this sea I am your father
Guillermo Veloso
17
Anabella Snowflake
Born in January’s soft snow
Drifting and dancing
Alone in her beauty
Unique one of a kind
Falling amongst others
Laughing
Mad hair
Eyes black as truth
And settles on our life
Guillermo Veloso
18
Anabella’s Smile
Past the dark clouds of Saturn’s return
An impossible light
Wild
Unchecked
Undomesticated
Free
Like an unopened box
Full of promise
Guillermo Veloso
19
Anabella's Moon
Anabella’ Moon
Bella Luna
The hide and seeking moon
Lies behind wispy threads of summer night clouds
That wrap over her like a misplaced lock of ashen hair
While skittish rabbits, flop eared and under fence
Find a safer place to hide as bella searches the night for
New playmates.
But Bella’s moon/La Bella Luna
Laughs along in her secret spot.
Maybe tomorrow?
Guillermo Veloso
20
Anabella's Shoes
Who’s tiny feet
Leapt from the sun
Touched the flake-diamond snow
Scuffed the stubborn curb
Ran down the naughty cat
Stubbed the fleeing fairy
Left the mud-fossil
Nipped the falling rain drops
Stepped on mama as she slept
Ran to daddy at the door
Kicked the goal that won the match
And slipped off to dream
Of stars, boats, mist, candy and balloons
Guillermo Veloso
21
Anabella's Summer
There is a quiet in the
Eyes of a child
Dark serene and true
Fresh from god’s womb
And ripe like a grape
Wine will come but
For now
Sweet nectar and sun-lit play
Guillermo Veloso
22
And Slipped Away Once More
Because she was hungry
We shared wet cucumbers and creamy hummus
Because she was thirsty we
Shared a pint
Played pool
Cigarettes carelessly dangling
Because Tom Waits played
We danced slowly
Embraced as secret lovers
Because ee cummings was on the wall
I knew her hands were small
And slipped quietly away once more
Guillermo Veloso
23
And Water (Tsunami The Voyage of the Children 2005)
Tsunami:
The voyage of the children
And Water
And water
My mother
And sea
Her womb
And tide
Her lullaby
And wave
Her metronome
And ripple
Her caress
And foam
Her scent
And spray
Her essence
She beckons
She calls
She takes
Her children
A Cradle for them in the sea grass
A tomb for them in the coral
Yemanja
Oracle, siren, death
Mother
On this common day
In the moist quiet
In the Dark Deep
She will rock us to our last sleep
Gently she will take us
Back to her womb
Back to her soul
Back to our home.
Guillermo Veloso
24
At Crickets Peace
At crickets peace
And frogs lullaby
I am tranquil on this smoldering night
Alone and still
As the day before I was born
I move now with the circular stars
And find stillness in the transit
Guillermo Veloso
25
Autumn Dusk
At dusks moment
The night
Boozy old broad
Brushed her hair
And blushed her face with
The colors of autumn
Her perfumed scent
Filled our heads
Guillermo Veloso
26
Birds Know
the days are warm
summer's dusk golden and lasting
trees full and content
cicadas last songs echo and shrill
yet the ground wears
starling overcoat
and a slight breeze
brings the scent of autumn
and the promise of golden hued redemption
in the death of the leaf
there is forgiveness
as birds well know
Guillermo Veloso
27
Blind Love
The poetry of blind man isNot metered
In contrast hue or color
It is textured
In smell
In sound
In feel
A light finger upon the breast of a lover
An epic is forged
On the shallow breath
Of a tender sigh
Of his unseen lover
And verses fall like rain
Guillermo Veloso
28
Brittany
My first
Terrible beauty
The wild coast of sea
So much like me
What will you look like
When the winds have calmed
And time has finished her work
Guillermo Veloso
29
Bronx Orishas
Old saints come now/Bronx orishas/ Raymond/Denis/Mario/ Manolo/guide this novice
I am fat/with wine/with food/with time/with doubt/but not with love/that I starve for
Guillermo Veloso
30
but you were gone
the movie lasted hours
the popcorn warm, buttery salty
like love
the light subdued and seductive
cherub moths bounced on the porch light
looking to loose valentine arrows
through the screen
the bed unfurled
the pillows fluffed
and candles to light the way.
the night was perfect
but you were gone.
Guillermo Veloso
31
Calor
I would trace the dew on her breast with my tongue/ I would feel the rise and fall of
her breath/take in her scent and lay quietly in the night/and sense her dreams as they
dance over her/what would they sing? /wife /I would loose the jesses of our passion
and let it fly/would she return as an angel?
