I AM POETRY

Am I a poet?
Or have I only found in verse
that which was fated to disappear
from my life.

With eyes closed
to the permanence of truth,
light casts no shadow
unless I go back
to where I began.

I walk toward myself,
tattooed with silent memories,
visible only to those who have walked
the streets with me
and have witnessed
the endless reflection of stillness.

What remains in me was born from love
deeper than an ocean of words.
But waves of words carry me to safety,
and in them I seek and hope to find
my lost heart.

Beguiled by the beauty of art
and the art of beauty, I sculpt my life
from a silhouette of invisible energy
that travels from your soul to mine.

Not a shadow life filled with sorrow.
But one of fullfillment, not only from
the joy of lessons learned,
but from the anticipation
of what is yet to come.

Between within and without,
lonely but never alone,
I am poetry.

I am alive.

© JOHN PISCATELLA

LOSS

Sure of my life and your death,
I walk slowly towards
the acceptance of loss.
Slightly disoriented but never lost,
I have come far
from somewhere in the beginning,
but never fully anticipate arrival
while I continue to nostalgically walk back
to what left me behind.

Immersed in motion
in an effort to avoid
the bottomless reality that my house is
no longer a home.

I am a tireless traveller
on a quest
to find a worthy passageway
for your ashes and your restless soul.
Tied by destiny
to the quietness of blossoms,
you sleep, one with the earth,
in the most beautiful gardens in the world.

My personal journey may be unconventional,
but is no more unique
than the wandering of others
who are unable to avoid
the unavoidable shadow of loss
and the absence of love.
Unable to deny
the undeniable reality
of living in a world
of hours without hours,
we are all vulnerable to heartbreak.

Although hurt and pain are universal,
the intensity is likely proportionate
to the quality of the joy of love lost.
The priceless value
of the irrecoverable treasures
that sculpt the space between worlds.

I tug at memories
of a boy with his mother
and a man with his father;
of invisible landscapes
of friends long past gone;
of animals that were pets
and pets that were like children;
and children in hospital gowns
that left the party
long before the music played.

Life, like names, can fade,
as do the petrified faces
in the black and white photographs
hanging on the wall.
But dreams are in crystalline color;
reflections of my world,
gifts from my life
and my lifetime of gifts.

In my universe,
the greatest of all gifts is you.
Happiness is you, as is love
and where music lives.
You are moon
in a forest of stars.

Wedded soul to soul
my love,
you live in the garden within me.

It is a priviledge
to breathe the same air.

© JOHN PISCATELLA

HER NAME WAS FLORINE

If I am lost in April,
I can be found in Japan
under the rising sun
and the time past far away.

I am vulnerable today,
in between the poetry
of cherry blossoms paled in silence,
and her voice
whispering in the wind.

I can still feel her,
like silk against my skin,
when her last kiss
died against my lips.

I taste her scent of jasmine
in the air,
with memories of night rain
and lost poems.

She was the understated elegance
of a Japanese tea ceremony.
The sweet morsel to balance the taste
of the bitter green tea.
The simple flower in the sacred alcove
that changes from season to season.
The mysterious tranquil beauty
that exists just below the surface
of a well formed ceramic tea bowl
in perfect harmony with the potter
and the earth.

She was but one chance in a lifetime.
A combination of art forms
to not only be appreciated hour by hour
and year by year,
but moment by moment,
like color on rare silk
or the fragrance of a morning rose.

She was the essence of the Japanese character
that speaks of serenity found in simplicity...

Her name was Florine.

© JOHN PISCATELLA

ONE OF THEM IS YOU

The willows wept in graceful sorrow
the day our worlds changed.

Although the door
seemed closed to me forever,
it magically opened again
as I crossed the sea to Japan
to enter the Torii gates
of mystery and wonderment
that, until now, exisited
only in the garden
of our dreams.

I see you everywhere
and nowhere.

In the vast gardens
of pines and maple trees
dotted by peonies and azelas.

Amist the bamboo forest
sculpted in filtered sunlight.

On the volatile crown of Mount Fuji
temporarily frozen in time.

In the elegant voice of a geisha's walk
down the streets of Gion
on her way to perform
in a Kyoto festival
to celebrate the rites of spring.

You are the perfect precision of a Zen garden.
The calm of eternity unaffected
by the change of seasons.
Designed by an artist,
brush strokes were restyled
to become three-dimensional,
like the journey through your life.

For you,
master of your own mind and body,
nothing ever remained constant
except for the change
of constant motion
and the motion
of constant change.

According to local folklore
and the dust of destiny,
like the revered 1001 standing images
of Buddha in the temple...

one of them is you.

© JOHN PISCATELLA