Poetry Series
Karen Touzalin
- poems -
2
Karen Touzalin
I began writing poetry at age fourteen, it was inspired by love of course, that
has been the catalyst for all my poetry to this day. I was given a copy of
Sonia Sanches 'Love Poems' at seventeen and my world was changed
forever. I discovered Pablo Neruda, Maya Angelou, Nikki Giovanni and loved
the imagery captured in their words.
The stages of love, the flirtation, intensity, passion, selfless (agape) , loss of
love, heartbreak, heartache and new love makes writing poetry cathartic. I
hope anyone reading my poetry will enjoy them as much as I do writing
them.
3
A Fulfilment Poem
You complete me,
Like the milk for my cereal
In my favourite bowl
Or a cup of sugar in a chocolate cake recipe
The pinch of salt you add to my life
Makes the eggs you scrambled with your smile
So much better to eat
You provide a teaspoon of honey
when I need a cup of tea to soothe
my scattered thoughts
even though I know you will piece me back together
without my knowing it.
You are the spine that holds this tender body together
even if it is your touch that makes me melt
when we are alone.
Once I am blended with your sweetness
and stirred by your kisses,
This love will be delicious
and served for your pleasure.
Karen Touzalin
4
A New Song
I have been singing a new song
lately,
humming low
sweet notes,
that reverberate in my thighs,
and spiral into my throat
Bursting into tunes,
in your frequency.
I am singing a psalm for you,
chords of joy,
sounding like ur name
humming low sweet notes,
that hit that high
that operatic pitch
and stay there long after
you say
goodnite.
Karen Touzalin
5
A Season of Love
1. In your arms,
i am silent earth,
inundated by spring rain.
2. An avalanche of words
stifle the throat,
your kisses, fresh daisies.
3. Butterflies, beating blessed wings
loudly announce your coming.
4. A monsoon of emotions,
unannounced,
flood my channels
5. Your season of now,
flew past on the wings of a dragonfly,
an eternity of pleasure,
persists
beyond my recollections.
Karen Touzalin
6
A Slow Death
We used words to fill the distance between us
more words than the 4000 miles that separated us
words that sealed my fate
Each morning, a new beginning
Each night, a rebirth
of emotions
once laid dormant
resting in an uneasy peace.
Daily,
I felt you take form and materialise
into my love
Now, in your absence, I hold your letters close
as proof of your existence
still yearning for words, any words
words to explain
just what I did to make you turn around
and take your love away
You seem to reject the notion that there is no me without you
even though obituaries are being written
that say otherwise
I can no longer speak,
my emotions have been sequestered into silence
So I turn inward to memory of you
and the words you left behind,
It is so deafeningly quiet now
Even I can hear the sound of my own heart breaking
Karen Touzalin
7
Beautiful
In your mouth,
I am precious pearl
Diamond cut
woman
Carved from your rib
A prized flower in your secret garden
In your eyes
I am Helen of Troy,
Cleopatra,
Diana, goddess of love
Shooting arrows at your heart
And poetry at your mind.
In your hands,
I am canvas
You adorn me in Technicolor
Frame my face with laughter
And make my Mona Lisa smile
In this journey,
You are the conqueror of my heart
And I am discovered
At last,
Revealed
in beauty.
Karen Touzalin
8
Coupledom
I want to revoke my state of independence
I want to go back to coupledom and live with you,
conjoined
in connubial bliss.
I want you to finish my sentences
and laugh at my silliness when no one else will.
I want to be alone, but only with you.
I want to revoke my state of independence.
Karen Touzalin
9
Crush # 2
You make me dream
of being in love
again
to experience that tight, warm
sensation
of a desperate infatuation
late night longings
and stolen kisses
If only you were mine
then we could explore
this erotic tension
that sits silently between us
yet keeps us apart
Karen Touzalin
10
Crush #1
I feel the stirring
of the butterflies when I see you
and a subtle, sweet confusion
rears it's head
at the thought of your lips
on mine
Karen Touzalin
11
Evolution
So
here I am again
back at one
coming full circle
moving back to the beginning
back to where you found me
wandering
lost and alone
afraid to touch
to indulge myself
in you
Karen Touzalin
12
God's Creation
Your kisses sweet
a lovers' station,
Within your arms,
a soul's vacation,
your heart beats strong
my love's foundation
You support my dreams
a lover's vocation
My beloved I know is
God's creation
Karen Touzalin
13
Innocence Lost
He came thru a window
one nite,
determined to steal my treasures;
man made
and God-given.