Guillermo Veloso
32
Can the Heart Forgive the Mind
Its endless wandering
Its fruitless battles / straw armies
Its senseless dreams
Its relentless motion
Its careless thoughts
Its loveless passion
Its restless sleep
Its mindless being
Guillermo Veloso
33
Cemetery
A late spring
Winds baste
The bony
Tombstone spine
Trees smile
Breathe beneath
Patient vision
Ancient trees
Silent guardians
Of the loamy dead
Guillermo Veloso
34
Coffee
The aroma escapes with a hiss
Aroma of dawn
Winter morning becomes remembrance
Mother and father return
Not the dead father or the wrinkled mother
Mother, father and I am a child
Toast to dip smiles to sip
The pot releases its genie
Time stands still
Guillermo Veloso
35
Companion
Time
Eternity’s portrait in motion
Time
God’s mural in motion
Breathe / withdraw
Breathe / withdraw
Scratch your chalk lines
Walk with your companion
Walk with time
Hold its hand
Walk with your animal
Move quietly at dusk
Move in sympathy
Look quickly
There, did you see! !
It has vanished
Guillermo Veloso
36
Cuban Love
Sweet gold
The sun in her smile
The scent of rum
Her wave tossed hair
The breath of Spain
Her back arched and sweat soaked
Glistens
The African sun
Taino heat rises through her
Her body the trunk of a palm that
Quivers with the salsa
Xango hides
The forest is
Tobacco deep
A mulatto leaf to cover our sin
Guillermo Veloso
37
Dark Matter
My soul is lit aflame
by a million stars
a trillion souls my companions
awash in a sea of dark matter
alone in the crow’s nest
afloat in waveless oceans of time
and bent by gravity’s will
Guillermo Veloso
38
Doppelganger
She lives my past
Sins loves and fancies
My lies my dissimulations
My masks my prevarications
My nights my obfuscations
My smiles my masquerade
My goodbyes my pretense
I turn she flees
I see my life rewound before me
Karmic Sisyphus
Destined to be run over by my own sins
Hotel rooms and nights away
Dreams do not lie
Visions are not the property
Of madmen and saints
My bones scream and flesh resists
Faraway places and scenes draw me
Death or rebirths are the only exits
Guillermo Veloso
39
Dreams are Kites
Dreams are Kites
Alive in the night
Hidden out of sight
Dreamt in flight
They lose all control
They swallow my soul
Pay the ferryman’s toll
Guillermo Veloso
40
Dying
She is asleep / eyes open
Escaping/she is forgetting
She is dying
Wrinkles and age leave her / her lover remembers her as she was
He awaits behind the moon
With wine, roses and song
Guillermo Veloso
41
Earth as Woman
Giving, full and ripe
Brazen treacherous
Jealous of her seas
Worn and new
Babies at the nipple
Thighs wet with the tide
Callous and loving
Pitiless and pieta
What secrets does she hide away in her locket?
Heart shaped boxes/at ocean’s bottom
Guillermo Veloso
42
España 1936-1939
España
te encuentro
la plaza
arena sangrada
sangre de los decaídos
sus torres construidos con huesos y tendón de los caídos
toros sin dignidad. Asegurados de su destino
Cortaremos sus orejas
toros dignificados
gente derrotada
viva la muerte
la passionaria
the deafeated hand
lies open, pale and limp
empty of hope
desiring a task but wishing for none
it lies in wait of the tender other
hope:
a transparent horizon
Guillermo Veloso
43
For Cynthia
Search back
Back through the
Harvested fields of our youth
Reach back
Back through the warm sweat
Of moist memories;
Where language was passion
And love the tongue
Days without end
Nights deep and eternal
Move through the dream further still
The same fears
The same nightmares
Death
Solitude
Failure
Futility
The same defiant gestures
Shared in song and embrace
I remember cold nights
Trembling in your arms
I remember days when life was a mistress
Inviting
Coquette
Coy and jealous
Her hair set free and the faint perfume of
Her femininity
So now you marry and
We share another bond
Yet all I feel
And all I remember
Lead me to a peaceful and tranquil oasis
A pool of calm that compel me
To set warm petals of flowers on your new path
And beg eternity and all its winds to
Hold you aloft in love
To guide you to the happiness that you deserve
Guillermo Veloso
44
For Shari
Before
Before I was bone, flesh and downy warmth
Before I mouthed mama and cooed
Before I giggled and laughed
Before I could run and play in the rain
Before I could open my eyes and see the stars
Before the first tear
I snuggled in the hearth of heart and womb
I smiled in the sunshine of your smile
And rocked to sleep in your lap lulled by your gentle hum
You may think I missed the rainbow’s arc
But your love was all the colors of heaven in song
Now we are apart
And tears pave the way
Yet heaven and I are not far away.
I am the diamonds pasted on the inky black
The thread that mends the grief with the memory and the forgetting
Oh, how heavenly an angel in flight!
