sunset spies our pose ephemeral
second-hand glides a blushing sky
nectar merged near hip-femoral
the hands reside, each on a thigh
though breathing strained, there slips a sigh
there slips a plea to make it fall
broad, gentle strokes now urgent, coarse
tongue strikes nerve; it ignites our squall
as hands kneed flesh, chorus falls hoarse
ripe shadow probed, more we endorse
***
I enjoy tinkering with new forms, and Grace suggested that we could even apply the form to another desire and sexuality theme similar to the Poetics: Desire and Sexuality in Poetry prompt I wrote Concentric Snapshots for earlier this week.
I mean, I certainly could use a few distractions, and what’s a better distraction than a little smutty poetry between friends, right? And it’s not even that smutty! 😉
Two new high school grads
our duet, playing at probing,
experimental love;
clumsily grasping
at the third rail,
illuminating our
respective darkness,
calling the freshly found
fool’s gold
love eternal.
II.
Victims of circumstance, we
circled the idea as
adults consenting at this
scandalous dispelling of intent, this
instinctive discontent
sucking at the plea; a need
we’d already met
in spirit if not deed, she,
splayed and braced
for our forbidden crossing,
forever eroding a
gold-pressed
promissory note
as false idol.
III.
Never bothered catching her name;
would’ve fumbled it away anyway
in the aftermath of two bored barflies
stalling to return to our respective
counterfeit lives, finding life and little
deaths pressed between, rubbing for wishes,
but granted only golden gilded-guilt.
IV.
Last night with her was…
last night was…
it was… have you ever
in all your
quarter-century-plus of life
been so sure of someone,
so secure in her warmth,
so open to your own vulnerability
so overeager to overflow,
to explode,
to lose containment of self,
spilling onto
and into her essence
until you forget
where you end
and she begins? Like… you know…
uhm… like two novice glassblowers
playing in molten golden sands,
you both know it’s real and urgent
and wonderful, and powerful and… and…
…and inevitably,
one or both of you
will still shatter it
once it cools.
Anyway,
it was like that
with her.
V.
There was something
within this sad, soulful
old-soul lonely eyes
that fleetingly
stole her soul
from her fiancé
for an afternoon delight
that never happened; that was
her story anyway after
entering a bachelor’s loser-loft,
asking for a glass of water
she never drank a drop of,
spilling it on the night-stand
next to her thirst and
a certain creaking
secret-spilling mattress
and I can’t say if anything
she moaned into my ear
was gospel, but truth is,
sometimes
seeking that golden sandy fullness
leaves us spent, wrought
with emptiness.
VI.
Neither of us
are in the mood,
molecules moving
a bit slower with age
and still,
catching me
admiring her hips,
she wiggles a spark my way,
igniting knowing smirks
encircling in decaying orbits,
concentrically spinning
towards collision
saying inflammatory things like,
“I thought you were sleepy?” and
“What you wanna do?”
with knowing grins,
knowing the answer
before it begins with
clumsy grasping of our third rail,
transmuting darkness into
golden hues.
***
Initially, I was going to skip this one and just exist within my depression for a minute, but then I began reading everyone’s steamy contributions, and as Bjorn predicted, I became inspired for some reason. *heh*
Passion and sexual desire are often their own reward, but I thought it might be interesting to examine the fact that often these desires don’t exist within a hermetically-sealed bubble. Sometimes indulging is great and the circumstances wonderful, and sometimes the whole sultry exercise may be wrought with symptoms of a deeper need.
No judgments here! Lord knows I’m not qualified to judge anyone. I just thought it might be interesting to play with circumstances.
I enjoyed writing for this prompt. It pulled me from my doldrums for a bit. 🙂
Once upon a frosted moon
I gathered diamond dust in June
Nonsense or hogwash, dare you say?
Perhaps you’re right; it was in May
With snowdrifts icing late spring blooms
I laced my skates and headed north
Her hand outstretched from feathered plumes
My butterflies flittered for warmth
This bird migrated in three-fourths
I lagged behind her melody
Her song was lilting, light, on-key
We danced our dream with fragile force
Her sea-salt kiss reigns tearfully
Melting capricious symphony
My snowbird left this lonely loon
In sentiment and fantasy
That once upon a frosted moon
I gathered diamond dust in June
***
I enjoyed this prompt… but look, I get it… I know there’s not much to hold onto in this poem (or perhaps too much, depending on your perspective), so pardon my whimsy.
