The Human is Resplendent

I

Lungs

In a bed two people breathe quietly,

on their own,

each exhalation a gift to the other.

The Lungs in their infinite beauty are two lovers connected though a primary Bronchi;

two children holding hands.

their happiness is our breathing.

Surely the intimacies of breath,

intricate as lace; warm huddled mice,

most sincerest of human exchanges,

could never be replicated by anything mechanical.

In terms of this exchange, Technology is the enemy of lovers.

Why do we need Artificial, Iron Lungs?

It's enough to make one fall to pieces,

thinking about why humanity would ever replace this beautiful organ for a cold metal engine that cannot feel, nor ever replicate the finesse of the respiratory system, no matter how necessary.

I'd die than live without this original tissue.

II

Heart

I know I got a bad reputation, and it isn't just

talk

talk

talk.

The heart will selflessly love but never shed its innocence; its first.

It is only natural.

The heart is a Sequoia, the matriarch of giant pines.

In its life, it is necessary for fires of love to rage and burn,

leaving scorch marks at the base, closing in on the heartwood, never to be forgotten;

but clearing the areas around the great heart, all for it's own survival.

"You are in love, poetic fires ignite you."

If Rimbaud saw a Sequoia, he would cry.

One can be older than the Western World,

Older than Christ, today.

Can I even grasp this?

A tree older than most anything?

With respect to the Little Prince's Baobabs,

Sequoias are the beating heart of my world.

To plant one is selfless.

The heart knows its got a bad reputation, and it isn't just

talk

talk

talk.

The heart is a selfless muscle.

III

The Spinal Cord

(The Final Chord)

I'm interning at a college radio station, and when I walk towards the building,

I can't help but admire the radio tower.

It IS a spinal cord.

The show I play is a jazz show, "The Soulful Truth," it's called.

We transmit these truths through this spinal cordial radio tower to the lonely souls that may be listening.

Jazz is a sad music, and perhaps the only music fit to play over the Spinal Cord.

It's history is weeping.

Early, tragic death wastes talent like paper aimlessly crumpled and thrown into a wiry garbage bin;

missing,

it lands on the floor to collect dust in the shadows.

Coltrane died of liver cancer;

Mingus ended of an amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, he kept playing his bass until it finished him;

Monk by a stroke after six years of declining health, refusing to play his cherished piano.

No, Jazz is the only music to play over a Spinal Cordial Radio Tower.

Sad truths echo through it,

as do they in everyone.

IV

The Fingers

(each a painter)

Tiny pencils; so creative are the phalanges -

fingers

- from them does sprout all poetic love

all sketches of affection.

Impressionist rings encircle a fine digit as Monet sits on the bank of the Seine.

I tremble to think of what fires were going through Van Gogh's hands as he painted Skull with a Burning Cigarette...

Then only 4 years later births Starry Night;

the next year he walks into a field and shoots himself in July.

Years later Picasso would shock the world as his fingers became revolutionaries.

My hands? No where near as thrilling as theirs, but I give it thought.

A boy traces his fingers over her neck,

circling 'round her ear;

under her chin;

over her collar bone;

all in crafted rhythms hinted at through simple ink drips.

Soft and sweet do the fingers write our thoughts on the smooth skin of others,

but only when given the gift of such a fine canvas, a lover.

A girl sits over a sketch board, pencil in hand;

and he, behind her, shades his emotions on the easel of her back;

perfectly formed around her shoulder blades are poems of fire from his heart's written desire.

Your fingers are perfect studies of da Vinci;

tiny and innocent, unique in their caress of mine own.

Your hands, as they find themselves in my palms, relax.

Breathe steadily, and I can feel your pulse under your wrist.

V

The Shoulder blades

A remarkable feature of the torso are the shoulder blades;

two beautiful plates, that, when I place my hand just slightly beneath,

I can feel your heart beating, as my heart responds.

And to even contain my happiness, my smile, is impossible.

For you are you.

And I am further filled to the brim with joy at your reaction to my levity, your beauty.

VI

The Back

(hunched over)

While the spine is a radio tower transmitting personal electricity,

the back is another story.

Hunched, does it radiate with the dismality of the let down,

framed by a skeletal gown

of ribs.

Sulking reveals:

the spot where the head meets the neck,

the spot where dreams are regurgitated

the spot where Man is most innocent.

The back be not shaped of clay,

for it would melt with passions,

melt with the joys of love

first experienced by one child.

But the back be not shaped of glass, either,

for the constant sulking of

consistent disappointments

would break one child.

Instead, the back be shaped of raw metals.

Fresh from the fires of birth,

does it take twenty years to cool? To Harden?

Does it take twenty years to become cold to the world?

Does it take twenty years to lose ones childhood?

VII

The Back

(erect)

Pert and alert. She sits on the edge of the bed.

Her metal has cooled, and her back is taught, straight and bare.

Topless she gets up and pours a glass of milk, returning to sit on the edge of the bed,

an alien.

A stiff back is unhappy. It has hardened, no longer malleable by the same lies I have mistakenly repeated.

A stiff back has little to say.

Although given the chance, I would say to it,

"I am not sorry we loved,

I am not sorry it is over,

nor am I sorry there is nothing left to say."

A stiff back echoes words.

Rigid, she gets puts a camisole on and leaves the room to do something more important than address

the white elephant in the room, me.

My back, stiff too, from a poor night of sleep, slowly fills with the pain and soreness of anger at my ignorance.

The next night she lies comfortably on her back, another's fingers caress it and know it's secrets.

The birth mark beneath her shoulder.

The scare above her buttocks.

The place where her hair falls on her back is special, once mine.

That night I lay on my stomach, and cannot sleep.

VIII+

(More to come eventually)