Guillermo Veloso
45
Forgiveness and Forgetting
A storm must pass
A cry must silence
A rage must ebb
A light must come
A new dream must be dreamt
A beginning begun
An ending end
All past fade
All present dissolve
Guillermo Veloso
46
Forgotten
You’ve forgotten
Those tender nights
When sweat was the glue
You’ve forgotten
The tears we shed
When we said
“I love you”
Guillermo Veloso
47
Fractals
Wine attracts neighbors
Voisin
Fussy yellow-jackets jealous of color
Giddy fruit flies bob in out
Of the hair of the dog
A wandering spider gathers
Its unruly tresses
Jays announce themselves
This day
This autumn day is colored
With these friends
A fractal of my textured life
All of us
Drunk on the light.
Guillermo Veloso
48
Fragment
Wine will/beer can/whiskey seems/rum should/vodka might/gin didn’t
Drinks/ doubts/drugs/loss/travel/night/talking to bushes/moon-wink
Guillermo Veloso
49
Fragment Max
Memories of smoke and talk/conversations asleep/love and lennon/ max
Guillermo Veloso
50
Geckos Climb
Geckos climb
Pasted on the walls
Silent witness to the day’s progress
Weed Wackers and Cloud/ cat and sun/ aquariam waterfall and creeks edge
Silent fisherman/ wooden catch/
A day passes in silence
The days are slower as a child
And quiet as the world labors
The sun is gentler and the birds are friendlier
And the old come out to play
Guillermo Veloso
51
Haiti Endure
Proud people
Proud spirit
Who have seen the whip and known the fire of freedom
Who have thrived under a searing sun and enveloping sea
Who have bent under iron but never broken
Yes the ground has shaken
Orisha and earth conspire yet
These who have born pain with strong will and sea air in their nostrils
These proud of L’Ouverture
Will not pass tears into tomorrow
This life is for the enduring
Endure
Guillermo Veloso
52
Hammer Hammer Hammer
The hammer
The nail
One in sympathy
One uses the other
Until the crucifixion is complete
Who will suffer
At the fulcrum
Between
The good thief
And the bad
Freed from the tomb
And the stone wall of death
Risen and bathed in tranquil Jordan
Who will feel my wounds
And believe that I ever lived?
Guillermo Veloso
53
Husband and Wife
Lives a filigree of moments
Ebb and flow a sea with no shore
Our bed is sargasso / dead calm and lust-less
Smiles and cousin-kisses are trinkets entombed in this tangle
Horse latitudes
The sun does set in this Tropic
Guillermo Veloso
54
I am a Thief
I am a Thief
A cheat
I steal minutes that do not belong to me
I steal moments meant for someone else
I allow the night to parry the day
A child’s dream
A baby’s vision
A wife’s devotion
A mother’s care
The true owners of this life?
Guillermo Veloso
55
I am Not So Bold
I am not so bold as that
To cross minefields without caution
To cry out my dreams and bare all
To sing alone on the stage
To tell a well worn joke or cozy poem to jaded listeners
To say I love you across an ocean
And hope for a response in a bottle
But oceans have risen and fallen
And winds have come and gone
Still there is time
Guillermo Veloso
56
I Cannot Mourn This Love
Smells on your coat are not of home
Dreams together or smiles or I love yous
Empty eyes and silken lies
Silence wrapped in silence
Connections and fabrications
Time away hardens the heart like plaque
But I cannot mourn this love
This child I cannot see
A sun will break on my winter face
A morning frost shall scour this grief
From my eyes
Guillermo Veloso
57
i like this season
i feel the breeze that comes
with your breath the shift in
temperature that comes with your kiss
there is a turning on its axis the world
seems to like and autumn light
pours out like honey over the fields
i like this season when you shed your green and
become ahprodite in gold and bronze
wine deep and love profound
the grape is pressed its essence wets your lips
i like this season.
Guillermo Veloso
58
Is Autumn Our Middle Age?
Is Autumn Our Middle Age?
Twig, vein and leaf laid bare
Soft sway, rustle and quiet rage
Now naked to sun and air
Stripped of summer’s sinful green
Radiant Colors true and proud
From tip to root now sage and lean
But too soon for winter’s shroud
Guillermo Veloso
59
Las Razones
Tu sonrisa
Tu niñez
Tus pecas
Tus ojos sonrientes
Tus ojos ansíense
Tú rabia
Tu furia
Tus labios
Tus besos
Tu pasión
Tu olor
Tu pelo
Las razones
Guillermo Veloso
60
Last Dance
She awaits her dance/she is patient/she knows many faces/she has known the
wind/she will wait for me/no rush
Guillermo Veloso
61
Love Letter Hidden
I want to walk with you in this sun
Slip through the winds that swept
Across the ages just to touch us at this moment
I want your hand gently tucked in mind
Sharing the shy sweat as a leaf gives beneath our careless steps
I want to say I love you in a language only our
Eyes and noses can only decipher
And let the birds give witness to something forbidden
Hidden and ours
Guillermo Veloso
62
Love Lost
Love lost
when is love lost?
