Three Poems by Frank Graziano

painting by Auguste Renoir, 1881 

Full Moon Over Las Galeras

Islands surface as the mist
lifts and if the light is right
you see bodies phosphorescent
in moonlight like oversized
bioluminescent specimens
with one (me) awkward,
gawky, a self-conscious caricature
of inhibition.

I try to disguise my vulnerability
with serenity. I knew to move
through your affection gently.
I hold you close in a float of elation,
drifting toward myself drifting
with you, entangled in your body,
settling toward something like peace.

Your seductive elegance
spreading out on the surface
of the water, discreet,
understated, the tactile sensation
of your gaze almost like a shadow
that you lift to put a kiss
on my face and your stressless
touch subtle as sekishu.

With sufficient humility maybe
we could spread some grace.

A Sunset Picnic At The River, With Entomological Commentary

Suddenly in the serenity
and spontaneity and intense simplicity
of this moment you’re dumbstruck
by the epiphany that you’re not at home
in the home you built around yourself.

          A beetle’s prehistoric crawl
          across a salami sandwich is eternal
          because the oversized carapace drags.

You’re on shore leave
from yourself, homebound
and restless, half housebroken
and half—what?—ungrateful,
undomesticatable.

A picnic blanket cornered
with stones, moss
on polished river rock
ebbed happily in backwash,
a pug-nosed tugboat pitching
on the swells and a kayak
cradling in the wake.

          A line of ants in military formation
          returning to the hill with crumbs.

Sometimes near the naval base
a submarine surfaces with eerie
slow-motion hallucinatory irreality
like a mechanized whale breaching
from a post-coital nightmare.

          Moths fluttering in panicked
          elliptical orbits suddenly divebomb
          suiciding into the lantern
          and the cascade of mothdust
          in gravitation downdraft
          settles gently on your sandwich.

Nightfall and a silhouette of trees.
You have to clear away
the emotional debris that impedes
acquiescence to complacency.

Trading Fours

I must be someone
—Fernando Pessoa

How often can you reinvent
self-identity before collisions
of abandoned selves fleeing for the door
leave you wounded in the crush?

          A rocking chair in ghostly
          slowing auto-animation
          when a woman rises
          in haste (too late) for the phone.

My face is the mask
I give to the world
while depleting reserves
of self-deception.

          A lamplit still life, bruised fruit in a bowl.
          An hourglass among houseplants.
          A lost sock in dust fuzz under the couch
          and the acoustics of an empty kitchen.

Beneath my humility, even shame,
can they see the pride I hide
also from myself, the vulnerability
camouflaged with apathy?

          The rolling glide of pool balls
          on felt over slate. Sonnetized pain
          because this blessing is a curse.
          Cave walls saturated with echoes.

I think life loves living
the lie of becoming.
Is the wreckage baggage?
Test reality where it hurts.

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