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Poem Gallery - Works by Sean McGinnis

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Gothique

 

lace whales
ribbed arched vaulted chests
in heart beat's thrumm
lay unmoving, yet singing
in the stone cities.
Old ladies, who've learned to listen
to whispered prayers.
When coaxed, with agile fingers
breathe shuddering air into sleeping
souls. Moon and sun lap them
incessantly, like wakes.
Yet cold is interior space -
and golden - a broken mirror of color
their scores written across
... patterned textured colonnades.
They do not notice you as you pass
caressing their mossened stones
yes, lucid, but beyond the minute's
care - their thousand eyes focus
eternity.

 

Sean McGinnis
1995

copyright 1999

 

étoile filante

 

 

anise darkness
milky way
and seven
of them fall
while I lean
you light
a cigarette
from the wind -
flickered candle
and we laugh
Friday took the boat
to Belle Isle
we wonder when
he will come back
I wish for the return
of happiness - but
it's already come
we curl together
the night before I leave.

 

Sean McGinnis

august 1998

copyright 1999

 

 

 

Normandie

 

to the ocean
which has variations
themes and eternities
we, the different ones
seem all the same
step up or down from
here: the opening
where time is cut
step into the mouth of
the sun,
as the horseman
draws a dotted line in the sand.
Here on the edge -
where you do not much matter
make wings, make money
make love
or sit with golden brown skin
inside golden brown air and watch
the sun angle into the sea.
Tomorrow you will do the thing
you will regret, that will teach
you the greatest thing you know
that will run your tenderest truth
to the knife
but now, watch through half-eyes
sink into red skin
doze

 

 

Sean McGinnis
copyright 1994

 

Sonora on the eve of sleep...

 

 

 

White river-stone plain
folds under the wake
of coming thunder
iron-ochred leaves - make
spaces between and
cool places for
geckos to pause
The air moves with hawks
and unsettlled morning doves
the blank indigo darkness
comes, to bathe
us - to tear our fears
from our clenched hands -
Whiteness turns
gold in it's angled isolated
slants - edged with ripe plum
or maybe blood -

We search for balance
against the rain that
begins to fall in cold velvet
cups - our feet bone-to-bone
with stones -softened -
We are not the first to
run over them - to wear them down
We are the creatures under
the rock - warmly wrapped
in the others heat, that
the lizard borrows, that
is as heavy as sun-warmed
eggs buried in the sand.
We move inside - to take refuge
and pleasure there. Too long away
We, primitive
dance the medicine of creation.

 

 

Copyright Oct 1999
Sean McGinnis

 

No touch

when the darkness
gives my sight
clothing
wraps warm around it
like arms in memory
your kiss then is close
exhaling damp on my lips
the weight of your shoulders
like an archangel, waiting
to descend

Thighs astride my hips

no touch

fingers making ripples
like hill's erosion tangled
in the linen beside
my hair feels their presence

but no touch

when the darkness gives
my sight wishes, your
descent reaches
like whispers
my hair first, then
my moistened skin
slowly, please
an awakened dream
fragile in the land of form.

 

 

Sean McGinnis
23-11-1993

copyright 1999

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