Poetic Memory

[poetic-memory]

Grunt (for Grandma)

I reeled it out from under-- I reeled it out from its Watery World like a cruel, idle, and petty God of Olympus, for Sport. I caught a fish at the end of a line-- a life at the end of a line; and I saw it gasping for air...just hanging

there.

I was told that this fish was called a Grunt. Immediately, I thought of you, Grandma, and your precious life and how it was caught similarly on a line, but yours was a line of tubes that projected from your body and face-- yours was a heart line flatline nearing the end of its race.

And you, Grandma, just like the Grunt, gasped for air-- mouth agape, eyes half-open stare, pupils half here, half there-- your breath-- your laboring-- the sound of our parting-- of your departing; your air-- traveling down a hallway, vacant, -- echoing -- your air, a cadenced metronome guiding you [and us] to [God knows where].

An almost inaudable 'Thank You' was all that you could muster in between gut wrenching calls for 'Mom' 'Mom' 'Mom' your mom--my great grandmom-- and it occurred to me...

that we all become children again in the end, don't we?

We are born reaching for our mothers and we die reaching for them too. I found myself cursing the cruel, idle, and petty Gods of Olympus or God of the Bible or God of (who knows really?) for reeling you out of this Earthly World, (for all we know) for Sport. Weeks later, on that boat, bobbing on that water (so very blue)-- turquoise, azure, and cerulean blue-- in my bikini on my birthday-- our birthday-- I stared at the Grunt; I stared at You. I was asked if I wanted to keep it, eat it, or return it to the sea- a sacred choice of three; [the fish will die anyway, eventually]. So, I returned the Grunt -- foolishly-- thinking that this act of will, this act of human divinity would somehow bring you home to me.

©Melissa Cesarano 2024

[poetic-memory]

Bernini [as Told by Proserpina]

Everyone assumes that it was his idea to fashion my flesh out of stone, but nobody considers the possibility that I begged him from beyond. My screams, resembled a rumbling and resounding beauty borne of Earth and Celestial storm; and from beyond I begged for Form.

It's strange, nobody considers that before I was rock, and before I was bone, before a wicked star-sun shone on his hand, on my hand, alone alone before cut from clay then sewn to cloth, before blink and belch and blood and breath; and from beyond I longed for Life. And so, emerging as art from the egg-white shell and a dense sea-foam swell-- I, a woman, alive, and well, straight to or straight from Hell, grown from artist moan; a God-like Galatean groan-- at last, a Body all my Own. And yet, his fingers press into the marble of my thigh; he didn't ask--- I didn't cry.

©Melissa Cesarano 2023

[poetic-memory]

But Does the Soul Forget?

I'm starting to forget what it felt like to kiss you; And for a moment in time I am both sad and grateful for the way that memories wilt like flowers when left in perpetual darkness. Memories of pleasurable sensations like flowers wilt when uprooted-- and I forget; and yet, how sweet the petals of your lips, so quick, the way they kissed and then cut mine off like blessings and then like blades- how natural was the soil of your deceit; a promise of replete to then, so recklessly, delete the repetition of memories- until pieces of my memory for your touch and taste suffocate or bleed out or die of thirst, whichever Death comes sprouting first; I have no choice but to welcome it.

©Melissa Cesarano 2023

[poetic-memory]

Like Persephone [At Intervals]

What a shame to have met you after your fall from grace--

so in touch with a delicious darkness, a seductive sex, and erotic additions that I almost didn't notice who you a-- you make Death look like a treat, like temptation incarnate. You're a shapeshifter too did you know? a mirror like me. You remind me of my desire to sip ruby-red seeds from a fruit, to lick ruby-red seeds from your palm, and to have the juices drip drip down my chin- to have sin trickle warmly down my throat and skin; you remind me of my longing to be touched so deeply from the inside. You are a loosener of limbs, and yet, you have every inch of me in knots; you light a fire beneath my feet and remind me what it's like to smell the scent of my own burning flesh. And, by the river of souls, you remind me what it's like to surrender at intervals like Persephone.

©Melissa Cesarano 2023

[poetic-memory]

Apology (to my Heart)

I apologize for my masochism- repeatedly, for my self-inflicted cataclysm. You do not deserve this, and in fact, and for a while now, you have tried to warn me by beating boldly at my chest; by battering me, meat and bones, from the inside out. Forgive me, again, for the self-harm romanticism schism. My body and mind are weak for things that are wounded, wild, and beautiful. You too are wounded, wild, and beautiful.

©Melissa Cesarano 2023

[poetic-memory]

A Temporary Pain

Choosing yourself hurts sometimes. Isn't that strange?

How loving oneself often requires a temporary pain;

How, upon listening, the body often warns you about the things you

desire.

©Melissa Cesarano 2022

[poetic-memory]

Erato [Beloved]

A thousand songs and sonnets birthed by eyes held steady upon  your breasts,

which are covered by diaphanous  veils of cloth where red roses rest— Look at you. You make me beg.

Oh, to replicate your image with my fingers inside, every inch of you, on paper;

You are love(ly).