So secure in his power to lay fear
or a blade
with equal measure.
Yet, it it the power of the Divine to protect and to provide
my treasure were kept,
but it is a shame to learn that innocence lost
is truly irreplaceable.
Karen Touzalin
14
Inseparable
Beloved, steal me away
to your secret hiding places
Let thoughts of me peacefully dwell
secure in the layers of your mind,
where your dreams lay, far away from the world
Untainted and carefree
May I dance in your ear, beloved?
singing songs and sweet nothings to you all day
I carry your words like cymbals on my feet
and your kisses
like castanets
in my hands
Conceal me in the honest corners of your heart,
Protect me
as your greatest
treasure
for I am yours
Envelope me in your bed,
tucked away under the cover of your arms
when I am weary of the world and the glare of reality
until my heart beats
in unison with yours
until there is no more me
and there is no more you
until we become
inseparable.
Karen Touzalin
15
Insomnia
If we meet again tonight,
i choose not to recognize your familiar embrace.
I will pretend that we do not meet and spend countless hours
beneath an omniscient and mercurial moon
together.
I will not speak your name aloud or
whisper of a quiet desperation for
sleeping and the peace it brings.
You seem to find me a familiar plaything
and you are a habit
I am powerless to break.
Karen Touzalin
16
Is The War Over
If someone should ask you one day,
is the war over?
you may respond by saying which one? ....
Wars it seem are never over
the war with ourselves
and
with each other
No small conflict dies a natural death,
but mushroom clouds to the heavens
and back
landing as close to my backyard
as the government will permit
Lately it seems that
even saying I love you
invites a
carefully measured response.
Karen Touzalin
17
It Rained Every Afternoon
It rained every day
after you left
a natural mourning ensued
accompanied by stillness
the eerie quiet that often precedes
a natural disaster.
Things that once brought me joy
wash away each afternoon
Rivulets of pain wash my senses
a canopy of clouds
hover like a conspirators plotting my misery
Eagerly I give myself over to sadness
Finding empathy in the rainy afternoon
It seem both the days and I have cause to grieve
at the loss of a loved one.
Karen Touzalin
18
Joy
I am elated,
Spinning,
Dancing,
Frolicking
happy.
Skipping along in pretty new shoes
happy.
‘kin puppa lick’ and fall down
happy,
Girl in pigtails
with red ribbons
happy
Smiling from ear to ear,
jaws aching happy
Beautiful sunshiny day after rainfall
happy.
Basking in the afterglow
of your loving happy
Loving your sweet kisses happy
Today,
I found my happy
wrapped up like a present
in you.
Kin puppa lick - A Jamaican expression for falling head over heels
Karen Touzalin
19
Joy (For Joy)
To embody a name so well
your mother a prophet beyond measure
Did she foresee
the rays of sunlight would precede your entrance
and
the cherubs who throw envious glances at your smile
Could she have known that all who you meet would be
blessed by the sound of your
laughter
that you would become
a treasured daughter
Like your mother,
I hope that time would stop it's interminable spinning
to keep you here
a while
longer.
Karen Touzalin
20
Language of Love
As a poet, I can only write about what I know
I know that the day begins with a sunrise
and sleeps with the sunset
and I know that I loved you.
Loving you was not a period in my life.
It was the comma, a slight pause in the order of things that somehow dont really
matter any more.
Once you made me the point of your affections.
Joining my beginning and my end as only you could
and did.
I know that love is a sentence, not always emotionally correct in its construction.
There are the frenetic stops and starts, the tentative hesitation that
afflicts the writer’s pen
and the lover’s heart.
Love does not proceed in an orderly fashion
And who says that the ending of love justify the means?
I am no wiser after losing you,
So when simpletons say
‘it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all’
I can never agree.
So I write you into my lines, punctuating my thoughts with your love
trying to comprehend the meaning of it all.
