Poetry Magazine, , Spring 2006

A Dusting of Star Fall: Love Poems

Sal Amico M. Buttaci’s fifth book of poetry has been published and released by Cyber-Wit Publications in India. Order a copy from the author Sal Buttaci, 124 Garfield Avenue, Lodi, NJ 07644. A Dusting of Star Fall: Love Poems contains more than one hundred poems, the best of those the author had written to his wife during the past ten years.

“We live in a world full of negativity today: news of war, famine, and crime bombard us daily. We need to find some quiet time to read love poems and reflect on the positive,” says Buttaci.

Copies are available for $13.00, including U.S. handling and shipping.

I want to write poems like the Spaniards,
whittle with sharp magic enough
of their souls to graft slivers to mine.
I want to write poems like the Spaniards,
take down these hands that protect me,
let life pierce and puncture this heart
too secure in its bonecage bastille
to even wildly dream some
night there could be execution.
I want to write poems like the Spaniards,
dip a pen in the bloodwell or rainbow
of colors or blur-test my words
in a downpour of crying,
converse with nude corpses that clank
through blue waltzes, eavesdrop on rivers
that whisper wet secrets to sand
grains and fishes or learn to forgive
means the same as forgetting.
I want to write poems like the Spaniards--
Neruda, Vallejo, Lorca,
Machado, Jimenez, and Paz.
I want to lie in my grave, try
out my coffin, sharpen my pencil,
write close to my chest a saga
of silence, an epic of dust.
I want to weep like the Spaniards
in sackcloth and ashes, weep for
past dreams that still smoke in thin air.
Oh, to write like the Spaniards
who romp in wordfields of the real
and surreal, who confess and are
blessed by a poem's absolution,
who ignite dark highways with
fiery dawns. I want to write
poems like the Spaniards and revive
dead cities and awaken the lonely,
with songs of revolution.

I saved my father in a book,
wrote his marrow and his bones
on blue-veined lines
and delighted how he walked
through the stanzas of my poems.
I saved him in a book,
traded sorrow for sweet songs
sung in happier times
and recited all his wisdom
inside the pages of these poems.
I lured my father to this book,
enticed the fellow from his stone
with magic rhymes
inviting him to stay
in the shelter of these lines.
I saved him in a book
in the comfort of these poems
in the heartbeat of my verse
in the cadence of these words
in his dance across the pages
where he lives forever ageless
I saved Papa in this book

Let’s face it, red flower:
summer is not a magic crayon
with which I can slash away
winter, bleed back into her
the colors you so gracefully flaunt.
If I could, I would grasp summer
like a sword, do battle
with the enemies of green,
proclaim winter, even autumn
and spring, in seasonal disfavor.
Through the opacity of the vase,
I see you, Valentine’s last rose,
drooped and petal-worn
atop a soft-thorned stem.
If I could, I would wish into my hands
the power to resuscitate the dying,
and you would live in your garden,
not crushed in the pages of a book
but tall and thriving forever.

These words I offer you
like sacrificial lambs
on the altar of love
do not hint of dying
but of life. From the safe
house of the inner me
words heave against silence
until I’m overwhelmed
and saying "I love you"
becomes the highest praise
the most sacrosanct of prayers
a confession from one
who admits no words have
yet been penned to pronounce
what a sacrament love is
or say without you
how this fool could survive
the absence of your grace.