Poetry by Tomasz (Thomas) Gil

Open the Eye

We close the eyes of the dead
Because that's a gate and road
Where we do not wish to walk

And cover the trauma and wound
Because such body, live and open,
Points to the circuits of soul

Us, living and well, we hide our sex
Since it's a wound - never healing
And the spirit's eye - ever open

But it is a live wire
Connecting you and me and the other world
A way of going to sleep

While the dream moves us to wake
Not in the bedroom or dark alley of shame
Not in the grip of regret and scorn

But crowned by moon, sun and stars
And blessed by flutterings of grace
Where Time like a dove lands in St Francis' hands.

Dec 2002, Aug 2006

Ladder

For a while now I have been
A puddle of tactile material
A stirred up tangle of nerves
And strands of muscle

Surely soon a kind hand
Will reach into the heap of flesh
And form again my eyes and lips
Attach hands and feet
And add an extroverted cock.

It is like building a ladder
From the ground up
Bone on muscle, muscle on bone
Veins and ligaments - a tender tie.

Tiny vessels fill up gladly
Drawing the juices upwards
With a hiss - snakelike arms climb up
To create my head and heart.

They slice my mouth open
Smear venom on my tongue
Marble thighs engulf my hips
And stream out my life.

This is man - a fragile plant
Built for someone to reach heaven.

Oct 30,31 2006
Nov 20, 2006

Winter approaching

Again winter's hand
Holds up this bitter capsule
Filled with black poison
Terrible yet so mild.

Biting it causes no revulsion
Or grimace - just calm
And strange solace
Unfolding in the veins.

Is it a new being? Is it you?
Born in this gentle collapse,
Put your hand on the nape
Of my neck - turn off the lights.

If I'm awake or asleep
This hand holds my head
And guides me to a dream
In the cave of your lips.

This is how I will live
Through winter's deathly caress
A loving touch is a gift
Of faith and nothingness.

Oct 6, 2006

In soft murmur

In my right hand I carry
The shape of your buttock
And in the left the roundness
Of breast and shoulder.

On the street, among the crowd,
I often stop and allow the plant
Of your perfection to sprout
And bloom in a flower of pleasure.

People are amazed
By the way apples roll
Into my hand and glow
When I eat - each is last.

It is not memory - because
We both know that you don't exist
It is with my hands that I create
And love those who are not.

Sep 23 2006
Modified Feb 21 2007

Metasensuality

They taught me that touch
Confounds reason
Ignites the senses, stops
All thought and blurs the vision.

Yet your finger writes a message,
Along the roadways of my spine,
Which I read out with eyes closed
And recite at your breast.

Ears scream, throat shines, eyes gleam,
Lips converse in the language of kiss
Emptied of image and thought
We make rivers flow upstream.

The wings of air in this space
Flip over - exposing the trace
Of the real - legible to touch
And to the glorious wound of the crotch.

They think that reason has died
But it only crossed to the other side,
Where the river's current is slow,
To bathe and heal the flesh aglow.

Oct 14 2006

An engineer's flirt

Do you know me?
No?

Then let the eyes meet
And quickly download emotional schemata
While mouths stay mute and introverted

Put your hand on my neck
And guide me to your heart
Where I disturb and delight your inner rhythms

I'll calibrate your pelvic gyroscope
Laying out the foundation
For a new genital smile

I'll insinuate myself into your mystery
And put my finger on the dial of eternity
To move time past the mechanical regime
To melt space and atoms with your heart's electricity

Impulsive no longer
Convulsed but stabilized
Do you know me?
Yes - we just have fucked!

Sept, Oct 2006
Nov 2007

We, snakes

Like a dancing snake
My desire stands
Defying your gaze
Luxuriant and still.

The coiled body rests
Entranced and full
Ready to snap like a whip
At the sound of a word.

Swaying, floating head
Drunk with ancient magic
While your embrace so light
Filters waves through my mind.

Once the word is spoken
In a forked tongue
Of old and eternal rites
Then all doors swing open!

And we slide one upon another
Whether here, now or there
Neither to hold nor to stay
We glide and galantly sail.

Like snakes, we're boundless beings,
Answering our own prayers
We lay out origin and end
In perfect introverted rings.

March 3-13 2007
Final - July 14 2007
slight correction - Sep 28 2008

New prey

I caught the scent of a new prey
No need to seek nor pursue
She is already right here

Because I always knew her
She ignores me while trampling
Upon my benign snares.

Because I always knew her
I do not choose - the trespass
Is a delight and a daring whim.