Knowing that a spoken word or my love for you cannot be erased
Realising the grammar lessons taught in school were not too
far from the reality of living
and loving after all.
For RAW, who continues to inspire me to write
Karen Touzalin
21
Life - Part 1
I want to grow old with you
holding your hands
as we walk down this path
of life
through a garden of years
blossoming with love
to plant seeds and bring forth
children in bloom.
Karen Touzalin
22
Little Boxes
I am always building boxes,
packing
stacking
layering,
trying to compartmentalize my life
or the loose aspects of it.
Friends provide snippets of their day for wrapping
secrets to be stored carefully in foil paper
feelings labelled precious,
fragile,
handle with care
Neighbours reveal slices of life through open bay windows,
I surreptitiously conceal
for a rainy day,
to be opened in private...
open by addressee only.
A squirrel wanders by my door, trying to steal my techniques on hoarding or my
endless yards of ribbons, which ever comes first.
Karen Touzalin
23
Love Letters (For Sean)
I kept your love letters in memory of you
Saving the words you left behind
Emotions scrapped from your beautiful mind,
revealing....
a love so strong
I was nurtured
and sheltered
and protected
and loved
and kissed
and caressed
and touched
and loved
and supported
and challenged
and encouraged
and loved
and loved
and loved
your feelings for me
tangible,
leaping from the page
now brown with age
but deeply, truly
inifinate with meaning
Karen Touzalin
24
Love Milk Rain
Your milk of loving kindness
Flows like rain
Flooding my thoughts
With fresh kisses,
I am swollen with pleasure,
banks burst without containment.
Images flush with your scent, stain my mind
Setting emotions a sail
Into rivers
That rush headlong
Tumbling over and over
Leading me towards your ocean
For Richard who coined the phrase.
Karen Touzalin
25
Love Poem #1
My love is an oasis
hidden behind a scrim of polite expression
and conjured vavavoom
fed by deep pools
as yet undiscovered
by other less competent lovers
Karen Touzalin
26
Love Poem #5
Did I only imagine that the daydream
had come to life and somehow manifested itself
naked in my bed, one late Friday night.
Still,
Saturday morning awoke sweetly,
and I rose at last, remembering your smell
bathed in your touch.
Karen Touzalin
27
Love Poem#6
Lying in your arms,
I am thoughtfully
suspended between carefree surrender
and cautious retreat
Karen Touzalin
28
Manzanilla (Trinidad)
A caged butterfly
set free
you the great liberator
triumphantly
Karen Touzalin
29
Missing You…. A Beginning Poem
I cannot begin to start missing you
The way the heart misses a beat,
on occasion
or a dancer misses a step in time,
without rhythm
I cannot begin to start missing you,
like the sea misses the shore and
returns each morning
to ebb and flow
or like the sun misses the moon each night
so she creates a beautiful sunrise,
as a token of their love
I cannot begin to start missing you
like my ears miss the sound of your breathing
when you fall asleep
or my eyes miss the sight of your face
when they are closed.
I cannot begin to start…..
But I miss you.
Karen Touzalin
30
Nadupoi
This fevered coupling is my undoing
A solitary tear emerges and
stains my passionate cries
Amid your triumphant proclamation of life
there is a quiet death occurring.
(Nadupoi - from Kenya, meaning awareness)
Karen Touzalin
31
Natural Phenomena
If you walk away
from me,
There will still be sunrise
and sunsets in my life
Stars will shoot thru the midnite sky
and clouds will collaborate about the rain
I will wake each morning to the sound of birds
singing
Days will last the usual 24 hours
and the seconds will turn into minutes while I miss you.
If you stop loving me,
your sweet nothings will
no longer taste sweet
and my happy endings
will cease being happy
or even possibly
happily ever after.
If you leave me,
I may love again, but not like
I loved you
because loving you was a natural phenomenon like yawning
or hurricanes in the Caribbean
and babies being born in the early hours of the morning, just because they can.
I would simple devolve
and revert to being me
alone,
without you,
Unnaturally.
Karen Touzalin
32
New
Honestly
I am unfamiliar with the new you,
but i am warm with images,
of you, as yet
unripened and unformed.
