Free poetry books – to read further

You can find below my poetry works. All rights reserved, but you can contact me (carmine.g.denis@gmail.com) if you want to use some poem(s), while mentioning my name/blog, please.

Whitsundying (2019) is a retelling of the Bible from a personal point of view.

Melted wax, still cold – still wax (2018 – 2019) deals with lesbianism, identity, language and metapoetry.

Prose du vide (2018) (in French) is a collection of prose poems about the void, mental illness and a coming of age kind of story.

Crustacés terrestres (2015 – 2018) (in French) is a collection of short poems mostly exploring the thematics of light and shadow.

Tessons (2015 -2018) is a mix of Prose du vide and Crustacés terrestres. 

carmine denis whitsundying

melted wax still cold still wax carmine denis

carmine denis prose du vide

crustacés terrestres carmine denis

Tessons Carmine Denis

 

 

Publicités

The current

What will come? what will stay?
The current dries my hopes away.
What is gone? what is stone?
They lay beside me, lifeless,
deserted by the moon as I am.

 

The current came and passed away.

I saw a country…

I saw a country
full of white shimmering beaches of salt
with a sky as big as cats’ pupils at night
with trees as dead as the words we keep looking for

*

and you
weren’t in any of this

*

but I
am just a body
you say

*

just a body.

*

 

Introduction of silence

Silence, winter
grows on my skin
on my bed

 

I need to speak now
later will be too late

 

Underneath the ice
water is boiling
I use it to infuse pain
infuse, drink it, drink it all
pain crosses me

 

I need to speak

 

To say something valuable
is not even today’s matter
to slay the silence
is more than enough for now

 

And when I try to fall asleep
hands swirl around
with poisonous nails
with plague-blackened palms

 

I need to speak now
later will be too late
silence promised me a still life
of pure marble

 

it lied
underneath the ice
I’m boiling too
the metal hand of silence
keeps me quiet

 

against all odds

 

I need to speak now
my lips shatter
my throat shivers
silence beats me with a frost hammer

 

I become
more and more of its frost, statue
wailing underneath the ice

 

and I know
true victory is to reopen the frozen wound

 

I will try to speak now

Sylvia Plath and Mitski: death, destruction and bathtubs

Sylvia Plath, « Tale of a Tub »

The photographic chamber of the eye

records bare painted walls, while an electric light

flays the chromium nerves of plumbing raw;

such poverty assaults the ego; caught

naked in the merely actual room,

the stranger in the lavatory mirror

puts on a public grin, repeats our name

but scrupulously reflects the usual terror.

(…)

Twenty years ago, the familiar tub

bread an ample batch of omens; but now

water faucets spawn no danger; each crab

and octopus – scrabbling just beyond the view,

waiting for some accidental break

in ritual, to strike – is definitely gone;

the authentic sea denies them and will pluck

fantastic flesh down to the honest bone.

(…)

the tub exists behind our back:

its glittering surfaces are blank and true.

(…)

In this particular tub, two knees just up

like icebegs, while minute brown hairs rise

on arms and legs in a fringe of kelp; green soap

navigates the tidal slosh of seas

breaking on legendary beaches; in faith

we shall board our imaginary ship and wildly sail

among sacred islands of the mad till death

shatters the fabulous stars and makes us real.

***

Mitski, « Humpty »

I’ll live in the bathtub

It’s cool and clean

It’s smooth and it’s steady

It’s all that I need

 

I broke our belongings

They’re all on the floor

The room is now empty

Nothing left to throw

 

All the eggshells are on the ground

And I try, I’m trying to pick them up

But they crack and crumble, it’s all too much

Too frail for me to touch

(…)

I’ll live in the bathtub

Surrounded by tiles

All so square and so steady

I will die in their cool, cool arms

Peaches

peaches
ripen

 

meanwhile the stars
(are they dancing? are they falling
in the airless abyss? who knows –
we barely see knots
of light in the forest of night)
meanwhile the stars

 

burn, cold as ever, and the flies
teem in the rotten fruit
far away, far away
in the orchard we visit.

From a city-dwelling aspiring scholar

clear sorrows
of moss and mud

*

I won’t go near the woods
I won’t enter the woods
I won’t make the woods known

*

clear sorrows

*

lost particule of boredom
in a dusty library

*

I am.

Poetry prompt: Wrath

I am a blazing ghost
floating through walls
I used to howl in pain, in despair
but I grew out of despair
now only wrath and silence drive me

 

And they don’t seem to be bothered
they see the frying pans full of hot oil shake and shriek
but don’t think they might be haunted
it’s all a game for them a game to play
before going to bed

 

I am a blazing ghost
ice scares me
I live in winter streets
in the middle of my fear

 

I think I drowned
long ago
in a polluted river

Poetry prompt: Salt burn

It keeps my eyelids shut
it keeps my ears open
I am noting but a salt wound
in the middle of a salt circle

*

is it the sea
is it a magic ritual?

*

my skin’s burning
as do candles
in the middle of the day.

*

what will come
when all is finally over? I hope the sea
doesn’t bleach our skulls I hope magic
still exists somewhere

*

meanwhile, I’ll be saying
what mad women do
inside of their ceilings.

Poetry prompt: Soft grass

sometimes
I’m the first person in the world
my made up brook
is fresher than her rosy fingers

*

and no matter how many warm nights we spend out
grass will always feel softer
in the winter

*

the gas station at the far end of my city
doesn’t mock me anymore

*

reaching out
to a lost hand
at the end of a plaster arm.

Poetry prompt: The rise and fall of cicadasong

I can never see them
but know they’re here around
maybe in the trees
maybe on the ground
cicada songs

 

When I cried late into the night
they were silent; when I sobbed, hysterical,
biting my pillow, I could hear their disheartened
disapproval –
When we drank wine at sundown
(for they love to cheer)
they would gladly sing along
going louder as the wine sank in us –
When light was a soft blur on the stones
oh, hectic they were – but I cannot see them,
cicadas, summer’s voices,
our proof that if time could walk
it would look around
and unearth them
cicada songs.