Brisueño & Singleton – May 15

Tim Singleton and Ram Brisueño traded art and words. Ram shared this image, entitled “Oracle,” with Tim:

In response, Tim wrote this poem:

An Ecstasy of Flowers

1. Magnolia Moonfall

Nightwalk steps into a moment of aloneness
and contemplation under a magnolia tree
half in outrageous blossom, half in discard,
evidence passion-like in orgy-strewn
haphazard underneath, petals perfect
in disarray, slightly colored with bruise,
with moonlight, a landscape of effort and
after-effort, of connective energy, abandon.
It’s a different light than candlelit skin, but
it’s the same moment, two bodies going back
to being themselves, the moment
of as close as already drifting, lovemaking
now as much laundry as moonlight, yet
the tree, the bodies, though fading, glow.

2. Force Majeure

The air is full of you, the window fog-bright.
With it, the candle shares our skin, glistening.
The sweat silver that marks and joins
the space of each of us crackles, fused.
We’ve forgotten how to sound words,
just the heartbeating thrum, the heft
of unison, the breath aura. Neither of us
have any awareness and will bear no witness.
Moonlight pours from your mouth. Moths
line the inside of my eyes aching for the cavern
of your throat. The vines of my arms
tangle to the wall of your soul. The room
fills with flowers already echoing with
the birdsong morning will bring.

3. After each little death

Mortality returns. Eyes come open in the dark
of being. What we were looking for shies
from thought, the bones within us settle.
We return to separate dreaming, breaths
out of canter, the perfumed flower-laden air
fallen into invisibility, a bathroom light
beacons through an ocean-dark room
looking on emptiness. Skin retakes
its statue shape and seems to hold
the outer limits of the self. No longer
emanating light, the body’s earth
slides into a soil-dark insomnia, mortality,
and it’s increasingly your own mind
that takes you to where you are.

Coda

Two hands
fingers laced
holding on
to this moment
the next and
as much of another
and ever after
as an afternoon
will allow.

* * * * *

Tim shared this poem with Ram:

Between Us, a haibun

Between us, we cannot remember everything. I throw words into the air, you listen. You throw words into the air and I hear what you say. They help us; we try. I can understand the way you feel, how you hold on. I see, as you tear, that you are holding some of my pain. In a moment, we will reach for each other, hold each other in embrace, hug, remember, try to remember; we will love, we will love and not forget…

morning glories–
the shadow
of a heart shaped leaf

In response, Ram made this pair of images, entitled “an ecstasy between us”: