James Mancinelli

Asturias


I wanted everything in
my mouth.   Your hands,
the notes, the orange,
its aftertaste on the body
of your tongue, your guitar
caressed against the dark                
Moors in mountains
delicate sadness pulling me,
hungry, tears yours rolling
into the sound hole
disappeared before I had a
chance to drink.


                       * * *


This is Love
          --for SB

They are lovers and you’ve seen them do this.

They take turns watching, then feeding, so natural and meaningless. 

Water-birds.  Trust.

I’ll watch the sky; you work to build the furnace that we’ll need in the bedchamber.

They switch and one will peck for anything in the shape of another day of life.

They waddle, they build, they take stock of the size of shadows. 

The direction of wind.

This is love.  The attention, moments of work, an abrupt flutter

a turn to say Here we are together, the settling down.

* * *

Jim Mancinelli Bio: His first chapbook, Primer, was self-published.  His second chapbook, In Deep, was published by Plan B Press.  His writing is informed by the spirit, the earth, the heavens, the voices of his Italian heritage.  His poems have appeared in various issues of Philadelphia Poets, The Schuylkill Valley Journal of the Arts, Sea Change, Mad Poets Review, Fox Chase Review and Poetry Ink, an anthology of Philadelphia poets. He has been a featured reader in various Philadelphia, New Jersey and Delaware venues and a featured reader on Live from Kelly Writer’s House.  He was selected as a finalist in the2011 Atlanta Queer Literary Festival, judged by Mark Doty.  Jim’s latest work is a poetic sequence entitled The Bartimeus Poems for which he also did the improvisational drawings.  He is the moderator and founder of the Moveable Beats Reading Series  in Philadelphia, which began in 2007.  Jim teaches in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders  at La Salle University in Philadelphia.