When fallen kisses and caresses
Are shadows on the neck and lip
When the other is no more
When the fire and spark that drove the piston
Are embers alone.
When all that is left is that tame salmander
Unscathed, uninterested
Passion is not to be fired or cooled
It is and no more.
It is in the taming
That love is crucified
On a cross of time.
Guillermo Veloso
63
Loves Unspoken
Can love be written
In a book of hours
Stenciled and illuminated with
Scrolls and lace
Or is it meant to
Remain mute; without words
Eternally seeking that which cannot be spoken
And that which makes it thus
A flame that flickers and consumes
Guillermo Veloso
64
Lying in Dreams
Dreams do not lie
They deceive and distract
They weave, expand and contract
They lead us away
They lead us astray
From truths that do not die
Guillermo Veloso
65
Many Birds (The Abandoned Nest)
I came upon a fallen nest
Left to dry and alone on the ground
A passing rain had but for a moment given it
Brief life
And I wondered
What scarlet cardinal, azure jay or resolute robin
Had returned to find this empty home
Once downy warm with egg, twig, and spittle.
Once a home once a love once a life
Many birds mate for life
Some do not
Guillermo Veloso
66
Monde Ancienne
Moon lights
Ghost snow
Warm chill of silence/quiet statues/ the gallery of night/
Old road wrinkled warped worn and torn
Old friend mute and loyal
Walk with me in the comfort of years
Guillermo Veloso
67
Monet's Table
Monet at his Table
The soup is first
Gone in an instant
Rush the tender bitter greens
Cepes and chanterelles glow on the plate ephemerally
The rabbits sacrifice in a terrine is brief
Cezzanne’s bouillabaisse can wait
The split melon is the last
Then
On the Japanese bridge
A world of color and subtle heat erupts
On an untouched canvas
Guillermo Veloso
68
My Future Lies in the Present
This fierce moment
Its arrogant teeth
Gnaws at my past
And grins at my future
With bones and sinew
I am here exposed and true
What can I hide from eternity that it already does not know?
Guillermo Veloso
69
My Love Asleep
Lips like plums
Burst and beckon
Wet and ripe like the dawn
The geography of your body
Curves with the earth and moves with your dreams
To follow is to explore
To explore is to love
You awaken and wipe the sleep away
But I have left and hidden in your horizons
Guillermo Veloso
70
My Planet
I ride the voracious light of amorous Venus
Planets align round a moon in distress
Spinning quarks rotate in chaos
Beautiful chaos
Purposeful chaos
Meaningful chaos
To what end?
Restless and bored
A faulty plan leaves clouds in my coffee
Parted at dawn
Tossed at night
Return to start another day
Guillermo Veloso
71
My Wound
In this garden
I tend my wound
Prune my memories
Water my loves
And travel countless miles
Beneath a careless sun
Guillermo Veloso
72
Never at Home
Never at home
Never at peace
Never at me
Fear in the corners
Shadows in moon-less night
Rustle and whisper
Liquid and night
Dreams at play
Dreams in the way
Dreams that sway
Love in corners
Love in acts
Love and lovers
Chasing Poe
Chasing his woe
Chasing his moan
Virgin child
Virgin woman
Virgin death (the first and last deflowering of death)
Guillermo Veloso
73
Night
I screamed my name to the night
Waiting for the echo that could save me
I found the arms of an ebony mother in autumn dress
Cool and blind to color and sin
In this lap I lay my head and sleep
Guillermo Veloso
74
Night Alone
A bed mourns
The loss of shape
Empty shadow of you in the moon’s oblique light
Guillermo Veloso
75
No Mind
Reed
Thrush
Damselfly
Still reflection (in the)
Still water (of the)
Still pond (in the)
Still light (of the)
Still sun (on this)
Still day
And for a moment
All became one
Quiet
Pure
Brilliant
Still
Guillermo Veloso
76
Old Rusty Moon
I opened an a box of memories
Folders, moth-eaten notebooks and yellowed photographs
I rummaged about looking for lost muses and mute lovers
An old rusty moon poured like sand from my dry pen
Tears poured down and gave life to parched pages
A candle burned the past away
Hot to the touch and better now for the pain
Guillermo Veloso
77
On the Bay
On the Bay
Sun rained light
Crashing upon the waters and
And shattering like
A million shards of
Brilliant glass
Each reflecting the
Glow of angels
And the beauty of now
Guillermo Veloso
78
Papa and Sunday
I smell the caldo/ham and cabbage/chorizo and beef/potato and grelos/scratchy
record/ Pepe Blanco and Carmen Moreno/tie and apron/scotch and soda/cologne and
tool/papa and Sunday
These are not the smells of the grave
Memories alive, fresh and colored
Guillermo Veloso
79
Promise of Dawn
The dawn brings the smell of sea
Winds born of angel’s wings blow at the door
They shake a Lazarus tree alive with wings
The taste of salt, foam and shell
