Three poems from Felino Soriano

Painters’ Exhalations 91

                        —after John Coyne’s Flight in Green


Because the ocean
    reverts
to mirrors on waves’
tabletop function
        scripting
an unknown causation
stating sense dangles from the tongue
-caused interpretations,
           inversion
proclaims sans standing philosophical
head-standing,

flight can deem itself contained by framed borders
man refuses to dislodge. This though
    does not
            deter
the winged from acrobatics atop air’s angled,
unbounded stage

as day of emergency transforms psyches into
lost and winded animals

catapulted among their foreign reactions.


Painters’ Exhalations 93

                        —after Elsa Dax’s The Night


Night constructs nest
mosaic ingredients softened mirror
for owl rest subsequent hunt,
feed, meander between itchy bark.
Stars incorporate flickered pause
saluting scientists attempting
ascertaining distance
relative to a pebble future from
man’s grabbing hand. Navy
pocket square president’s fold
sky’s tailored blazer. Music
becomes a multiplying flesh:
wind, mythical ambiance, goddesses
announce in retribution, decrees
not a whim among the ruling
giving surnames to stars’ orphaned
children.


Painters’ Exhalations 94

                        —after Joe Machine’s Sailor at Rest


Sustained water life, stilled on
sea’s obese spectrum

authors insanity in an etching scrape
across altered pining psyche. Misinterpreted

tranquil blue slaps the unaware, predetermined
fallacy placed in soil of gullible beliefs,

the ignoramous. Rest from the dance of waves
vomit

the mopping of decks aware of their reeking
cells.

Cliché sailor posing, respite on a bar’s hardened stool.

Head submerged, thoughts the drowning hands
grasping at answers found floating amid
inebriation. Snake

tattoo slithers in overhead light, the rare light
alive atop existence’s manifested
darkness.


Felino Soriano is a case manager working with developmentally and physically disabled adults in California. He is the editor of the online journal, Counterexample Poetics, which focuses on International interpretations of experimental poetry, art, and photography.

Two poems from Felino Soriano

Painters’ Exhalations 90

                        —after Ella Guru’s Congregation


Staring into a body felt
by the unseen eyes. The listening

discerning pebbles placed atop lake
tongues, swallowed, —this is a talent

multitude hiding often in wrinkled fabric
the mind cannot mend until

light threads altered connotations. They a smiling
foreground

to the jazz inheritance full-swing method
riding the trumpet solo

away into imagination’s various homes
forming bodies with fingers

snapping echoes available for lengthy

musical interpretation. Wine glasses sipped dead.

Absence here means nothing

as in a crowd of anger, the sole smiling
forced to cower

within corners of malevolent confinement.



Painters’ Exhalations 92

                         —after Susan Constanse’s In the Aftermath


In the aftermath
absence curls its shadowless
monuments around the pupils
too aware of conscious perception.
             Chairs lined
criminal profiles with messenger
witnesses too afraid to sit
or compose facial feature
recognition.
       Bodies reside here
only by name tiptoeing memory

thus
   façade panels
             the weakened room
                         allowing

for the dead to reborn selves

after dust dissipates
           revealing
tabula rasa

skin
akin
to conception ensuing saddened death,
mother pounding questions.


Felino Soriano is a case manager working with developmentally and physically disabled adults in California. He is the editor of the online journal, Counterexample Poetics, which focuses on International interpretations of experimental poetry, art, and photography.