Kisses - Beautiful Poetic Words from Adolfo...

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Kisses to Remember

Every kiss has its story--

No two of them being alike,

Or countable--

As any two flakes of snow

Has fallen to the ground

Or

To gain new form

From the same creator

Oh, Catullus!

We have had our Lesbia,

Her body covered

With a thousand kisses

Diminished to one hundred

Only to give a thousand more,

And how sweet they were

When each kiss

Reciprocating

Counted to infinity!

In giving light to darkness,

We challenged death and time!

Passion driven

Each kiss produced

The intended pleasure

Against the backdrop

Of ever-present pain.

To you, Strega!

Liquefying within

We responded

To our very beat

As though there was

No rhythm or rhyme

Other

Than that of our own cadence—

No rhyme here

Except for the accidental

“Skin” and “chin”

And no specific meter,

Except for how many feet

One wants to count

Into any one line,

Of my broken verses.

But to you, alas, sweet Lesbia,

Every kiss is gone:

Ephemera has taken command

And my memory bank is empty.

A placid chiaroscuro gives life

To two women in an evening chat,

The flames from the fire lighten their faces;

Hardly three-years-old,

On my mother’s lap,

Rubbing my hand

Against the smooth skin

Under her chin,

My first memory:

She took my hand,

Brought it to her mouth,

And kissed it,

Adoringly.

Oh, Pauline, auburn-hair,

Freckled-face teenager—

At the summer beach house,

She pulled me to her face

To trembling lips--

Still vibrating after so many years!

No friendship, thereafter,

Nor longed-for second kisses.

On playing in the water the next day,

She, sitting on top of my shoulders

Wrestling with our opponents,

Almost drowned me--

From sheer weight of her size.

Not even the ménage

Of Catullus with Lesbia and Sappho

With their

One thousand kisses and more

Can compare with the kiss

Of Rose Marie,

In the back seat of my friend’s car.

Having been rebuffed

On my first and only attempt,

I settled into the seat

In complete dejection--

A pro of rejection

Beyond compare.

Suddenly she turned and said,

“Only once will I kiss you,”

And proceeded without approval.

Heaven help me!

Not only was it the longest,

But the deepest!

I comprehended its value

Only after comparing it,

Un-enviously,

To the thousand and more kisses

Of Catullus with Sappho

And his sweetest Lesbia.

Different still was Marilyn’s kiss:

On leaving the office at Christmas,

She stood me against the wall

With a kiss rivaling that of Rose-Marie,

And more,

Much more!

Tremors shook my very being.

No liberation of an earthly soul,

Or the tremors felt by those in Dante’s heaven

Can compare to that kiss.

No! My being locked

As in a prison;

My bones

Helplessly

Shivered out of control.

Our last hug came later

At her summoning

In one encounter.

She said her last goodbye

With an unexpected

Gentle and light kiss.

She had cancer and never told me.

By myself in a compartment

In a train from Padova,

This young woman

With wispy auburn hair

Sat opposite me,

Her scattered belongings

Pointing to either a medical student

Or accidental tourist

From Midwest USA.

Politely, I asked;

Surprisingly,

She confirmed

My prediction of a tourist

When she mentioned Giotto,

Whose Chapel in Padua

Quickly became the catalyst.

She listened about my son’s reaction

To the figures in hell,

Wherein he began

Uncontrollably

To cry over the possibility

That his grandfather

Might soon be one of them.

And my denial of that impossibility

Did not diminish his unending tears.

At the train-stop,

I got up to say goodbye,

At which point she stood up,

Came face to face,

And kissed me ever so gently

And for such a long time

As to seem the sweetest of an eternity--

A kiss that has remained indelible

To this very day!

On returning home

I knew I had met the angel

That placed me

On the right road to paradise,

Affirming,

For the first time,

The role of true angels in our lives.

Of all the kisses

Remembered or otherwise,

The ones missed are just as memorable,

And their aura just as real.

Laverne, in the post office,

Forlorn as any woman,

Un-attractive

But as full of desires,

Stood behind the window.

Driven

By an un-explained compulsion

I brought my face to hers

And stopped.

Her large lips remaining dry,

Sweetness all but gone--.

That I didn’t kiss her

Continues to

Haunt my memory.

As un-explainable

Was the aura of another kiss

That did not take place

And should have.

My neighbor, fresh from divorce,

Unexpectedly revealed her soul.

Her grief

Over the children’s fate

Being greater than

The sadness

Over broken relations

Dramatically culminated

Into an ethos of bewildering emotions.

Her face coming down towards me

Seeking relief

Was met half way

Over mistaken signals

Of cowardice or false circumspection.

That moment remains alive

With its aura as palpable

As if the kiss had taken place.

The aura of kisses disappear

When love and love-making

Become synonymous,

When

            The simple

After-kiss

Seals the phenomena

Of its aftermath,

While we fall asleep

With the sensation

That heaven has magically

Come down to earth,

And we are entering its paradise.

--Adolph Caso