The dawn brings the smell of the sea
And angels bring dreams of tomorrow
Guillermo Veloso
80
Quanta
Time has arranged itself
In neat bundles
Orderly
Strict
Domestic
A house
A family
A fading love
Each moving in random
Orbits around each other around in
A hollow nucleus
Guillermo Veloso
81
Quiet Dinosaur
The thesaurus is a quiet dinosaur
With no word for love
She is a solitary word and of her own
As it should be
Guillermo Veloso
82
Release
Death comes easily
Best to get on
And do this thing
A thing they cannot steal
Your life cannot be stolen
Your last moment is yours alone
Release like the last breath, easy and free
What is behind the veil
Mysterious burka of eternity
Dark beauty
My tribe will set me free in full flight
Tossed to the elements
The four corners to expand
Cry no more
Love has taken a stroll amongst the flowers
The garden breathes gardenias, pollen and scent
Aroma of the last day
Guillermo Veloso
83
Renewal and Return
I will move cautiously
In this new country
And explore this redemption
With delicate steps
In the end
We are masters
Of our silences
And theses worlds that
spin between our words
Guillermo Veloso
84
Right of Return
You beside me
The scent of your dream
Haunts the blue-gray night
The slight touch of skin
The right of return
Guillermo Veloso
85
Rosy Glasses
I awoke in secret
To spy on her
To see her dress
To see her dry her face
To see her body fresh from dreams
To see her unadorned lips
To see through closed sleepy eyes
And remember
Guillermo Veloso
86
Sea
The sea takes its lesson from the sands
Realizes its purpose in the shoals
Accepts its destiny in the unending tides
Carries the hope of the sun in its currents
And dances behind the piper moon
Guillermo Veloso
87
Self
Where have you been?
I’ve waited all these years
You set off
So many odysseys
So many people so many places so many nights
So angry
So selfish
I have been here all along
Waiting
Waiting for you to silence the voices and see only me
I am here
I have always been here
From those moments alone / the crib / the night
I have always been here
Can you see me now?
In the moment between sleep and dream
Between breaths
Between blinks
Between alone and love
Between life and death
I am your only true companion
I am your angel
I am your minder
I am you in the mirror
I am you
And you are me
Guillermo Veloso
88
Shadows and Masks
My confessions would be the envy of hell
If hell was my mind
But mind has become hell
Imprisoned with no exit
Alone with my many shadows and masks
In the end very alone
Do not follow I will no longer beckon
In an instant I have slipped away….
Guillermo Veloso
89
She
She
She is there
Behind the veil of mist that is desire
Awaiting / passion / in sensual dance
Flickering candles
Music that whispers
Warm first kisses / skin at play / poems unsent / flowers in bloom / the gaze of the
moon
Eternity in her silk-black eyes
Guillermo Veloso
90
Shoes
Time passes/shoes grow/extra shoes/shoes move room to room/shoes are shy/shoes
hide in boxes/shoes go to work and return/shoes take the first steps/shoes kick the
cat/shoes play and stumble/shoes warm and slide/shoes slip off to make love/shoes
wait in the closet/shoes wait at the door/shoes demand attention/shoes catch the
tears/shoes sleep beneath the kitchen table/shoes dream of school/shoes shine for
weddings/shoes walk slow at the end greened with grass browned with soil and get put
away to remember.
Guillermo Veloso
91
Skin Has Memory
friction
brushes
gloves
leather
wet leaves
lips
tongue
tingles
tickles
sweat
fire
ice
dust
A tender kiss on moon-less nights
Guillermo Veloso
92
Slow
Slow
Slow food
Slow passing
Slow love
Time is slowed
Time is consumed
Time is digested and time is expelled
Guillermo Veloso
93
Slow Memory
Memories are slowed
My Mind the Sap
It’s trap
Echoes in the moment bounce in mitchondrial dream
Reverberations in space, trunk and root
My feet in the rappahonack
Drifting on the patomac
Tripping on block island
Sliding down the pyramid
Hand prints of the maya
Max and john lennon
Dave in the box
Virginia of the Bronx
Virginia of the verse
Virginia of the mountain
Papa with clams
Papa with women
Papa with food
Papa with wine
Papa on the bed
Papa in the box
Raymond on the street
Raymond in the box
Francis in the bar
Francis in my dream
Lucy with her question
Lucy with my dream
I absorb my moments
My roots my senses
My trunk my life
My leaves my hands
My soul my eyes
My soul comes and goes as
It pleases
It visits it’s past
It gauges it’s present
It dreams of it’s future
My seasons
as warm long friends
calendar a misused amusement
My days metronome of life
My years a symphony
My centuries eternal prayer
I breath life on this rock
I take death in my roots
I give back that which belongs to all
On the currents of my breath.