Because I always knew her
Nimble feet utter silent scream
Supple sex is equal to my grip.

Hunter, god, brother and friend,
My victim trusts in my blow
While non-existence hangs on my lip.

A butterfly landing on my hand,
A doe nibbling at my chin -
Eternal questions are answered by sin.

June 17 2007
July 1 2007

Snake - again!

Time approaches midnight, dread grows
In the skies - yet we escape
The clock's hand returns to eleven
The daggers of fate hesitate.

Daring thieves of splendor
We astonish the impassive guard
And rip through the fabric
That hides the real grace.

Now, this hour will be drenched in honey
Hunger unleashed, desire unbounded,
Before the universe grinds us down
We possess, we feed, we are our fate.

Do you know how to make
The sharp turn into the dark night?
Does a word open the door,
Or a lover's hand dim the light?

Are we lost or are we found?
When all the stars watch in the skies,
Admiring, delaying the crushing revenge,
We always knew - we are in the center!

We are buried alive in the cave of wonder,
We stumble and stay, we run and remain,
The primal coiled body holds us together
Each other's prey - we are a royal meal.

July 22 and Aug 9 2007
finished April 27 2008

****

For Madison

A female who takes on
The shape of an arrow
Flies fast and sinks slow
Like hook and poison into my core.

Her spear points down
While I look up and in her eye
Seek a tear of grace dropped
Above a wall of steely pride.

It is granted and I smile
Then her spear strikes me hard
Yet drives me to no submission.
Her weapon kills but grace revives.

A fury you are not - because
Tenderly you pry on the locks
That guard my desire, free it
And use to comfort my heart.

No fear surrounds me now
No doubt besieges my path
My happy soul rolls like a ball
Hook, poison, arrow, spear and all.

Mar 24-25 2007

Like a cat

for Cody

Look at her - she backs off
But invisibly winds up
Look away and she's closed in
Nibbling at your chin

Like a cat - timid,
Circumspect, remote,
Set in her fragile skin -
A standard of arbitrary will.

She plays with courage
And bends it toward pleasure
Like a bow an arched back
Packs a missile of beauty.

Charge and release she does
In subtle insolence
Demanding your attention
At your peril you'd decline.

An inverted daemon is she
Or reinvented angel?
Counterpointing your spirit
Setting a slalom course.

You discover your bounds
Breach them and play to her -
Got her! - in the milky way
You purr - a satisfied cat.

April 20-25 2007
May 9 2007

How to be a song

Turn your eyes inward
To open the hidden expanse

Stay at the edge of a lake
And touch with your thought.
Hold the rim of the vessel
And fearlessly stir its depth -

Fish will jump, rock will sink
Snake will swim, bird will dive.

Turned away from the world
You are now so different -
Your body a cradle and host
To forms unspeakably strange.

Snake will jump, rock will dive
Bird will swim, fish will sink

As water powers the spirit
It moves you to circle the edge,
To send sensuous ripples across
To summon the other, the strange.

Rock will jump, bird will sink
Fish will swim, snake will dive.

Embrace of the eternal other
Transfigures you into song.
A wind exhales and scatters -
My love! - I'm forever at home!

Rock will swim, fish will dive,
Bird will jump, snake will sink.

April 14 2007
May 9-20 2007

Love was war

Love was war then

Men carried steel
Women bore babies
Fruit of life rotted
Guarded by rusted bars
Of cages and watchful jealousy
Kept the key and lock.
Life was shortened by sword
Plague and childbirth.

Love is work now

Men and women in suits
Labor over technological matter
More goods - abstract and concrete
Secure life's duration.
Produce now - consume later
Fruits heaping up
In separate accounts
Life is longer - yet diluted
By suspicion and distrust.

Love will be sin

Tearing open the world
Infecting the soul
Offending and healing
Breaching and integrating
Horse running down the freeway
Broken window, burning tree
Seeing through fog
Passing through mirrors.

All that sin - and peace.

June 18 2007

Greenhouse

Warm rising vapors
Coolly falling mists
Soft fragrant petals
Insolent twigs

In an artifice of a world we stand
Waiting for the moment to open
Where Being itself we steal

Toes burrowed in soil
Fingers sliding to the rim and tip
We are the seed and it grows!

How the air is thick and heavy!
How the blood races to the end of skin
Where intimate learning will begin

My fingers probe the rim of your skirt
A timeless lifting we will perform
Where falling and rising are but one love.

