Matsumoto

The Same Lovely Second

2018-04-19T16:30:00.000-07:00

I will always remember feeling the sun inside us,
lips raw with love,

bodies spilling together,
tiny flowing currents between us
where birth and death

shared the same lovely second

(photo by: Marat Safin)

Spark

2017-08-18T19:39:00.000-07:00

You were the flaming stars,
madly incandescent and unearthly under my skin,

that sunk keenly between the rhythm of our nervous pulse,
too sensitive to the pull of orbits of distant moons,
and ardent newborn galaxies,

that spirited cello sonatas into the ether
and whisked them into my every imagination,

that awaited until I learned you, and learned how you wore
your sparkling soul in me

(image source: Paolo Sebastian)

I Want to Know

2016-12-25T11:09:00.000-08:00

I want to watch the sun go down and sizzle upon your horizon
I want to dance with the evening star rising with its peals of laughter
I want to taste my fate upon your skin and
touch the face of God as you inhaled me away to a distant planet
I want to stand witness as you breathed life into the moonlight,
and let me come undone and release a universe for you
as you have for me
I want to know you deeply, as deeply as dulcet dreams,
as deeply as Light into the cracks of my darkest hour
I want to understand how the bruised reed withstood
the honest rain

I promise you this, darling,
If the world would turn to chaos,
outvote us seven billion to two,
know, before our bodies are laid to rest,
before our bones have turned to dust,
we will have lived as we have loved,
where you, this perfect soul before me,
will live forever within me
as I within you
where the smallest details of our story
would tell of Great Love
scored indelibly upon our hearts

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The Truest Breath

2016-09-01T17:11:00.000-07:00

I feel your words in your palm
a palm cradling a world that
glitters with promise
and where motionless lips beg me to listen,
and understand the whispers
of your voice in your arms, your languid legs,
the laughter of wild animals trapped in your ribcage,
where kindness radiated from the belly of our Central Star
and where wisdom from your bones vibrated into mine.

And thus began the Great Story.
Open your orchid mouth and from
your orchard I shall taste the sweetest
fruits of the spirit,
a spirit born from a joyful tempest.

Most run from storms, but
you are the storm I must chase.

From a cold clear sky I fell
and plunged into the deepest briny sea,
I became lost in you, so lost I knew
I was being found.
I am sick with a longing for you that
both frightens and excites,
our souls so close, yet bodies so far.
Know that your soul is a flavor I cannot forget.
Will you remember me and our intimacy of stars
rising in perfect light?

Forgive my salt and bones
and if you are patient
I will surprise.
You will always be my most lucid dream
and only with you have I drawn the truest
breath.

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The Other Side

2016-05-04T15:53:00.002-07:00

My Dearest Love,
At last
I have contacted The Other Side.
It is really pretty fantastical.
As lovely as we imagined.
No need to pack...won't need any of that stuff.
Grab my hand.
Hop aboard.
Let's go.

(photo by: Roberto Fernando)

Speed The Soul Electric

2015-09-01T14:00:00.004-07:00

My Dearest Love,

Do not pull me from the wreckage
yet
Let me close my eyes and see
your lovely liquid lines
everywhere and nowhere
before I sleep in your arms where
I will find the perfect moment
you came into focus.

Such is the nature of our secret:
Do not bury me between sheets
of waxed paper in a book.
I have too many miles before I sleep
in your arms
where I will listen to the dreams of lambs
soothe and quicken my pulse and
across ten thousand universes I will
Always recognize that pulse that is You.

Speed the soul electric:
And with our kiss you will consume my prayer deep
within your mouth and
I will taste your poetry of earthquakes
cracking my chest open and exposing
my reluctant heart to itself.
You stared beyond my lips and tasted revolution
(and realized you had been starving)
and you knew from every bursted cell in your being
you could no longer flee the God who Knows.

Speed the soul electric:
In the History of the World
it was said our love
had started the revolution
that would save the world,
a world which discovered
this love without measure,
and the heart of this soul
which beats alone for you.

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Letter of December 25th

2014-12-25T00:14:00.002-08:00

My Dearest Love,

If all the world's sweetest music that had been released
into the aether had returned
the earth would slow upon its axis
and ready itself to spin it a different direction
and I will have fully witnessed how you became
the poetry that refreshed my most parched soul

Still I thirst to be written by your hand,
my soul given its details, its brilliance,
stroke by stroke, mad laughter spilling its intimacy,
the intimacy stars will share with darkness,
and darkness will share with morning sunlight

I wish I could show you the frightening beauty within you,
the crackling storms rising over innocent hillsides,
cracking open my ribcage, releasing the rolling
symphonic murmurations to the heavens
as you reached in and lit the lanterns next to my spine
and nestled your heart next to mine
and shivered our world awake.

image source

The Complete History of the World

2013-12-25T08:12:00.001-08:00

Before Time there was You.
At the beginning of Time there was I.
For all Time We loved.

I forget the rest.