Guillermo Veloso
94
Somewhere Far Away
Somewhere an ocean spreads
And sands are still
somewhere a wave falls
And come alive red with krill
somewhere a tern cruises an arctic sky
A blue whale crests
His breath a foamy hill
Somewhere the day is quiet
Somewhere a man faces his death
And somewhere a pie cools on a wooden sill
Guillermo Veloso
95
Subtle Moment 1982 NYC
subtle moment
silent street
Bridge; Man
Frozen in mist
Rum Soaked and Mellowed
The Sullen Sailor
Weary Torn
A Cotton Man
“When will she come? ”
where is that hair, that smile
that tacky coat?
“ So long now.......
Time has separate rooms
For the quilted mind
Antique leather
The smell of cigarette, perfume and tears
Smells, comfortable that point the way home.
So many rooms in the house of thought
Lights grow dim and fade as the fleeting night greets the timid dusk
Sun.
Sun fails and cracks
The concrete veil loves the night so.
Thinning day paints and dapples the water
Ebb and flow sets new canvasses and brings forth new artists
Sharp pencils.
Morning now
A ship passes
It’s mourning dirge
Honors the passing of the youthful night
The heavens smile and a new dawn is born.
“How far the love we seek
how precious the life we share
How dear the pain we rent
How fleeting the life we leave behind”
At the hem of eternal angels
Singed wings and stung eyes shed tears that fall to the warm womb of summer
Rain and tears fall from grace above
“ She will come today
That smile, that tacky coat”
As he walked away
The bridge felt still
The dirge faded
And time, weary, found a room.
Guillermo Veloso
96
Summer Nights Loves
Sunset;
Molasses /Auburn /Summer
Heat; sweat
Choice; the taste of a lover or the touch of heaven
The fruition of love
Love Bears fruit
Sweet figs, mango, papaya and peach
Cicada rhythm
Cicada buzz
Brubeck takes five
Summer rains
Mango love
Aphrodite /Prometheus/Charon
Sins of the self/
The night is feline/supine and lithe
Come, come, orishas
Saints of passion
Consecrate this hallowed ground
Moist with sweat;
Stained with the lover’s dew
Entwined linked and fused
The senses of symmetry synchronicity and serendipity
Electricity quantum and true
Shall we be as Plato’s dead and know the end of light in a blazing instant?
Guillermo Veloso
97
Tender Moment
Tender moment
No embrace
No practiced gaze
No scripted page
No contrived map
No cynical expectation;
Tears guide the eye
Pain reserves the visage.
That which is not sought
THAT WHICH WAS NOT BOUGHT
That which was not caught
And all that was for naught
That which has not been wrought
Hangs delicately
With tender grace
On the still tender winds
Of an instant in time.
Guillermo Veloso
98
Terroir
Scars on my heart are
Maps to my soul
Where once I dreamed of return
I survey the natural terrain of love
And find a poisoned terroir; its bitter vintage
No destination for this life that lies ahead
I followed a rainbow to its end but found the pot missing
Treasure, blood, love and hours stolen
Now I seek a path
A new route
Miles and miles ahead
Guillermo Veloso
99
The Bad Day
Robbed Now
Of all that is to come
Of an end in the arms of love
Of growing old in company
Of a second innocence
Of my heart
Of old moons
Of summer silences on the porch
Of my smile
Of a baby’s welcome home
Of the tears left to cry
And a soft kiss on the day to die
Guillermo Veloso
100
The Catcher Has Passed
The catcher has passed
Phoniness is echo alone
The rye is quiet, still / no sound
Alone in the woods and
Away from the unwanted gaze
Holden has slipped away
A smile across his lips and the world moves on
Guillermo Veloso
101
The Fierce Now
I sit here and think that the past has fled
and yet it has never left.
You in my arms and passions aflame.
Guillermo Veloso
102
The Heart Of The Rose
my heart longs for a vision of us
entwined at the heart of a rose
embraced
enmeshed in a web of love.
I dream and the fantasy of your kiss is made real.
Love, but for an hour I would be lost in your moment
Guillermo Veloso
103
The Hour
As we spoke,
The summer warmth caressed
The hour; the black night
An hour as black as figs
An hour that defied the moon’s angry vigil
An hour that cried for it’s rightful place
An hour that demanded
An hour that commanded
An hour that spoke of centuries
As if it knew them by name
As if the wind itself set the minutes adrift.
Guillermo Veloso
104
The Lender
I seek the lender of time
A key to a door I cannot find
Just a small loan to tide me
Just an hour or two here and there
But the interest is high and I cannot afford that pound of flesh.
