Summer rain

we made the customary   
days into tangerine sky over the marina  

when we sailed away on your birthday  
I gifted you with  

summer kisses
wet with rain 

you came back
purring with nights bursting of fireflies

there were no roses & chocolates
but pebbles & seashells carefully picked & bottled

what can i give you
of our times together

but chains 
silk velvet, fingered by mistress moon  

but words lashing
your skin restless, swelling with longing  

over the years
our distance stole your memories, ebbing with tides 

but i am cursed with perfect one 
defying time's savage currents 

every summer, 
i recall your kisses when 
                                                      rain 
                                                                        f
                                                                               a  l  l 
                                                                                           s
                                                                                                

                                                                         


Posted for Imaginary Garden with Real Toads - I chose M's word list:
fresh, burst, defy, chain, struck, forward, exchange, customary, prefer, close

And Poets United ~  Thanks for the visit ~

Summer storm

the night bursts
a tinderbox on my hands -
      what was closed, dilated

&

           leaned forward  
defying lines & customary ex-
     change of words

rain seeps
a dark splinter in my bones -
      what was keyed up, flayed

&

struck, firebolt
dripping down my thighs, turning everything
              fresh wound

Posted for Imaginary Garden for Real Toads - Word List from M (grapeling):  fresh, burst, defy, chain, struck, forward, exchange, customary, prefer, close
& Poets United - Keys

The shades of my name

Paul Gauguin:  Two Tahitian Women (1899)

I learn my name in a dream-wheel

       Two women walk, unconscious of eyes
       that follow their hips & breasts swaying

Beneath my skin & layers of failures, a meaning 

       One woman carries a tray of berries 
       red & flowering, undisguised
       she is unstoppable, the fruit of the season                        

Stirring guts-deep, a faint primitive impulse  

       The other woman is tender, draped of blooms
       blue & evasive, a penumbra under a tree 
       she is on threshold of tasting a seed

Part-sun, part-shadow,  I know her-  

                                                                 Eve                        

                                    

Posted for Imaginary Garden for Real Toads - Word Challenge by Hedgewitch - Mind & Symbol
"'We are to use at least five of the words from this list drawn from Chapter One of Carl Jung's Man & His Symbols, in your choice of either a poem utilizing a form, in a prose-poem,  or in free verse. " 

Thanks for the visit ~

The master chef

he fancied me
like a red plum
cream souffle 

pouring hot milk
& vanilla into my yolk
he stirred me  
rapidly on bowl

to sugary drumbeats, 
i parted my lips into
a believer, sieving  
edges until my skin 
melted butter & salt  

i rose 
warm golden,
to soft peaks,
dusted icing ready 
for the precipice,
soulful bite  

but all I heard 
were crickets
drowning the moon's song,  
as his palette knife   
climbed my neck 
framed in velvet ribbon   


Posted for Imaginary Garden with Real Toads - Inspired by William Carlos Williams work
and Get Listed - Of Catnips and moons

Picture credit:  here

grapeling with words

you find

            your words are fire

            without flint or wind

            but with fury & shrill of the night

            how your words growl

            at the touch of another’s urge

            making your skin itch, surfacing nose

you find

             your words are water

             to the curious brow & sweet lips

             striking a cadence undeniably yours like a

             forgotten heartbeat

             your words have colors

             unfactored:   still-born moon, tender-lit sky, dark-grit storm  

             shading your heart, now spilling your guts

you find

            though you can make words

            disappear quickly

            as summer fireflies

            how they slice you open

            blue & shaken

            vulnerable as a root-

Posted for Imaginary Garden with Real Toads - Get Listed:  The Grapeling Way

picture credit:  here

Post-valentine note

I love spilling the page     I love ripping pages
I love falling over & over     I love pause
I love feverish words, climbing like ants, blind as bats

I love silver teaspoons    I love spooning at night
I love long afternoon walks     I love getting lost
I love red, reddish & magenta like sinful velvet cakes 

I love heat & pancakes for breakfast    I love fast & slow
I love opening small boxes    I love putting ribbons in boxes
I love pattern of leaves, rings in trees, streaks of sunlight  

I love the smell of fresh coffee    I love dancing to Latin beat
I love sizzling steaks      I love sea salt baths
I love hiss-hiss-hiss of teapot    I love tip-tap-tip-tap of rain

I love melting snow      I love melting together    
I love skin      I love scents     I love colors   
I love waking up to another day with you--

Posted for OpenLinkNight of D'verse Poets Pub (starting 3pm EST)

Using some Poet's tool box and Mayer's Experiment- Making use of repetition ~ Thanks for the visit ~ 

Yours, unwrapped

give me your awkward kisses -
bare of deception & golden bitterroot

give me your whole words -
both innocent & dangerously seeded

your silver chalice & frayed diary -
empty of pretentious grapes & perfect quotes

then I will yield - core, wine & blossoms - 
(blink) unspooling,  i come with awe



~0~0~0~



wrap me - skin 
& words with kisses, soft
as falling snowflakes 


braille my face
with your candle lit fingers -
slowly, i melt

First Post - Imaginary Garden with Real Toads -  Fireblossom's Challenge - Get Listed

Second Post - D'verse Poets Pub - Form for all  - La Lune (3 lines of 3-5-3 words or 5-3-5 syllabic count)



picture credit:   here

At the Italian Cafe

air - scented with red-spicy sauce
clings to leather jacket & gypsy hair.
inhale --    

crisp buttered-bread in dipping oils,
garlic sauteed mushrooms, in-between butterfly
conversations & sipping periwinkle-iced wine.   
listen --

voices of people,
ubiquitous holiday carols,
grinding pepper mill,
crackling spice seeds,
clicking of cutlery,
heels on linoleum tile.
soak -- 

for a moment the thick air. 

bring it home with you.
do not wash it away, 
instead wear it to bed.
stain your sheets, 
alabaster-silk pillows,
your lover. 
kiss --

indigo-inked skin,
slowly as you would savor freshly
ground peppercorn, olives, basil &
spices sprinkled over the pasta noodles -
fiery, orangey-lit, sweat rolling backside - 

serendipity or synchronicity -
words brim from lips.     
& you --

are never the same again. 

Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - OpenLinkNight -  Guess who is helping tend the bar ?  Smiles ~

and Real Toads: An Ink-Stained List - Thanks De ~

Thanks for the visit.






picture credit:   here