Poetry: Selections from Rosaria Caporrimo

Haunted Tear

 

A fatted tear runs down

the gentle slope of aging cheek,

the crevice of a line,

a valley

concealed from all but she who knows,

reaching upper lip it pauses,

genuflects,

and recovers the memory,

glides softly over bottom lip

waiting to be licked,

to disappear into the abyss,

but no,

it stops mid-lip

and dries,

leaving only the treasure

of the thought,

the lingering salt

of yesterdays unfulfilled.

Ghosts

There are ghosts in this bed,

prickly, sticky ghosts

inside my head, my brain,

in synapses

that engender both grief and delight.

 

They squirm, whisper, warn,

do I dare allow myself to succumb?

For ghosts do not abide well,

they rise up, ethereal as they are,

haunt, crawl into the abyss of spirit.

 

Might we, should we

provoke the ghosts,

challenge their authority,

and will they rest

sublime or insouciant?

Perhaps they will writhe out

and allow us into the space

they once inhabited.

Capitalist

 

Waking in the night

jolting upright

without a name to call his terror,

 

A great yawn of madness

hissed at his window and

called him to repentance.

 

Sweet sleep did not come easy,

how to rest when innocent waifs

of a different blush  

lie like wreckage in

the crevices of his pin-striped suit.

 

He is tempted by the soul’s illusion,

for fruit of invisible starvation

and in his smug demeanor

he dares to lack the insight

to mourn, to bemoan

the sadness of the night’s discontent.

 

Can he not hear the voices of the silent martyrs

screaming in the ignorance of his bliss?

Snake Dance

A coiled snake this life,

ready to strike and it does

in unexpected measures and rhymes

 

Charm dancing to a melody

in some sprite’s ears

 

Come listen and arise,

twist and turn

in the wake of the song,

a psalm to eternity

Daybreak at Court Green

 

Tears fall slowly,

               ruby droplets on pale canvas,

dragging their heartbreak, their misfortune,

                leaving tracks of burgundy blood dust

to greet the morning’s waiting sun.

 

Yawning,

she opens dark dungeon eyes,

knowing nothing of the night’s travails,

         seeing only what others have dictated

as proper, as acceptable to hearth and home,

seeing only the fresh face of

dawn’s day

          and mouths

          waiting to be fed.

(First published online in Plath Profiles, Volume 7)

Rosaria Caporrimo has been haunted by the muse since childhood.  She was a professor of psychology at City University of New York for many years and continues to teach adjunct courses online for Montclair State University.  However, she remained true to her calling and has always been a poet, writer, and actor, and is also proud to have the title, “Nonna,” to her four beloved grandbabies. Her poetry has appeared in several journals, both print and online. (The muse continues to haunt…)