Peter Ciccariello

 

 

Lovecraft’s Litany

“I never can be tied to raw, new things...”

— Howard Phillips Lovecraft

I am the drops of rain against your face the arctic wind brushed with ice the ochre leaves stuck to the pavement the smashed acorns the living souls of manic squirrels the capricious caw of invisible crows swarming the Gingkos and Oaks the bloodless granite the pocked white marble the ancient verdigris the twisted iron the rusted gate the crumbling Georgian bricks the chalky mortar I am this necropolis I am the silence that surrounds the seeker I am the shadow that flits across the path the blink of an eye the weight in a heart the tremor in the fingers the haunting darkened strolls the empty streets I am the missing chair the “flight of steps with iron rail” the closing door the candle flame the empty plate the vast green lawn the bucolic boulders the part no one knows the hidden yearnings the fear of self the lost dreams the watery blood the weak grip the frail heart the faltering voice the still water one tiny seven-pointed maple leaf the bubbling grief

O the failure

O the failure

O the drops of water in the lungs

O the iron clouds and the nephritic kidneys

The endless blue sky

The single missed chance

This eternal Bardo of swans

I am the train that never comes

The lost white bones

I am the voice that will not speak

“I am Providence”

© Peter Ciccariello

RAIN

© Peter Ciccariello

The rain of everyone being

silver drops hitting the steel roof

smashing cold and shattered against our faces

spraying its loop of smaller drops

then loops of smaller drops

her eyes lost in the darkness

of the smallest drops

this night embracing us gently

this rain clinking on the metal sky

slopping on the blacktop

this faint smell of sea water

wafting in over the rise of the moraine

this darkness like a thick black rug

pulled over the sky

her eyes the clearest brightest blue

her arms around my neck

my face against her cheek

the rain filming down between our bodies

the river of her lips

it is raining everywhere

tonight

this rain holding the sea

this woman holding me

tonight

our flesh pulls apart

thousands of tiny cells in innocent pain

our living intelligence

furtively glancing around

the web of connections

rapidly forming

in the spaces left

where we were

only moments before

© Peter Ciccariello

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