“Once upon a…” prompts get me in a bit of a whimsical mood. 🙂
She had typed each letter
carefully
with thumbs that already knew the way.
That was at least a half-hour ago,
electronically,
via direct-message, which was
a slightly incomplete method
of describing one-way messages
traveling the speed of light
towards their destinations;
A miracle of technology
that may as well had been substituted
by carrier pigeon
or message in a bottle,
for all the good it did her tonight,
or any other night she found herself
waiting.
She stares at her phone
for a notification that won’t come
quickly enough,
or perhaps ever.
Who can say with that boy?
God damn him.
God damn that lovely,
delicious boy.
God damn his dreamy eyes
and his earthy scent.
He is taken with another.
She knows this
and tries to shrug this truth away,
knowing he knows the way back to her,
knowing she will open to receive
his sweetness
despite all common sense;
he doesn’t deserve her grace, but
she’ll extend it for as long as it takes
as long as it extends their private duets.
She needs to know she still matters to him,
even knowing that all that knowing does
is make her bite her lip,
chewing on his absence.
She waits,
ingesting delicious potions,
hash-laced chocolates,
and green smoke; she’s faded,
divided against herself;
her mind craves comforts
her body finds increasingly toxic,
pooling upon her needy tongue,
seeping into her spleen and spine.
His saccharine non-declarations,
when whispered softly into her
arched spine under cover of night,
warm her bones against her
malnourished brain’s better judgment;
when etched electronically,
they relieve her scanning eyes
while stinging her perceptive heart.
And when there is nothing but his silence,
that leaves only text that never refreshes.
Two hours fall away into nothing,
and there is nothing from that foolish,
delicious, selfish boy.
She logs off social media
a rather incomplete method of
describing some rather
anti-social behavior
closing apps, tabs, and legs
for another lonely evening
of binge-watching stories
of lonely characters behaving foolishly,
Guided by an autumn chance near-exchange
They both felt compelled to crane their necks back.
Backtracking, their gaze raised swift interchange.
Faster than light flew unspoken feedback.
Wordless vibe flowed as they knew they should know.
Even so, their paths diverged from sidetrack.
Though they lacked the knack to drink in the flow
She craved his sunrise, he thirsts for her past;
Their passing repast teased as afterglow.
The smile they shared, brief, yet spirits were vast;
Lifetimes compressed to one heartbeat phase-change.
They blushed with the fall, two leaves falling fast.
Their outlier fancy the mean dubbed strange
Guided by an autumn chance near-exchange.
***
Surely you felt the same
rolling over and seeing
my displeasure at a
brand new day, didn’t you?
Do you have any idea
how many poems
I’ve written about you
only to have to file them away,
snuffing-out their wicked truths
like so many birthed stars
that ate through their fair
share of hydrogen
long before Ra set
the table for you and me
to ignore our own nature?
Can you fathom how every kiss shared
will be compared to the caramel of your lips
nibbling mine in our candlelit shame
of being exactly who we are
exactly where we wanted to be,
exactly beneath the weight of
who we wanted pressed into our flesh
exactly the way we needed?
Do you also wish to shake
the morning gate of heaven
to its foundation for fating us
a taste of what could be,
only to allow our respective free will
to choose to loosen our firm midnight grip
on respective flesh before the black sky
blushed soft purple with promise of new day
separating me from you
as earth from firmament,
forming boundaries everywhere
instead of simply being
happily entangled in
undefined twilight?
On some level, I know
you were just as selfish,
just as grateful for those broad,
quiet charcoal strokes
shared in faint starlight,
silently sucking our
pigment from sundown,
but no matter our
moon-soaked efforts,
morning always comes,
doesn’t it?
***
A familiar summer scent
smiling, embracing our path
you’d sprung onto winter’s end
before knowing our spring need
unexpected kiss warmed us
your lips activated mine
your tongue filled me at love’s loss
What manner of spell is this
where I can relive seasons
of past-lives unlocked by smell
as weaponized nostalgia?
Will you cling to innocence
as you move to turn the lock
sealing us within our vice?
Lock me in; I will not flee
pour yourself upon my chest
envelope me in warm breath
crash and strain, power exchange
slake your thirst and wring me taut
plum our depths and bottle them
encrust us in lush reprise.
***
Hephaestus’ Waste & Cosmic Rubble 