[poetics] Three Poems by Maria Duarte

Three Poems

By Maria Duarte

Remembering

This is not a sharp pain like a knife being stabbed in the heart,

it doesn’t hurt like when a bullet stretches skin to come in

the body, there is no bleeding, no gasping for air to enter

the lungs, there is no desperation to end this frenzy emotion,

there is nothing, only this calmness in my body

I am resting, my pulse is normal, my breathing regulated,

I have no desire to pull my hair or cut my veins

there is only this stillness in the pores of my skin

that knew before I did that you were going to leave.

Friday night longing

I want to feel your frozen fingertips

cease the fire of my skin by caressing

it slowly feeling my pores rise and follow

your movement like sunflowers in a clear day

I want to feel your lips kissing me

with a passionate force that leaves

my body grounded while my mind

is lifted to look over how your hands

pressed your body against mine.

I want to submit to the thrust of your hips

leading mine to the most satisfying act

our bodies are capable of giving our spirit.

And at the end when our bodies are left drenched

of energy I want to lay besides you and contemplate

our dreams on the ceiling floor.

Thoughts

Invite me to the fire of your skin without

the regret that will come back later; but be honest

in this exchange of what it is not in the eyes of the silent

moon. Where does the line stops? Which line you may ask?

The line of elusive righteous path which we are meant to take

but never really realize we follow. I have never followed anything

other than the beating of my own heart and even then I am not exempt

of pain. I am a fugitive of pain; I do not want it or require it to know

what truth is or who I am but in life itself pain is the pivotal point

in which we realize what truly means to be alive.

Alive is being in a sense of constant presence; of constant awareness

of the surroundings in which your body stands or sits or talks or is still.

Moving forward is being alive; not comforting to one state of mind

always looking for the way out of this line which is so tight that makes

you drown in your own spit and for what really. What is really at the end

of the tunnel? What is really the purpose of the actions we have done?

To be remembered, to be celebrated, to be forgotten. I do not aim for any of

these actions after I am dead. People forget that we forget people, it is our

nature to forget and look forward to what is in front of us.

We forget and that is what we do best in the absence of feeling alive. Our lives transpire

to what we can remember and what we forget until someone else reminds us of what

we have forgotten and then it seems new but in reality it is just an old action we have

forgotten, so we never learn anything new we only reinvent.