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Best Poems Written by Jan Delvaux.

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123
Details | Jan Delvaux. Poem

She Had Bought a Negligee

far from here and never worn.


“It’s red” I mused.
She giggled or anticipated.
They were words, not words
as they can be words
said to break the ice.
“Yes, it is” with a broad smile
then hid her lower lip
behind her upper teeth
and lashed down expectantly
waiting for my mouth
would say no more
words more than icebreakers.

And it was a song,
and I saw
she hadn’t known
as I hadn’t.
Only dreamt.
Of an island.
Or a better
Amish world
on a Vangelis
tune promising
creativity.

Those are words of course
as they are words and no more.

She also knew to do the dishes;
not to wet me she pushed with her pulses.
Hey, I saw you smile in the uncommon mirror
when I kissed the curve between your neck and shoulder.

I’ll paint you in despair because I cannot as you are,
although I think I know a lot as you do and cannot
hold me in your words, only in the no-words
between the lines where none can find
me or you in my hemp abstracts.

A negligee is easier and says a lot
which is why I said it’s also red
and can be seen and caught in that word
so openly pregnant of many no-words.

She doesn’t iron, she folds. That’s a secret
not unknown under women.
Or men.

04/08/09

Copyright © Jan Delvaux. | Year Posted 2009



Details | Jan Delvaux. Poem

Food For Thought

After Eight Mints
Anchovies
Apple Pancakes
Applesauce
Atlantic Cod
Barbecue Sauce
Black Bean Soup
Blue Cheese
Blueberry Pancakes
Brussels Sprouts and Lamb
Buttermilk
Caribou Liver
Carrots
Cauliflower
Chicken Breast
Chicken Patty
Chicory Roots
Chocolate Pudding
Chocolate Pudding !!!
Cinnamon Raisin Bagel
Coffee Cake
Coleslaw
Donkey Balls
Dried Plums
Durian Fruit
Garlic
Garlic Roast Chicken
Green & Yellow Peppers
Green Leaf Lettuce
Grilled Cheese
Hamburger
Hashed Brown Potatoes
Honey Pops
Horseradish
Iron Steak
Jellied bouillon with frankfurters
Jelly Sandwich
Marinara Sauce
Melba Toast Crackers
Milky Way Bar
Mozzarella Cheese
Muffins
Onions
Pasta Shells
Peanut Butter
Plain Bagel
Pot Pie
Potato Medley
Potatoes
Queso Asadero
Salisbury Steak
Shredded Gruyere
Shrimp
Smoked Chicken Sandwich
Smoked Ham
South-western Sandwich
Turkey Pastrami on Rye
Waffles
Weight Watchers Chicken Enchiladas
Whole Wheat Bread


He comments Beuys’ art
they hang to his dentalia
in slimy appearance
menus on wrapping paper

then

note the mental thing
yes, yes, he said so,
and where are the nuts
the crackers, the slow food

crisscross
crosscriss

a cookie with my coffee
still harvests thoughts
wrong war thoughts
so wrong during the war

November sun

warms a sanitary finger
and goldfish in my hand
hidden under fallen leaves
in brown memories

alma


Explanation
              Joseph Beuys is a controversial artist, one of his
              works is called 'food for thought'.  I saw this at
              the museum of psychiatry when I guided some folks;
              theme of the exposition was  "lost in memory".
              Next to the museum is the garden where 3 of my
              sculptural works can be visited. We did so.

Copyright © Jan Delvaux. | Year Posted 2009

Details | Jan Delvaux. Poem

In Bruges: Red Brick and Windmills

bridges

The kids, their teacher, sprouts and dandelions
the aquarellist and a wet bicycle.
Sit on the worm bench as bytes on the mainframe
wiped pastel of a bright warmth with shades of red

        gray

as I look down I find more than wanted
for god sake, it’s the age throbbing you see  
and frailty, thy name is woman drifts in
been mine for too long in nobis chesterland

        churches

slender cobbled gothics and proud romanesques
the decorum of acolytes and bishop
blesses youthful virginity using gods 
eleventh finger prodding at my tongue

        Florence, Bruges and Ghent

old cities of Europe 
contrast with gadgets
life and hearts
break fast

Copyright © Jan Delvaux. | Year Posted 2010

Details | Jan Delvaux. Poem

Voyage To the New World

Apple pie and coffee on the sofa
with violins, poetry, art, passion
and the small table of heart’s desire,
four eyes and wouldn’t I, or you and we

sense how it rests inside
covered with hammered rust:
consider the beauty:
a key in the forged gate!

