A poet can only give her heart away once, the rest is observation. Poets are right to assume that love is eternal, and in a world of temporary things love is the immortal human experience. This is the poetry that sleeps between our love. May we always be bruised by beauty and touched by angels, but may we also be aware of our demons and our shadows, for the heart can only love in truth and these are the ingredients of the human condition.
'STRANDED HEARTS' HAS ARRIVED'
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The Beautiful Bats
The "Frosty" Traveler of Indian Wells: A Seasonal Mystery Solved For three years now, I’ve watched these elegant, large-winged shadows glide quietly through our Coachella Valley skies each spring. They arrive like clockwork in April, as if summoned by something ancient and precise, and by mid-May they are gone again, vanishing as mysteriously as they came. At last, I know who they are. They are the Hoary Bat (Lasiurus cinereus). A Shimmering Presence These are not the small, fluttering bats most people imagine. The Hoary Bat is something altogether different, one of North America’s largest, with a wingspan that can reach up to sixteen inches. When the light catches them just right, they seem almost dusted in frost. Their fur carries a deep mahogany tone softened by grey, each hair tipped in white, giving them that luminous, “hoary” glow. And if you look closely, there are small white splashes at the wrists of their wings, like quiet signatures written in light. The Long-Distance Commuter What amazes me most is their journey. These are not creatures that stay close to home. They travel, truly travel. Winters are spent in the warmth of Mexico, and summers stretch as far north as Canada. They do not gather in colonies or caves; instead, they live solitary lives, resting in trees, moving with a kind of quiet independence I find deeply beautiful. When they pass through Indian Wells, it feels less like an accident and more like a chosen pause along an ancient route. A Five-Star Garden Menu Our neighborhood becomes, for a brief moment, their sanctuary, a kind of luxury rest stop in the desert. They tuck themselves into our palm trees during the day, wrapping their wings around their bodies like soft, living cloaks. And at dusk, they rise. They are hunters of a very particular kind, drawn to the large moths of the Coachella Valley. Palm Flower Moths and the White-lined Sphinx, those fast, hummingbird-like creatures, become their nourishment. It’s fascinating to watch; they catch their prey mid-flight with precision, consuming only what they need, and letting the delicate wings fall gently to the ground like fragments of paper drifting down. There is something almost poetic in that restraint. I feel incredibly lucky that these remarkable travelers choose our garden, our palms, our small corner of the desert, as part of their long journey each year. For a few weeks, we share space with them, quietly, respectfully, before they lift again into the night and continue on their way. And somehow, each time they leave, they take a little bit of wonder with them, leaving the rest behind for us to hold onto until they return again. Image and Poem © Gesso Cocteau
She Does Not Turn Around
Before She Turns She does not turn, not yet as if the body knows to look is to surrender. And love if that is what this is refuses the dignity of a name. It does not arrive. It infiltrates. Like music through a wall too thin to protect you, it enters the spine first, not as touch, but as recognition. You thought it would be light. You thought it would openlike mercy,forgiving,something you believedyou could survive. But no. It is closer to smoke, something already burning without permission. A hunger that knows exactly… But a hunger that knows where to place itself to undo you. The air alters. Still no touch. Only that unbearable proximity, so precise it begins to map you from the outside in, a line drawn without mercy, without contact, without asking. You could turn. You don’t. Because restraint is the last illusion of control. And something in you older than thought is already leaning toward it. You understand now: love is not gentle. It is ostinato. What it finds, it enters. What it enters, it changes. What it changes does not return. And still she does not turn. Because she knows the moment she does it will not be love that meets her, but something more ruthless, more intimate something that has been waiting not for her body, but for her consent to disappear into it. Image and Poetry © Gesso Cocteau #gessococteau
The Intelligence of Silence
The Intelligence in Silence "I stopped performing for the light and started eating the dark. It turns out, hunger isn't a weakness—it’s an initiation." I did not fall.I wanted to know.The surface world was thin polite light, curated smiles,rooms arranged for approval.I could feel something beneath itlike a pulse under marble.So I went down.Not dragged.Not tricked.Drawn.The wheat parted around my bodyas if I were returning to somethingolder than memory.Gold against my cheek.Dry stalks whisperingthis is where the roots speak.The pages pinned behind me,fragments of script, abandoned drafts,ink pressed into paper like breath into skin ,were not relics.They were versions of methat stopped halfway.I lay among themand let the ravens come.They did not circle.They landed.Black weight on my shoulder,sharp intelligence against my throat.One pressed its beakto the soft place below my collarboneand asked without sound:How far will you go?I answered by eating.The fruit was not sweetness.It was density.It was heat.It was the sudden awarenessthat hunger is not weakness,it is the mind entering the body.The red on my mouthwas knowledge passing through flesh.I wanted to know what desire iswhen it is not edited for someone else.When it is not shaped for applause.When it is not restrained into virtue.In the underworldnothing flatters you.Nothing performs for you.There, shadow does not accuse.It reveals.I met my animus there,not as a man,but as iron in my spine,as the unflinching voice that said:Take up your own depth.Do not borrow power.Generate it.I lay in sacred alonenessuntil solitude stopped feeling like exileand began to feel like initiation.The ravens did not leave.They became language.The wheat did not wither.It rooted in my body.I will carry the underworld in my mouthlike a secret lover,and nothing that touches mewill remain untouched. Poetry and Image © Gesso Cocteau
2 comments
The constant energetic of love is undeniable and your thoughts dovetail with an intelligence of knowing.
Earthy and sensual, eerie and otherworldly~ Stranded Hearts transports you into many states of consciousness. Through your heart’s portal, these poems enrapture and devastate you; they are enchanting pathways through the human (heart’s) conditon and remind you that LOVE is our very essence.