An Impression

"On some spiritual quest, we often deny surfaces, decide they are something to move beyond, across, behind, a mask for a motive force. Yet they are our interface. We search endlessly behind things, as if that desire were all, to be sublimated. These are the spaces moved through by Willy Chica’s poetry. Each poem is a gentle fold, a reverential offering to the pyre of ‘becoming’.

In this digital world of poetry sharing, what is unseen is the corporeal self. These are poems of yearning, ambiguous, yet with constant reference to the absent body, the other, woven, “in loomlike bed/ inserting, in pulling/ inlaying, a crafting” Here is a face, a hand, a You, all this reverence, for what is unseen, all this self –unsettling, these strange coils of matter, we see briefly, through tiny word-like portals.

Unified interiors, infinite exteriors, this “Private Sea” the title, quoted from Thoreau, expansive and incomplete, is glimpsed in flashes which punctuate these precisely worded (inter)expressions.

Will’s poems are sensual, a strong chiaroscuro encounter with light and shadow, which shows where the body lays, where the experience is revealed and obscured. They resonate with an affection we cannot help but imagine into, reanimated by our own imaginations, by our own love."

Amanda Joy

I Chance Upon

 

I chance upon your book today
(which I sent for you to write on).
I open it, eager to read thereon
all that you truly want to say.

So pleased to find your pearls, my dear.
(precious, pure, and rare in afterglow)
They bring back those mornings we knew,
when love was fresh and so fair

In thrall I read on...
what is this?
(a pictured canoe almost sunk!)
Inserted love notes, candid frank;
gleeful messages and a kiss?

My heart stops.
Gasps.
Too shocked to see.
(not my island but nearer shore).
These letters are,
I am stabbed in core,
for that new other.
No, not for me

My world stands still now.
This moment
(in this unsaid, this unknowing)
freezes time and space, ravelling
past promise to predicament.

You must read this,
my dear heart's friend:
(from way way back, you say Grade Two?)

I writhe in pain as lovers do
I write of pain so heart can mend

This Poem Wasn't

This poem wasn't of woman born

from seed of stranger dumb
planted in my mind's womb

multiplying in gestate
in cauldron inchoate

seeking life force to feed
a cry of love and need

'twas but a tiny thread
woven in loomlike bed

inserting, in pulling
inlaying, a crafting

of fabric into quilt
in patterns of my kilt

Aspire

Who thought it first I do not seek
(some say 'twas probably a Greek);

Neither how nor why it came to be
the measure of things mind can't see,

The fabric without stitch nor seam,
nexus of the one, the only realm,

This house, this home in time and space
we dwell in now then relinquish

To who knows what we were begat
before we were when we were not

This body, this soul, this form and shape
(some say came from that ancient ape);

This mold of wax and wick on fire
burning abode of an aspire

To become that emerging thing
which was always that very being

Always is and always will be
Self of this world and self of me.

The Talker

The talker in my head
thinks he's me.
The fool.

Doesn't he know,
if he ever did,
that some One
stole my soul

and sent it home
to the Whole?

Watching A Stripper

Some say it's all about a four-letter word : love
longing to break free from lacerating lust's glove
or the other way round, lust lolling in linen trove,
beguiling mind and eye, the crow decked as dove.

Who was it who said (ah, dear old Shakespeare)
that lust's an expense of spirit in , oh dear,
a waste of shame? I say lust's not love's lair:
its desires not disciplined for union and care.

Don't ask me what it's like in the dark,
watching you strip, miming the gross and stark
scenario of sexual sin where you are the spark
which sets fire to and fans the lusty lark.

I am a man like other men, with libido
which often leads, as drink and blind ambition do,
to paths and pitfalls i dare not go
when sober and the risk and loss i know.

Our minders tell us it's all for Art:
that what we witness is but woven part
of a greater whole with moral to impart,
the hook to reveal a hooker's heart.

Aye, there's the rub--such dreams you tease
with now celebrated fancy and ease
may, as siren songs to returning Ulysses,
waylay the voyage to where home and love is.

If this, your latest pose, couples commerce
to Art, good luck. But I'd rather, for my peace,
not pay for the bawdy trip, seductive Rossana.
Better to watch Madonna mime the late, lost Evita

He Said. She said.

1

He: I rise from dreams of thee
She: I dream of rises from thee

11

He: A good man is hard to find
She: A hard man is good to find

111

She: How do you love me?
He: Want me to count the ways?
She: Of course, my lusty dear!
He: You'll faint when I ravish and tear

1V

He: I love thee for reasons sentimental!
She: Even in my seasons menstrual?

V

He: My desire of you no question begs
She: I know. You want to live between my legs!

A Review

"This collection explores a personal yet universal journey. The poems triangulate meanings of heart, mind and soul with effortless simplicity. They set an intimate trail dusted in glitter where a matrix of music and questioning thought converges to stimulate on every level, creating a wondrous experience. "

Lana Deym Campbell

Dawn Sky

I rose at dawn today as usual
to sit in silence outside
only to be flooded
by the silver white shine
of a full moon
descending to the west.

Captured, captivated
by this caress,
I stood and gazed,
light of body and spirit,
till the moon dipped
behind the rooftops,

only to notice
the dimmed Dipper,
overhead distant Saturn
and Venus rising regally.

Then to the south,
brightly still,
hung the pearl necklace
of the Southern Cross.

And I thought of you.
I still do.

Hand Writing

Arriving to my eyes expectant,
your note tugs for touch,
my hand is your longing want
for mouth to voice a hush.

You wrote this. Your pen
was here, in these lines I trace
with mine, shaping a ken
in words of fond embrace.

Writing as if your hand is mine
and mine is yours;

Your hand in my glove
my glove on your hand;

Thinner than skin
distance (between us)
disappears in.

What Child Is This?

I have thoughts of this.
I will not think them.

I have feelings for this.
I will not feel them.

I have words for this.
I will not utter them.

I am rock.

Proof

Thomas of Aquin,
he of mind so keen,
had proofs of God unseen.

What he didn't know
I know: the proof of God
is You.

Poetry by Willy Fred Chica

My first collection of poems published elsewhere on the Web,
of which a dear friend had this review:

"This collection explores a personal yet universal journey. The poems triangulate meanings of heart, mind and soul with effortless simplicity. They set an intimate trail dusted in glitter where a matrix of music and questioning thought converges to stimulate on every level, creating a wondrous experience. "

Lana Deym Campbell