Blue Nude, Matisse







CitizenX

by Brian Turner




She radiates live sex on streaming video
for countless unseen voyuers around the globe,

from Bangkok to Dubai to Katmandu, it's true,
check it out yourself, she's on most nights

at about this time, when snakes are knifed open
to drain blood into whiskey-glasses on Snake Alley,

when lowriders turn off the boulevard of broken dreams
cruising into the tenderloin, their eyes glazing pink

as pinched nipples, trust me, it's true, I've seen her
unbuttoning her shirt and whispering for the camera

I'll leave my heels on, if that's alright with you,
and who will tell her no, who doesn't yet know

when she slides the clothes from her body like this
clouds unveil the milkwhite skin of the moon, yes,

every neon sign in the world hums into crackling vibrance,
just ask the streetdrunks, they know, as I do now,

they know the axis of the earth shifts with her hips
gyrating in cyberspace, that ocean waves lift

and fall in tandem to her breast, the exhibitionist
makes love without touching, for all who might need

that firing spark of the sexual, for all of us who are
animal-hungry in the hushed boxes of our skulls,

here she is, reminding us, we are all invited in
sometimes, that it is possible to feel another's heat,

midnight can be lit up by the moon, we can drink
blood whiskey on Snake Alley and bypass the boulevards

shackling out of the tenderloin, yes, it's true, believe me,
the world is in a crackling hum, check it out yourself.




Silk

            for Si Ling-Chi

Lovers in silk gone turquoise and cool,
tea mint cool, color of turtleshell
in a sliding of skin on skin,

and smooth, with tongues in a paradise
narcosis, under a peachdust moon
the mouth and tooth sink into,

slowly, the hushing earth obserant
of pleasure, of inventing spices,
of cinnamon, almond, lime.

Fall in love with what is rare and fine,
fall into sheets of silk full of heat,
and roll in that rough tender,

because matchheads that burst in flame
are the kissed nerves of our flesh,
and our mouths fill with a sexing voice

no viridean midnight can cool,
and be it a whisper, or only the smolder
of a breath, the soul has been lifted,

and the long caravan of moments we call
our lives, burst into distant starlight,
our bodies the rare and wild come together.






©2002 by Brian Turner

Brian Turner is a poet living in the Pacific Northwest. He's lived in Bosnia-Herzegovina, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, and Russia. He has poems forthcoming in Crab Orchard Review, L'Intrigue, Clean Sheets, and the Black Bear Review. These poems are from his collection, How We The Damaged Touch.


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