Tisha Nemeth

Diptych

The unexpected naturalness
refusing to be less than honest
suspending sensual eyes’ knowledge
knowing art produces not understanding,
(do not construe this art
thereby diminishing it).

I survive the while, a cornered mind
meting out word’s false pace
forming me into what I am not
or maybe am,
a remote object, unperformed
far from crowd’s dramatic vein
(piecing their idolatries)

honesty became a style I’ve not yet been released
of, symbols run through rhythms’ last
burning act, touching that which changes
gathering to my breast
that which contradicts
through narrow light, lamp-like

her cathartic nature
crawling out, laying down her laws
peeled raw, unpetaling again
the defoliation
of shedding images.

I mean to say there is no meaning for us
(if I try for this)
inhaled by hunger’s flood
the distraction of attraction

eyeing time
in the sinner’s hourglass,
running clock-wise by cigarettes
do I dare build upon
your disheveled altar
to watch the effort fall

pressed and changeless
I am vaporous in your presence
swallowed by your absence,
your presence

transfixed to waves
of darkened space
overlapping your guidance of eyes
I, a mere object of levity
inflected with light,
I am learning to see.

An island far removed
I move in firing tides
(split in half, I am
split in half)

while whiteness
cleanses the room,
the abundance of emptiness
its lonely devotions
dissatisfactions coat the skin.

Sweeping winds pass like waves
its echo tracing your name
the acres of silence
and none will contain
my sense’s prescience.

Plagued by daybreak
heart masked in enamel
O empty gatherer of words,
your red veins of sensualness
pulsate arterial’s rush,
the turnkey of the flesh

with insipient patience
I re-emerge from fragments
the unexpected naturalness
(the impact cannot be measured).

Tisha Nemeth is a graduate of Boston University with a BA in Art History, currently residing in Cleveland, OH. Her poems have appeared in Peralta Press (College of Alameda, CA), RiversEdge (University of Texas, Edinburg), This Hard Wind, Art Crimes, Haz Mat Review, Curbside Review, Brutal Imagination, Poet, Taurpaulin Sky and other literary reviews. In 1997 she was selected to review her manuscript with former U.S. poet laureate, Richard Wilbur, at the Key West Writer's group in Key West, Florida. She is senior editor for CoolCleveland.com.