You and I could as well be nude
Your skirt - imagined - would ignite
Our senses and embolden resolve.

The flowers of our hands
The rabbits of our feet
Are handles of a pump
That lights lanterns in our heads.

This is a feast, an orgy
Where desire burns hot
Like a sacrificial beast
In the knowing vessel of body.

The rite and prayer
Of sprouting of seeds,
Blooming of flowers,
Lifting of skirts,
It's divine life - everyday!

March 6-9 2008
July 16 2008

Tango Hell

After tango magic 2008

I saw them too -
Colonies of quivering hearts
Arranged in perfect rings
And served on a crystal dish.

I held them too -
Nimble torsos exploding upwards
From an inscrutable will of the hips
Chests withholding a howling sigh.

I caught them too -
Insolently smiling eyes, above
Those carelessly grimaced lips
Proud and shameless recipients of grace.

The unceasing tangle of feet -
Question and answer, back and forth,
Fanning the fire - it's just a game,
A script of sex - ornamental desire.

The phantom of love dangled above us,
As if perched on the Devil's spear,
Artifice of beauty, perpetually futile,
And the unending pleasures of hell.

Jul 30 2008 - more or less

Bread, wine and bed

Lastly, we are fatigued and bored
With the incessant begging for grace,
And determine to make it our task
To plow and to dig and to insolently take.

Hasn't bread been given to us? And a body that,
When fed, seeks to dream in bed?
While over a table we share food, words and wine,
A trickster spirit, unnoticed, deflects our paths!

We no longer wish to strive for the heavens.
The silver thread guiding our third eye
For us will cast a horizontal ray
Revealing the dreams rife beneath the skin.

Mine, unknown to me, will be known to you,
Make the skin open - enter, touch and taste.
The spasm of orgasm is laughter of the soul.
Yours, unknown to you, will be known to me.

The skin is a thin screen that
Wraps the ocean of the body
Where the Fish, our Savior,
Lives in perpetual rebirth.

The body is a baptismal fount:
A snake coiled around your legs,
A kiss on the lip of the mouth
Invites the soul to pour out.

And the ever venerated sharing of bread
With the table and the wine barrel inviting to drink
Is the peace and union of body and soul
Naturally leading to the sharing of bed.

Annoyed by waiting for rewards from above
We find one another and proclaim
Bread and table, bed and wine,
The revolution is intimate and starts from within.

Sep 18 2008
Dec 25 2008

Magi

To take leave of the crowd
To lift head into the sky
To ask no forgiveness, seek no gain,
To stand alone, savor pain!

To quiet the soul, smiling hold,
The arrow of time; cool not cold,
Distractions - disperse like sheep,
Emotions - warm, a fuel - raw.

We rule the chaos and turmoil,
Impervious - we don't keep away,
We, magi, take in our hand
And tear off delicious slivers.

In our realm - nothing's amiss,
All is beauty, elegance and bliss.

Mermaids live by stirring the sea
They sing, hold hands, and swim,
A circular vortex the world would be
Were it not for our constant way.

We live the world in its death
Where questions know their answers
Where future knows the past
Where no arrow wounds the heart.

Mermaids flock to our feet so that
We lift their life on the point of death
Like a yoni licking a lingam
They playfully ring our knees.

We are immortal - nothing's amiss,
All is beauty, elegance and bliss.

Cruel we are not, although heartless,
By design of life that stops,
Masters of the universe's game,
We stop as gladly as we go.

Mermaids love us and are grateful
For our upward way and climb,
From the round chaos and stir
They spring slender legs and magic heart.

Our children they become, not
By a paternal act and will,
But by tuning their strident way,
To our constancy, being still.

And like us - nothing's amiss,
All is beauty, elegance and bliss.

June 2008

We are strangers

We peel away the shadow and walk alone
To meet the secret of the other woman
To the unspeakable - in full light.

We never notice this woman so that
Our shoulders may brush by chance
And eyes lead to a wordless dance,

Which will be like anchor falling
And slicing the ocean's thick body
Aimed at the ground of desiring.

And when we finally speak - it is
About a horse ascending a staircase
Or a phantom descending nude

Both are shy animals that easily
Scare and run -- disturbed
By social talk of husband or wife.

It is better to use our tongues
To invoke the convulsed stranger
Wringing our wet insides.

It is better to drag him out
And lay outstretched on the ground
A living shadow - in full light.

It is better to call him out
And stick a finger in the shadow line
Witness our life - in full light.

Aug 6 2008
Aug 16 2008
Sep 4, 2008