IRENE CAESAR: CONFINED VERSE, CONTENTS




CONFINED VERSE
	1 When sun wipes shadows off your face... 2 The Mirror 3 My days are burned inside of hollow mornings... 4 My date of birth in rhyme with yours... 5 You wooed me with your eyes... 6 Spring was a morning to wake up from sleep... 7 I spend these days in conquering a fortress... 8 You grow in me with every sip of water... 9 If not right now... 10 I have so many images of me... 11Show me the art of February winds... 12 Tell me today, this moment... 13 Florence 14 Now it’s my turn... 15 I died when I was thirty-seven... 16 My best confession would be for the stranger... 17 When stones have made the deeper scratches... 18 Tell me who’s lying next to you... 19 You want a candy... 20 I bought myself a ring, got married to myself... 21 How do you know my language... 22 I heard the sound of raining in your voice... 23 Epitaph on the death of Professor Isenberg 24 You tamed all things, wild around me... 25 Upon your pliant wax of languor... 26 >At the forbidden speed, I fall or maybe rise... 27 I had a dream at night that I belong to you... 28 Who made you a cello? Who made me a bow? ... 29 I cannot break today the glass of silence... 30 I got a scarf, I got a scar on forty-second... 31 Those who transgress the law of cyclic motion... 32 You are my dream of you -- I am your dream... 33 I needed snow to cover all the black... 34 You made me drink my metal days... 35 No, not an icicle to break in frozen hands... 36 My leaves are rustling when your boughs... 37 My thoughts of you are fish, elusive, fast and frightened... 38 When you are next to me, when you have tuned... 39 Narcissus 40 At four twenty-five your eyes will untie... 41 Don’t touch me with your tongue to take me in... 42 I need to rest within your moving eyes... 43 I saw your eyes of blue, my eyes becoming blue... 44 Behind the dirty glass, you saw my eyes... 45 Each day I take one step towards your wistful hands... 46 This sound has to last long until my breath is over... 47 And on the threshold of your eyes, in swelter... 48 I left my warm and breathing home... 49 This hidden link between us is my vocal cord... 50 I am your Holy Virgin – I conceive... 51 When you had broken for me your shell... 52 May I tell you about this day in May... 53 I tied with your rope my things and my words... 54 Three nuns with parchment on transparent ancient faces... 55 Turn on the light – I am my eyes... 56 If only eyes could drink, and lips could see... 57 From raw and roaring earth burst shooting sprouts... 58 Was I the train when racing with nights rough from rust... 59 In this city which scrapes the sky will we bleed? ... 60 You are the mighty master of your tiny toys... 61 I learn this dance from you – to touch the floor with ears... 62 Some people dress up in sly stones when they lie... 63 I do not own my hands and eyes... 64 You looked at me so close from far away... 65 How well I know – within the low and bated sound... 66 Who is born from the womb returns in the womb... 67 A particle after a particle... 68 You watch over me – you swaddled my weeks in the twilight... 69 It takes four ears to tune to the impatient bird... 70 I never touched myself like this before... 71 I drained away the silent stagnant water... 72 No, not a victim – you are still the ballerina... 73 Each space plays its own silent music... 74 I never knew that eyes could slash a space... 75 I want to draw how you can be the water... 76 We are given the script and the score... 77 For you it took the strain of tying in a knot... 78 There is a glue that fastens stronger than your blood... 79 I want to be a hive for your impetuous bees... 80 You move your silent fingers on the black and white... 81 You were the missing piece in my entangled puzzle... 82 It was the way you touched that book... 83 When some are breaking from the pressure of a pose... 84 Between us seven hours, and they do not leave... 85 Between us seven hours, and I fall asleep... 86 When shadows from the trees are ten times longer than the trees... 87 Down the long tightrope splitting the left from the right... 88 I should not let my darkness hunt me with black hounds... 89 Look, what I have become – I’m running water... 90 I want to learn from you the precision of dance... 91 I-know-you-know that you can make me feel... 92 Your eyes are carrying the imprint of my eyes... 93 I cannot lay you in the short stiff beds of words... 94 My hands are seeking you within the caves of sheets... 95 When the morning dew erases the edges of things... 96 I do not know what I desire more... 97 What is this force that hauls me to your eyes...> 98 Only one sip of your persistent flow – one drop... 99 The night is soot – up to the sky, and smoke – down to the earth... 100 Only one drop of you – it is still falling... 