Like that.
June 30th, 2007 by Matt
For my money, Tim Seibles is one of the greatest living American poets. I’ve just recently cracked into his latest book, Buffalo Head Solos, and I wish I’d started it sooner. It’s one of those books that you realize you didn’t realize you were waiting for. Also, it must be said that his book Hurdy-Gurdy is absolutely masterful. If you’re looking for accessible, heart-aching and heart-lifting art, well, that book doesn’t make a misstep. (Just as an FYI, I’ll be reviewing Buffalo Head Solos in the not-so-distant future.)
I came across a poem of his the other day that just needed to be shared, that I think folks will be able to relate to quite easily, that jacked up the endorphins going to my head, or heart, or head-heart, whatever it is that makes us love anything in this world. And frankly, this poem is so kick-me-in-the-keister good, I wanted an excuse to type it. I hope you dig. Reading it is three minutes well spent.
- - - - -
FIRST KISS
Her mouth
fell into my mouth
like a summer snow, like a
5th season, like a fresh
like
whimper with the liquid
tilt of her hips –
her kiss hurt like that –
I mean, it was as if she’d mixed
the sweat of an angel
with the taste of a tangerine,
I swear. My mouth
had been a helmet forever
greased with secrets, my mouth
a dead-end street a little bit
lit by teeth — my heart, a clam
slammed shut at the bottom of a dark,
but her mouth pulled up
like a baby-blue Cadillac
packed with canaries driven
by a toucan — I swear
those lips said bright
wings when we kissed, wild
and precise — as if she were
teaching a seahorse to speak –
her mouth so careful, chumming
the first vowel from my throat
until my brain was a piano
banged loud, hammered like that –
it was like, I swear her tongue
was Saturn’s 7th moon –
hot like that, hot
and cold and circling,
circling, turning me
into a glad planet –
sun on one side, night pouring
her slow hand over the other: one first
flying like the kite of another.
Her kiss, I swear — if the Great
Mother rushed open the moon
like a gift and you were there
to feel your shadow finally
unhooked from your wrist.
That’d be it, but even sweeter –
like a riot of peg legged priests
on pogo-sticks, up and up,
this way and this, not
falling but on and on
like that, badly behaved
but holy — I swear! That
kiss, both lips utterly committed
to the world like a Peace Corps,
like a free story, forever and always
a
doors — like that, I swear,
like that.
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