Memories of a friendship carved in haste, when we were young,
lie dormant
only now spring to life, inundated
by the force of your rain.
Tonite I am formed, molded by your fantasy
Blossoming softly
under a careful
definition
of love.
Karen Touzalin
33
Offspring
Because I loved you,
I gave you poetry,
instead of my body to keep you warm.
Poems stay in your head long after kisses
turn cold
and
lovers thoughts turn towards newer possibilities
Poems, my offspring
pollinated by you, fruits from my mind
fluently expressed how and
what I felt for you,
So many words of love
a smorgasbord of emotions to envelope you and
by extension,
your heart
Love, now hastily dissolved by economics
or maybe the lack of economics,
as we age we seem to compartmentalise our life
into love and economics
or maybe some mistakes are just too painful to face each morning.
Note to self…..
I will not mourn for that which is not lost
but alive and well, living happily ever after
in someone else’s arms.
So my poems, once prominently displayed
on your coffee table and your heart,
by extension
have been removed,
filed away under what was,
what might have been
or what could never be.
But words stain,
poetry lasts forever,
ask Langston
or Wordworth
or Sonia
we may forget what was said
but we can never forget
what was felt.
Karen Touzalin
34
Precious #1
You hoard your smiles
as if they were jewels
precious and rare
but smiles are a treasure
most enjoyed
when shared.
Karen Touzalin
35
Remember When
We were younger then
photographs frame our innocence,
The promise of love
smiles swollen with dreams and wide-eyed curiosity
poised for life,
you and I.
Still time stretches bonds
of loyalty and love
space fragments friendships
I see you now,
older, wiser and no longer curious
but still you gaze at me with with eyes
unshuttered and forgiving
I remember you
well.
Karen Touzalin
36
Secret Lover
Dusk,
shrouds this day's labour
your arms a respite for my fears,
beckon
I stretch each moment into hours
when we kiss
beneath the spell of moonlight
In this winter solstice of seemingly endless nights,
I cherish the time we spend
shielded from the glare of daylight
and the prying eyes
of strangers
Karen Touzalin
37
Self Discovery
Where do I end
where do we begin,
I am not sure anymore.
It seems I can no longer exist as a single cell organism
Reproducing into solitude
I keep thinking that one day you will finish my sentences
and I will conjure your thoughts
long before they become
sweet kisses
and hugs
Imagine your people could be my people
blending two hearts into too many to count
captured in the photographs
of our family
Maybe one day I will accept
that the independence I gained through being with you
is greater than going it alone
just for the sake of women’s liberation
as I think the feminists would say
And even though daily I keep losing myself in you
I am still very happy that you found me.
Karen Touzalin
38
Sleeping With Strangers
I sleep beside books of poetry
at night,
Nikki,
Sonia,
Maya,
super women, sprouting super thoughts on love and life.
Scattering images across my bed,
decorating my thoughts.
They seem to have replaced those shadowy figures that come and go
like apparitions
or fantasies
not fully formed or developed enough to commit
to a natural design
[husband/protector/lover/provider]
So much so that I am deceived into believing
that man is a conjured thought
like love
or 'happy' ever after.
Karen Touzalin
39
Sometimes
Sometimes,
in order for me to write, i do not speak for days
until desperation forces me to
create poetry
on paper.
Sometimes,
in order for me to say i love you
i pick a fight and call you names
in my mind
until fear of losing you makes
me reach for you under the covers
late at nite.
Sometimes,
the human race make me so crazy that
i want to run away and hide
among the Aborigines in Australia
or the pygmies in Africa
until i come full circle
(the earth is round after all)
and find my way back home
to you
Karen Touzalin
40
Speechless
Split these thoughts wide open
let the fruit of my mind,
emerge,
break free
to take root
and grow into eloquence,
honestly.
(March 17,2008)
Karen Touzalin
41
Starstruck
There is a beautiful full moon tonite
on the anniversary of my birth
We are together as we have been many times before
But as I looked into your eyes
there was no glitter of starlight
and I felt the universe open up between us.
Karen Touzalin
42
Temptations/Bells Ringing
I am neither Pavlov
nor his dog,
But I acknowledge the temptations you so
consistently provide
There are no snakes lurking in these verses,
but I think you could be Adam
or the apple.