My mistress eyes me. I cannot hide
My mistress seeks me. I am loath to join her in that cold embrace. Yet I am compelled
to watch her eternal grace.
I am here mistress; my last true love.
We have two mothers in this life
Mother of womb and mother of tomb
Guillermo Veloso
105
The Long Season
Winter has come
Poets are uncrated, unpacked,
Like ornaments
Adventures and cookies are warmed by our dreams
The world sits beyond the glass
And trees sway softly
In the black
Guillermo Veloso
106
The Lost Moment
We heard those breezes
Tear the palmy leaf
We felt those soft night waves
Slip slowly upon the beaches
We stole whispers in shadows
The moon our confessor and the stars
Our witnesses
The moment and the moment alone
This instant and this instant alone
All that is observed and all that is hidden
heart shall forgive
moon will absolve
The love of the moment is the greatest of all
she must withstand the furies of a thousand thoughts
Hurled in anger and couched in stone
It must hold firm as the eye passes and the maelstrom returns.
As time devours its resigned offering
Time shall pass
And time shall return
The moment is lost
And the moment must be reclaimed.
“A horizon at night is lost at its edge
We must feel for its geometry
Lest we fall of the ledge.
A star will guide us
Said the king and the seer
A star will take us
To all that is dear
Yet the path is made
In the travel of its stones
And the destiny it holds
Will be seen in its bones
Guillermo Veloso
107
The Lovers
The lovers embraced
As thieves in the night
Stealing precious moments
Under eternity’s listless eye.
A dust speck in the wind knows no motion;
A moment frozen on the tapestry of time
Begs to remain forever thus.
Guillermo Veloso
108
The Meeting Place
Lips
Lush
Brush
Flush
Blush
Hush
The kiss
Guillermo Veloso
109
The Murder of Love
There is a murder
In the theft of love
Dreams, scents and memories
All fall victim
Guillermo Veloso
110
The Scar
Its time to go
The moment demands it
Passion has slipped away
And left its delicious scar
Guillermo Veloso
111
The Stages of Forgiveness
The end of rage
The end of possession
The end of ego
Forgiveness
Guillermo Veloso
112
The Vellum
We can change
We can scrape the vellum
But the shadows of what was written cannot be erased
Banished with a wish
Still…
Embrace the shadows as such that make up our whole when the moments are tallied
And the game comes to an end. The true sum will come forth and burst into
posthumous bloom. 'When the evening of this life comes, we shall be judged on Love'.
St. John of the Cross
Guillermo Veloso
113
Time The Minder
Time is the metaphor
Time is the nurse
Time is the minder of all things.
Time demands many loves and many lovers to
Satisfy the wants of life/ the needs of death.
It was a sound I once heard;
Of songbirds and baseball
Of rock songs and baby coos
Of the autumn rustle and winter rush
Of soft nights in the arms of lovers
Nestled in the tender embrace of the winter night.
Guillermo Veloso
114
Tree Is My Animal
Tree is My Animal 7/09
Tree is my animal
And I burst forth from the soil
Past root, worm and grub
Unfurled now my leaves seek mother sun
Nourished and illuminated
I stand neath Methuselahs
Father old and true
Aged moss (ancient moss)
Comforts and warms me
Vines find shelter and comfort along my bones
Mother sun still sings
And centuries have past
But as a new nest appears in my arms
Oh I know I have much to go
And I am now Methuselah
And stand next to my father old and true
And watch as my young sapling grows neath me
My love is alone
I am alone
I stretch to touch her leaves and tickle her branches
My poems I send on the wings of birds, butterflies and bees
I feel the scent of her in the perfumed pollen born on wisps of wind
Wherever you are my Love
I will find you
Though seeds may scatter
And leaves grow few
Though centuries may pass
There I shall stand
Now
Our tendrils touch
At long last
A lacework of leaf and bark
Fingers enmeshed
A canopy of lovers to shade
Lovers from the unwanted gaze of mother sun
Our songs are sung by birds play in our tender union
Our union complete
Til centuries wither our bones
Then to earth
A loamy death to share
A complete union
Alone no more
My birds
Birds are my song
Birds are my cares
Birds are my lodgers
Birds are my color
115
Birds are my sex
Birds are my messengers
Birds are my generations
Birds are my minders
Birds are my song
Guillermo Veloso
116
Two/Sanctified
Two Hearts as One
Two Lives Entwined
Two Breaths in a Lifetime of Sighs
Two Souls Embraced in the Dark
Two Flowers at Play in the Light
Two Lovers in a Lover’s Dream
Sanctified
Guillermo Veloso
117
Un Sol Amargo
De suspiro a escalofrio….
La sombra de mi alma blanciada por un sol amargo
(from sighs to chills… the shadow of my soul bleached by a bitter sun.)