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The Secret Language of Angels

2012-12-17T17:35:00.001-08:00

"Au milieu de l'hiver, j'ai découvert en moi un invincible été."
("In the depths of winter, I discovered there was in me an invincible summer")
-Albert Camus

You moved in me

at first as one cell in my heart that vibrated
to a distant tuning fork an infinity away
then as my heart whole gave way as a symphony
eternal,
as waves upon the waiting shore,
you sang within me

We inhaled the secret language of angels
and leapt from the edge of the world
into the spinning darkness
clutching tightly to each other
knowing we were the wings that
would never land

We embraced with human arms made of light
and became the torch
that set fire to the stars
and gave greatness to the skies

Darlin',
you and I,
we always both knew
we were never a random
fate

Copyright © 2012 Paul Matsumoto. All Rights Reserved
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Locked

2012-09-01T09:28:00.000-07:00

I tossed my dreams high
into the air
to see where they would land
and
instead
they flew higher
as if
attached
to hundreds of
brightly colored kites
losing all sense
of gravity

and
reaching Heaven,
the astonishing light
of your soul
opened
a strangely familiar flower
of uncorruptible beauty
that you placed
in my hand
that
healed all the
long
forgotten wounds
and forever
held the world together

And when I returned,
eyes sparked awake,
I would feel the familiar
reassurance
of the field beneath me,
the winsome sun burning across
its deepest pure skies
and your hand locked
forever
in mine.

Copyright © 2012 Paul Matsumoto. All Rights Reserved
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Elegant Star

2012-06-10T17:21:00.002-07:00

In everyone's sky
is
one
elegant
star

the star
that slightly
escaped
the passing glance
but whose soul was
always
remembered

Copyright © 2012 Paul Matsumoto. All Rights Reserved
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L= (Y+M) C²

2012-03-26T19:47:00.001-07:00

Do you know that place between
being awake and asleep
where you still remember dreaming?
That's where we can always find
each other
and our love
waiting

What if I were to tell you
in one impossible fleeting moment
in our embrace
I knew your life complete
as you would mine?
Every thought
every memory
every pain
every joy
every failure
every triumph
while the world
went quiet around us
silent
as we were flung
fearless
to the far end of
a timeless
universe

Perhaps I will never fully understand
the physics of love
Only that
Love will always be
you and me
together
times
the speed of light
squared

Copyright © 2012 Paul Matsumoto. All Rights Reserved
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I Want To Be With Her

2012-03-10T15:55:00.001-08:00

I want to be with her
who knows secret things
secrets that hang precariously like drops
of honey from her lips
falling through space and
ringing like tiny bells that only
she
can
hear

I want to be with her
who splits the sea breezes
with excited horses
and waves lapping the soothed sand
as
I savor the saltwater
off her skin
inch
by
inch

I want to be with her
as the universe awakens
electric
where you are the first morning
and nothing in the world
is
usual
today

Copyright © 2012 Paul Matsumoto. All Rights Reserved
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I Shall Give You The Journey

2012-02-13T18:07:00.000-08:00

They may promise you kisses blown across a room
I shall be the winds blown into your sails
They may promise you a house
upon a quiet expanse of land
I shall be the fire comforting your home
and the rains that water your garden
They may promise you the Queen's finest jewelry
I shall give you the starry heaven's brilliance
They may promise your name upon a yacht of luxury

Walk with me and I shall give you the journey

Copyright © 2012 Paul Matsumoto. All Rights Reserved Image Source

Love Bleeds Its Deepest Red

2011-12-16T18:25:00.000-08:00

"Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind douses a candle and kindles a bonfire."
- Francois VI Duc de La Rochefoucauld

I have found you, sweet girl
we must get lost
among the starry celestial fires where
you'll remember me
as the morning stars sing together
and the ocean waves bring us home

Ours was an army of angels
and all-not-yet-invented
where love bleeds its deepest red
with its tenderest mercies
and whispers heroic moonsilver
brilliant over our bodies
fierce with inhaled intent
and blissed panic.

It is us who moves the world
and us who will pull it through
not one heartbeat will we forget
with every measure of grace
we will escape into life
before our most brightest star forever
expires.

Copyright © 2011 Paul Matsumoto. All Rights Reserved Image Source

Made of Stars

2011-05-02T18:06:00.001-07:00

Tell me about waking where we were two horses turned loose,
running and running until we forgot we were horses
where we would teach each other all the things we forgot
and we discovered we were all made of stars

I need your grace as the earth needs the memory of rain
I will drink poetry from your lips and kiss your fire with mine
I cannot resist you as no mere human
can stand in a fire and not be consumed

I can sit all day wearing nothing but your kiss
I am drowning deep in your undertow
Tell me we shall be ruined by love
and tell me we shall never get used to it

Copyright © 2011 Paul Matsumoto. All Rights Reserved
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My Bucket List

2010-12-11T16:52:00.000-08:00

1. You (only you).

Copyright (c) 2010 Paul Matsumoto. All Rights Reserved
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The Moments Between

2010-09-25T18:12:00.001-07:00

" The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek. "
-Joseph Campbell

My Dearest Love,

I cannot lie.
I've raced through my life
as I've had through a novel,
anxious for its sweet ending.
Mad sprints through the tall
grasses,
heaving lungs, arms
thrusted
through the thinned atmosphere
to touch the light of sacred
stars
in the indigo night.
This is how I breathed you.