I will hold a candle to your hips; I will burn you into my mind and create a synapse of your kind- You tickle the toes of my senses and I feel the sweet, warm blood bubbling between my lips erupting like milk, erupting like honey.

I am soaked by the  mere sight of you; I am dripping by the mere stroke of a Lyre,      you, 

perfect pupil of Apollo.

Give me meter, give me rhyme,  give me turtle-dove tongue and thyme; one of nine one of nine one of nine. Give me essence  so I can sing a song to my                lover      true lover other        mortal mother                  oh, no, not you.

To inspire love and never receive  it.

Such is the fate of a Muse. 

©Melissa Cesarano 2022

[poetic-memory]

Numb

Feelings need something to latch on to; that's the promise of being empty.

Feelings need something to latch on to; that's the burden of being empty.

©Melissa Cesarano 2022

[poetic-memory]

A Hummingbird Does Not Ask 

If you feel like you need to convince someone of your Magic, then there is a part of you that doesn't believe in its power. The Beauty of Magic is that it is plainly seen. There is no need for convincing. A hummingbird does not ask for a human to witness its Majesty. Can you imagine anything more self defeating and tragic than that? If they cannot see that you have blades for wings and iridescent scales for a body-- and if they cannot feel your insatiable desire for nectar flowing from flowery necks-- and If they cannot hear that you hum like a green-gilded monk mid mantra-

then they are willfully choosing to be blind to your Beauty. Or they are not noticing it at all.

©Melissa Cesarano 2022

[poetic-memory]

Outgrown

The Universe does not always give me what I want- and for good reason. Instead, The Universe teaches me difficult lessons about the things that are not meant for me and about the things that I didn't even realize I've outgrown.

©Melissa Cesarano 2022

[poetic-memory]

You Were Always Autumn

Erotic, you had a knack for shedding layers off limbs as if the Earth and its crust were a cabaret- Your voice, it was bright and loud like paint Your lines, they were crisp and liminal like a sketch Your kiss, my God, it was sensual, like figs and apples and pomegranates, like a cabernet- transitional and ephemeral like birth, like creation itself, like dying. Did I forget to mention that, on the night we met, we danced and September gave birth to October and somehow we were both beginning and ending too?

I know that it took me a while to reach these metaphors, but here I am, wet and wanting, legs spread naked like branches, climaxing under the Hunter's Full Moon. Death penetrates me in Autumn, again-

much like your fingers- much like your kiss.

©Melissa Cesarano 2022

[poetic-memory]

Like Icarus, I Died

Like Icarus, I died by way of sipping the Sun. I thought that if the birds could do it- if they could hug a heated star, so could I. And I deserve to have what the birds have, don't I? I too want a taste of the bright; I too want union with the light. So, with wings of feathered wax, I died by way of fiery firmament- Like Icarus, I died by way of wanting.

©Melissa Cesarano 2022

[poetic-memory]

Circe in Love (For Daedalus)

He held a knife at her- but only because she willed it; He held a knife at her- but only because she desired it. In anticipation, she lusted and labored in the pleasure of our agony. And somehow, Deadalus, held the knife tenderly, oh so steadily- and when he pierced my sister's skin to release the monstrous kin- he did so with the care of a craftsman. Because of this, from afar, it would have been possible to mistake his weapon for wildflowers, this bloody birthing scene for seduction. -- So this is how I fell in Love; witnessing softness in the manner of a man who is coerced into violence.

©Melissa Cesarano 2022

[poetic-memory]

What it Means to Be a God

Tonight, the milk will seep from the soft of our bodies and rest on our breasts like pearls. Tonight, the tears will streak and the blood will leak through layers of cloth and skin- Does our divinity scare you? Our likeness to God himself? Is this why you insist on tales of borrowed ribs and sin? We are the women who seek truth in trees and bear fruit like trees, who make fate at the gate of our hips- lips, which can deny you of pleasure and of life. Is this not what it means to be a God? Tonight, we cry; but tomorrow- oh tomorrow, we invoke the fires of the pyres of our witches; tomorrow we make it known that these burned and bloodied bodies are nobody's but our own.

©Melissa Cesarano 2022

[poetic-memory]

A New Spring

I cannot do the work of digging you out of the Past if you choose to remain planted there- asleep. There's a new Spring all around you now. I wish that you could see it. I wish that you could be it.

©Melissa Cesarano 2022

[poetic-memory]

What You Crave

You crave a home in him; and this is why you stay. But you forget that you are a home. You are warmth; you are sweetness. You are exactly what you crave --- You are two arms reaching and a tender heart beating.

©Melissa Cesarano 2022

[poetic-memory]

Something New

Even when it seems

like it can never happen again, the Spring brings forth a shocking bounty of Beauty— Again and again the world invents itself anew and delivers a Dionysian display.

And just when I think that I’ve seen every iteration, every face of plant and fruit, every tune of root and tree,

the Earth, yet again, surprises me—

And I am drunk in love, my friends, but this time

with something new.

©Melissa Cesarano 2022