Attracted to discover weird insides:
her and the other thing. Or see four hands,
or three when one is stuck, two if entwined,
start eating skin and bones. Pure poetry!

Copyright © Jan Delvaux. | Year Posted 2010

Details | Jan Delvaux. Poem

Send Me a Beam

Wrinkle at the line
creams  for the age gap!
Holiday in France this year
 friends, friends fill an hour.

Or two. Home I say:
danced to nostalgia 
in boxes and mind  pills.
Then straight jacketed. 

Sweet as sultanas
The dreams curbed me in.
A beam houses in Ghent,
One you lived with me

wrinkles our deep lines
for filling water
gaps between here and there.
Yet you & I will see.

Copyright © Jan Delvaux. | Year Posted 2012



Details | Jan Delvaux. Poem

Cloudy With Sunny Periods

A white spot in the clouds,
a sunflower heavy with seed,
grass too long, should I mow it,
and a blackbird’s wing colours red,

limps on the path and if heavier  
crisp snail shells would echo each skip.
Draco, the tomcat eyes me pleased:
only the blackbird bleeds to death.

Copyright © Jan Delvaux. | Year Posted 2010

Details | Jan Delvaux. Poem

The Friar

The friar
                                  Revered innocence

You’ve got to try it
put it on your lap
a smiling little thing
still sheer and brittle
if possible blind or deaf,
almost genderless.
It just sits there
an unweaned lamb.

Take the little head
gentle it downwards
to the issue of our charity
Lead it, shovel if necessary.
Don’t be scared!

Today it’s allowed
your parents too far:
the force of every belief
too big to grasp.
Sooner or later it pushes
to where we assumed
our hands were in power.

Copyright © Jan Delvaux. | Year Posted 2010

Details | Jan Delvaux. Poem

Over Tea and Coffee

the air

If blue is the right colour
she eyes honestly blonde
in dissection of relation
the alpine purification.


        after

It’s xtc
over a candle
a low table
two cups of coffee


        honestly

Mind: did she add sugar,
wasn’t the milk half sour?
It looked okay we think
two platonic units.


        poetic

Claims so mystically with you
lays a hair tween b&w
the sheath and the blank weapon
as the highest rule is blunt.


        simply

I search the words
and still love my love.
I drink it black
As I like it.

Copyright © Jan Delvaux. | Year Posted 2010

Details | Jan Delvaux. Poem

Holy Me

Unrest in me
made me so and not that,
in whatever doings and whoever is me:
something crams upwards
weaves web over web
around the thoughts.

Is it so, want it else:
it’s so damn cold
when all quivers.

Hammer and forge
my dearest words
for whom I don’t possess.

Want to caress 
everyone’s head
in a sacrament,
be so for ever,
till night ebbs from me
in a godforsaken box.

Copyright © Jan Delvaux. | Year Posted 2010

Details | Jan Delvaux. Poem

The Falconer.

For a journey from low to low over high
a river only needs renewable energy:
sun and gravity as the skater
on a perpetual ramp. Only death

stops the circular talk into the hole
in the black wall where I saw the misses
at the wishing well and their kissable
soft arms. So young in my mind

it makes the years in the past short
remedies to wait for the long next.
These sheets cleaner than mine
make me long for another word

unhampered by machine defection,
the same as yesterday, but as good as
a hawk on the gauntlet of a man;
a timeless promise before the altar

Copyright © Jan Delvaux. | Year Posted 2009

123

Book: Shattered Sighs