I've traced your face in the
air with my fingers
across knowing
fields
and waking mountains,
felt it real as the
scripture of trees,
the living water
and the days of March
you wore in your eyes.
This is how I lived you.

Yet, what we know,
what we know the world does not,
is not the brilliance of
dreams
in distant universes.
The freedom we seek,
the love we've found,
is in uncovering
the infinite beauty
that lies
in the moments
between the seconds
of our life.

This is how we love.

Copyright (c) 2010 Paul Matsumoto. All Rights Reserved
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We Stilled The Hours

2010-07-03T20:16:00.000-07:00

I want to tell you my stories
whispered secret into your ear,
and feel your struggling lips go soft
with our conspiracy.

I want our eyes to
dance past the cynics
(who have bet their forgotten
innocence against us),
and peer beyond this anxious world of
toothless fear
and swallow deeply
outward
all
space
completely until

we feel
our lungs rise as the tides
and its singular pull
with the heroic moonlight
throbbing in my heart

as we found home

and stilled
the hours.

Copyright (c) 2010 Paul Matsumoto. All Rights Reserved
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Resuscitation

2010-05-29T12:03:00.001-07:00

I fell from the sky
hard

Mouth to mouth,
you kissed my mouth open.

Life screamed back
into my lungs,
through my vessels
from within my heart.

My eyes opened
to no one there
Who were you?
Where did you go?
The unseen hand
laughed openly
with what twist of plot?

Am I coming home
to a place I've
never been?
Were your comforting words
during our trips
to the sun
dreamed into a unsung
mind?

I will fly again.

I will fly
as the match head
struck alit
starved for oxygen.
searching madly.
to find this tender soul
who came back to me
under the fragile sky.

And should my wax
wings melt
before
our arms shall wrap
our spirits again,
pray that I
may quickly unclutch
to the
unforgiving
winds
the
scribbled note:

"In case of
Emergency,
please
do

not
resuscitate".

Copyright (c) 2010 Paul Matsumoto. All Rights Reserved
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You Were Gold

2010-04-24T19:19:00.000-07:00

You were gold
I was silver

We drank moonlight
from rooftops
in drunken glee
and kissed with
the taste of promise
We were

light chasing light
over evening wave tips
I've inhaled your sky
and sand and water as

I walked into your ocean
and failed to walk out.

Copyright (c) 2010 Paul Matsumoto. All Rights Reserved.
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Let Us Go Then

2010-04-04T15:07:00.000-07:00

Let us go then, you and I
and wade into the sea
where the shifting sands beneath our feet
no longer question our souls' intent
and the swirling salt water washes
through our fragile longing
like the stars that rush
through our bodies
and disappear
toward an unknown
destination.

My fingers will always know the
details of your
spine in the small
of your back,
and the feel of your hair
my hand sifts though
and without knowing all
the colored
details of your life,
I will recite the song of your eyes
with the depth of its
wisdom.

Yet they hold so many stories
I have yet learned to read.

And want to.

Copyright (c) 2010 Paul Matsumoto. All Rights Reserved.
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In My Heart

2010-03-14T13:12:00.000-07:00

In the stillest moment of the evening
you fire through the aether and
the rush of chaotic atmosphere
and slide through a crack in my perimeter,
past the guards and monsters,
and with silent feet
slip under my skin,
swim up the currents of
my capillaries and vessels,
climb up the trees and
up the furthest branches
to where you will rest.

And in the morning
I will awaken
to the cathedral bells outside
and with you
in my heart.

I See You In Colors

2009-09-19T18:59:00.000-07:00

I am pretending you did not exist.
Ink nightly washes black
over my consciousness
and abandons me as morning seaweed
upon a foreign beach.

I am pretending we were simply
the sparkling imagination of some higher being,
our life together set below a singular epic sky
unrepeated
in future histories.

I am pretending I cannot taste you
each day as I do the sea air in my breath
when I am running,
my heart tied upon one foot,
ancient melancholy tied upon the other,
anxiously racing,
madly racing through lifetimes,
to find our brightened souls.

I see you in colors that don't exist.

It is all that I see clearly.
and why I run.

Copyright (c) 2009 Paul Matsumoto. All Rights Reserved.
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Unraveled

2009-07-18T14:58:00.000-07:00

I lingered silent over the geography
of your spirit,
and inhaled its saffron valleys,
sunlit with lissome lilies,
as I drunk deep from its coaxing wells
of cool electricity.

I have tasted the Spring's first blooms
in your glance and wondered
of the half life of our words
and the extraordinary struggle
of their anxious disorder.

I stopped cold with your slight
"hey mister" and all I could think was
of the fate of crowned angels
in the silvered milky way
watching over,
washing over
my desire to be lured
and unraveled
and...
did you really call me
"mister"?

We shall run away far from all
that is familiar,
toothy fear and excitement our fuel,
until the burdened chatter of others
becomes inaudible,
until all that is unspeakable
is spoken,
and our voices,
clear and charmed in its
undressed debut,
sings.

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