Either one represents the desire to consume
all things forbidden
I linger at the entrance to your garden
In the distance I hear bells ringing.....
Karen Touzalin
43
The Conversation, A Beginning Poem
The conversation began somewhere around 12 midnight
after you got home from work
and ended around six a.m. by my clock
or seven a.m. by your clock
Still time zones were not a factor in our discussion
Talking till dawn peeped reluctantly through my window
and the sunrise came as a surprise to both of us
Sharing easily with a telephone line between us
topics just personal enough
to make it exhilarating
without the commitment to touch
Touch remains the human technique for ‘getting to know you better’,
babies and puppies touch and taste with reckless abandon
before eyes and hands fully comprehend the
ecstasy discovered by lovers
or the reality of losing touch with someone
The swell in your voice made me want to touch you
and convince myself that you were real
a study in metaphysics
and
not some magical reproduction of my fragmented
mind.
I knew you then, even beyond the confines of space
and the relativity of time
sharing my essence with you
through fiber-optic cables and wires and poles and long distance providers
Late one Friday night I gave you me,
delivered my heart early one Saturday morning,
even though to the casual onlooker, we were just having
a conversation.
Karen Touzalin
44
The Sound of Silence
Beyond the steady ache
behind my tired eyes
i hear cymbals crashing
or maybe it was a truck reversing unto a deserted road
or dogs baying at a lonley moon
or birds singing to the sorrowful sunrise
Maybe....
anything to drown out the sound of a door closing
softly,
after you left this morning
Karen Touzalin
45
The Two Step
We put words in the spaces
reserved for lovers
lovers who sit in complete silence, comfortable in the
knowing....
We use dancing words, words that glide across lips
spinning images about loving
loving life,
loving family,
and friends,
But never about you and I
Loving ourselves enough to start a pas de deux.
(Pas de deux Fr - two step dance, also known as the pasa doble Sp.)
Karen Touzalin
46
The Yellow House on Tucker Avenue
Saturday mornings brought promises,
of starting over,
beginning anew.
Trying to make the week over
and re-invent my life,
a life that I wanted with you.
The house sat high against a slope,
far enough away from the road to make it seem inaccessible
Painted a cheerful yellow, the colour
of happiness
And there in the yellow house on Tucker Avenue
I imagined my life with you.
Loving you in rooms filled
with laughter,
days and nights turning into years
In a house painted the colour of sunshine
and happy children that looked like you,
There in that yellow house on Tucker Avenue
I created a life spent with you.
The weekends gave way to reality
And the house sits deserted still
Steadily fading into memory, alone against the sturdy hill.
Abandoned to the fantasy and the careless dreams that I knew,
When I pass by the house that a love built
That yellow house on Tucker Avenue
Karen Touzalin
47
Translation Of Love
I lost myself
in your translation of love
what you said or did not say
out loud
You use silence to fill the spaces
where words would not fit
into the cold, secret corners of your heart
so deafeningly quiet.
Revealing nothing of yourself
in this fantasy i created
without hearing you out loud
Karen Touzalin
48
Untitled #1
In this quiet place,
with only the sound of my own thoughts
I imagine life without you
and weep
Karen Touzalin
49
Untitled #3
A caged heart
left unguarded
You venture in to
reconnoiter hostile territory
inquisitively.
Karen Touzalin
50
Untitled# 4
Old wounds healed
by new kisses,
sweet
heartache treats
Karen Touzalin
51
Untitled#2
In each of us, there is an inate desire to be alone,
to meditate on everything
or nothing at all.
It is suggested that the meaning of life
can be revealed in solitude
a quiet reflection reveals mysteries
drowned out in the sound of every day life.
I hear my own thoughts when I am alone
they tell me that
I am lonley.
Karen Touzalin
52
Untitled#5, For My Father
My father,
an eloquent man, chased his inner demons with the spirits
of Appleton Estates.
His words could glide like sweet molasses
or sting like vinegar in an open wound.
At nights, I listened to childhood stories at his feet
spellbound by the sound of his voice
In my reverie, I caught fleeting glimpses
of a boy running though canefields with carefree abandon.
Karen Touzalin
No comments:
Post a Comment