Guillermo Veloso
118
Una Cepa Fría
No me puedes lastimar más
Las lágrimas ancianas de ese siglo se secaron
Dejando solo huellas de dolor
La viña de canas
Que sembraste
Cosecharon un vinagre frío hecho
Con mentiras de
Pura cepa
Guillermo Veloso
119
Unattended Loves
Love under cover
Love understood
Love understated
Painful Love
Anonymous love
Unrequited Love
My whetstone awaits the blade of your silences.
On tender sands
Our emotions stand
On shifting waves
Dreams are slaves
Unattended loves are
Harried doves
Sent in flight
Candles flicker in the night
Only scent remains
Only memory stains
Only tears rain
On this desert of fear.
Guillermo Veloso
120
Undone
Pilot/ lost on the shoals / mist and fog / the pilots house is empty / the wheel
unmanned / jetsam and flotsdam in the paddle / threads come undone /
Guillermo Veloso
121
Unwanted Company
Anger is a fidgety partner
Jealousy a sticky companion
Loneliness an enduring mistress
Guillermo Veloso
122
Waiting
My fields lie fallow now
Un-tilled.
Geese form a
Black-necked picket fence
Poised to fly
On the given day
Guillermo Veloso
123
What is the Language We Seek?
What is the Language We Seek?
That burns our tongues
Speeds the heart
What are the words that remain unspoken for lack of translation?
A new dictionary
New thoughts
New emotions
New quests
New centuries
Dancing we lay a path
Dancing we follow the path
Dancing we walk the path
Never looking back
Never looking forward
Guillermo Veloso
124
Where Has Your Touch Gone?
Passionless love is platonic love is hollow love is cold love is senseless love is colorless
love is empty love is incomplete love is cowardly love is unattended love is ……………
Can I be inside you without being inside you?
Guillermo Veloso
125
Winter Becomes Spring Becomes Summer
The fruit of summer’s passion
has ripened
Withered on the vine
Fallen to the ground
Awaits
The benediction of the leaf
The white shroud of winter
Alabaster tomb
Icy and sure
Soon to give resurrection to bones
Ivory and worn
Bent to the will of memory
A mold cast in richer times
Here in the melting trickle
Ephemeral threads give rise to the bursting flowers
Bees descend in hordes to deflower the virgins of spring
Hot tongues that split the forge
We awake and beg the task
To see the face of god or feel the lover’s touch?
Then, shall we set fire to
This summer’s cauldron
And boil this witches brew; love
(Yes it is spoken.)
Or shall we flinch and fear the
Consuming flame.
The sparks are faeries that tease
Rise up upon the spirit of the wood
The courtship of trees is carried on the wings of butterflies and bees
Guillermo Veloso
126
Winter Boats
Winter boats are ghosts/
shrink-wrap shrouds/
no captain/
haunt the docks and await the sea
Guillermo Veloso
127
Wishes
I have blown
my dandelion wishes
and hold them fast in my hands
lest they blow away
Guillermo Veloso
128
Words
In progress
Words
Words progress
Words lemming like and anxious
Find their way to the tongue
tongue; the genesis of spoken thought
the creator of song and sorrow
the path of no return.
Words swim and prance
Words sing and dance
Words sting and prod
Words prick and last
Words present and past.
Words reveal themselves
Unwitting ambassadors
Marionette prophets
Mouth piece of the soul
Dummies on unforgiving laps.
Words leap to the void
Words lend form to the moment
Words decompose in the harsh dry winds
Time.
Moment becomes dream
Dream becomes memory
Memory crawls upon our
Worn, bark dry limbs
Memory and moment
The discarded skin of a cicada
Decades in birth.
The rotten carcasses of useless words
Lie strewn
Skeletal witness
Harsh testimony
The futility of definition
The senseless struggle to describe
And document.
The loneliness of true passion
As it writhes
Circumscribed by prescribed convention
Wrestled down and held in the grip
What should or should not be said.
The unspoken truth is a fury
The unmentioned passion is a sun’s ray
The unheld moment is a passing wind’s
Eternal glory.
Guillermo Veloso
129
World Ahead
World ahead cares not
Universes awaits the limp flesh
respirating the airs of eternity
Night comes and goes
Day rises and sets
World revolves turns and gyrates around our emotions
Nucleus without importance
knuckle down our ancestors in the past
Felt this pang on trees and savannah
Death comes easily
Best to get on
And do this thing
A thing they cannot steal
Your life cannot be stolen
Your last moment is yours alone
Release like the last breath, easy and free
What is behind the veil
Mysterious burka of eternity
Dark beauty
My tribe will set me free in full flight
Tossed to the elements
The four corners to expand
Cry no more
Love has taken a stroll amongst the flowers
The garden breathes gardenias, pollen and scent
Aroma of the last day
Guillermo Veloso
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