101 Your eyes inside my crumpled paper lamps... 102 You gave me too much presence of myself... 103 We don’t say words in our silent movie... 104 Each day I watch a ribbon of your silent film... 105 My fury of fugue is ready to become... 106 This city teaches us to frame our eyes – the raw graffiti...		107 I slept with September. I conceived you from blue... 108 Your eyes are shining in my crumpled paper lamps... 109 You were the pause between the words of all your lovers... 110 I am preserved by you within that rainy evening... 111 In the cathedral with the showering of tears... 112 I want to be blind – to know you by touch... 113 I let you in. You dwelled in me so long... 114 You fell on me – the weight of crashing boulders... 115 Your roots must burn inside the oven of my thighs... 116 The autumn world has reached the state of tarnished bronze... 117 Silenced by the rattle from the things of iron... 118 The Fall is late: my feet have touched the ground... 119 My eyes are copper coins – I mint them with your face... 120 Why is such heavy sorrow in these rising voices... 121 You know the secret of the silence... 122 I hide in things my formless longing for your presence... 123 Tightly holding on to his body with your arms and knees... 124 You scattered with your breath my town... 125 There are the apple-trees that never blossom... 126 You don’t forget to listen to your inner music... 127 You hold me by your side, some place I never saw... 128 I’m filled with your sky to the edge – I can’t breathe... 129 I write you in my body with the sighs of vowels... 130 We bleed with paint, still trying to play chess... 131 My words to you become the plaster cast... 132 No power to speak, but still I have my tongue to lick... 133 Look at the blinding light through the mosaic of my eyes... 134 You don’t give water to prolong my thirst... 135 I’m painting your image upon the crumpled paper of days... 136 I put on a skirt with blossoming flowers on it... 137 Wind was my roommate in the halls of the bewildered winter... 138 We are wed by the days that are bent in the ring... 139 I saw two lovers sitting by each other... 140 Our blood is more alike than of a father and a daughter... 141 I like that you are old enough to be my father... 142 There is an hour, with clocks of the summer melting... 143 Pas de Deux 144 We watch ourselves performing on the stage... 145 For you, I broke the bones of frames... 146 I watch today how woken clouds... 147 Astringent as wine, but stronger than any wine... 148 I need you to sculpture my body from sand 149 Run to me, run across all rushing streets... 150 I learn from you the tender movements of my hands... 151 No, I will not tell you what I want to tell – I will make... 152 When I look at you, afar, who feels... 153 Epictetus told me: “Prepare your mind. You should go... 154 Today remain in the shadow – let me imagine... 155 >When doors don’t protect and don’t let out... 156 I am a cripple – I depend on you: upon your eyes... 157 No, do not leave me now, do not abort... 158 I like your narcissism... 159 Who are you? I do not know you... 160 Taboo 161 You say to me the words said only to own children... 162 You shed your skin – I watch the pulsing of your flesh... 163 You take the energy, ticking in the pendulums of clocks... 164 You are only my memory – my unattainable tint... 165 Lying on the edge between the raw anxiety of waves... 166 You make me feel I am Carrara overwhelmed 167 I wonder whether, like Cavafy, I will ever write to... 168 When fish fear water and birds fear height; when night fears darkness... 169 The earth is full with coal... 170 What if my thoughts of you are but the substance... 171 I know you the way sick animals know... 172 I contracted a dangerous disease, because you have... 173 It happened when you took a picture of people in a... 174 I am a worm corrupting pages of your memory... 175 I put away my best apparel. I keep it for my days... 176 You say you are an ordinary man. You lie. Your eyes... 177 I think you are now sitting by the ocean. I think of you... 178 I learn to be again light-minded... 179 My rare strange friend, the lover of exotic colors... 180 Your friend had given me a picture of you... 181 How I would wish that moment to continue... 182 You wakened in me a small animal – a rodent, with all... 183 You tempt me to diminish myself... 184 What happened to me this year? – Once I smelled an orange just peeled off... 185 Harlem 186 Life is a tavern. Say: “Cheers!” Say: “Che-ese!”... 187 Tonight, undressed, asleep, I saw through my eyelids... 188 Adsum 189 I saw a crying woman on a train, the trembling woman... 190 You say you want to be a soldier... 191 May. All that may move moves out of the framed... 192 Which way did you go home – down Lexington?... 193 Tell me...