Saudade by Max Bleiweis

Wildered pain echoes in the rib 

forgotten suffocated 

The earthly serapis 

Buried in Turkish waters

The body defaced  

Gently like sugar under the tongue 

By serene pleasures 

ether and smoke 

Seductive melodies of split fig 

Shades and porcelain thighs 

Laced maroon 

Like the withering decadence of

Chinese calligraphy 

Burning 

The amber’s

soft touch of ecstasy 

Laying Venus among holy Buddha 

Thighs laying upon each other 

Moist steam of untouched sensation 

Sticky with the ache of death 

Smoky smears of the painters brush 

Folding curves of mellowed fabric 

The beetle resting 

between the pouring of souls 

Absinthe filled nights 

Down dying streets 

Luminescent Meiji fans held 

By French whores

To Duval’s wine-scented whisper

Scribbled into papyrus 

To look into the sea and be reminded whole 

The resignation of the already dead 

The first line reminiscent of the slaughtered lamb 

Lament for the gypsy moon 

Faint sparks upon the floor 

Green valleys submerging under the skin 

Read to me as you do yourself 

Cotton next to ink next to flesh 

The warm darkness of dark gold 

The serpents Apple 

The cicatrix 

The rubbing itch 

That breathed the flame of life 

Inexorable beauty indulging in holy hedonism 

The blushed bulge of holy time 

hidden by the cubists 

Yet deeply understood 

The angle of the pelvis

Aching to the arching softness of the belly button 

Well defined yet loose the mist of time 

What does the writer do abroad 

He remembers 

Like we didn’t part 

This is all I know 

Imitation of things past 

Sunken deep the mediocrity 

Of time 

Aching for the muse 

The acolyte 

Sunken wine stained lips

Bitter ash of the tongue 

Tainted black polish

Punishing in between buttons 

The indecency  

Submerged in lust

In her mind 

The blood that glistens 

On the sheets and

Spills on the satin and silk

Of the thirsting poet 

In the exiliar of time 

dripping down fingers 

whose red ribbon adorns

a lyre without a pulse, and oils the torch

Grasping against necks

Our mouths to the frozen spout

Of unstaunched velvet 

Beauty is but ecstasy enveloped in pain 

And ever aching pain which bites bitterly 

Drunk from red pools in honeyed thigh 

The dirt of shadows

 melting the souls into violence and vituperation 

The haze of sandy metropolis the sunken beauty of all things past 

Of violet and olive green 

Mythic carved marbles forgotten in Sicilian fields 

Like raw rose crystal dripping

The sediment of the sun