SELECTED POETRY

by
Lisa Zaran

DON'T LOOK BACK

~ And is this room really a room, or an embrace

~Ivan Lalic

I feel I should
try to find out
what is real
and what I have
imagined.

There are many things
about you that
I love.
But do those things
actually exist?
Are they any more
a part of you
than a bird is,
for instance,
a part of the air?

Have I,
in fact, made them up?
How you smell
warm like cinnamon
while outside
snow is falling.
The way you bristle past
in the morning
before you've had a chance
to drink some tea,
barefoot perhaps
across a sky blue carpet.

Even your kiss
might not be real
pressing like
an urgent need
against my borrowed mouth.

Show me your hands.
Just as I thought,
a minstrels palms, love-lines
that fall over the edges.
10 delicate fingers,
each with its own story to tell.

And isn't it true
you wear your present life
like a sweater
you can slough off
at any second?

Transient-like,
changing directions.
And always by either pure luck
or accident find the brightest route.

Meanwhile I, in my uselessness
rearrange my dreams, try to discover
signs you may have left behind.
Shudder once again at the thought
of losing you.

Don't look back,
for when you do,
I discover in your eyes,
my own reflection,
a background for unhappiness,
and in your hair, a place to hide.

� Lisa Zaran

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REMINDERS

Desire has no home
and so it travels
from place to place,
knocking on doors,
asking anyone who answers,
can I stay for the night?
I won't be a bother,
I'll be gone before you wake up.

But, desire leaves traces behind.
Strands of hair in the borrowed comb,
dampness on the borrowed towel,
flakes of skin in the borrowed sheets.
Reminders.

� Lisa Zaran

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REALIZATION

An unbearable day,
for though I have tried
in every conceivable way,
I can not remember the sound
of my father's voice.

Ten years he's been gone.
Too long but not long enough
to excuse my forgetfulness.

I remember his face,
sloping forehead, intelligent eyes,
soft contours of his cheeks
and the sharp angle of his Norwegian nose.

I remember his smile,
his favourite shirt.
How he never wore ties.
I remember being his particular girl,
part of me courageous while the rest of me
tucked my head in humility against his warm side.

I can return to my earliest memory
as if it were yesterday, two years old
and walking into the kitchen with my father�s
hat on backwards. My mother laughing and fetching
her camera to take a picture. I can remember that.

Unaware his scent will sneak up on me,
tilting my mind back 25 years. Here in the present
where without warning every shocking part of his life
is nearly existing, when even the backdrop of a certain
sky will bring him almost to me, face and warmth,
scent and touch. Why can I recall how my hand felt in his

but not how he sounded when he spoke?
It's almost as if, his spirit lifted but his voice sunk
like a stone. It troubles me deeply that I have become
so lazy inside of my head, losing his accent behind
a blank wall.

I pick up his portrait and I tell it to say something to me. Speak!
He just stands there inside of that scene in 1967 and smiles.
His eyes glowing with happiness at the fish he caught
as he holds it up in display. The wooden frame
I hold in my own hands reminds me of a view from a window.
I can see him but there is a pane of glass between us.

I can see him,
I can't hear him.

� Lisa Zaran

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THINGS ALL GIRLS SHOULD KNOW

Life is not fair.
There will always be
another hill to climb.
Another Saturday night
spent waiting by the phone.
Another bloody rag to flush.

One day when you think
you finally know what it is
you want, you'll discover
you don't want it anymore.

Money can not buy happiness.
But, it can buy almost everything else.
There's a reason he's a long distance lover.
You can fill your mouth with many things,
I won't go into detail, but the best thing
by far, is laughter.

� Lisa Zaran

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REGARDING WORRY

What is there to worry about.
If Cesare wants to eavesdrop
on your dreams, let him.
He only longs to take a walk,
to smoke his pipe perhaps
and listen to the sounds of night.
He is as lost in time as we are.
The three of us like tiny blue flowers
creeping up from a crack in the side-
walk.

Why concern yourself
if Rilke decides to borrow
a cup of sugar for his morning coffee.
He has no way of buying it himself.
We are all imprisoned in the carpet
of our skin. Even them.

Do not disavow the dead.
Their spirits can not be extricated.
Their wills are stronger than ours.

� Lisa Zaran

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THE SOUL IS NOT

~ for B. on his 65th birthday

The soul is not an accusation.
Now that you have peace,
you should enjoy it.
It won't disappear.
Nothing can destroy it.
It does not hide or cry
out in vain.
It spins
flowers
into wax.
When it talks, God listens.

� Lisa Zaran

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DEAR B.

Your beauty is like a dark Alaskan sun.
Your beauty is like a soft, grey moon,
deserving of immortality.
Your beauty is without calculation.
It exists in a world full of regret,
guilty of sins without substance.
Your beauty walks
and I follow after,
naked on all fours.

� Lisa Zaran

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DELICACIES

Suppose you could take off your name
like you take off your dress.

Suppose you could strip yourself of class
the same way you strip yourself of jewellery.

Suppose you could remove every stereotype
placed upon you as quickly as you release one breath.

Imagine your past erased. Your history wiped out.
Every unwant eliminated. Every fear gone,
every sin swept clean.

Picture yourself, free of nicknames,
free of demands and expectations. Imagine,

if now or never became a way of life.
Here and now became the only song you sang.

Suppose every waking moment was a taste of heaven.
And in it, the flavour of everyone and everything you loved.

Poetry, music, art, sound, children, animals, trees, birds.

You.

� Lisa Zaran

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