Poetry Forum

Tonight I will kiss you with my mouth
my tongue will be fire, my arms
serpents to restrain you

my hand will kiss you with my mouth
the taut star of your body
its jewel-islands rising

my nose will plough the secret earth of you
petals will fall open at my breath; the hot gold
of my heart will enter through all nine doors.


Original

Tonight I will kiss you with my mouth
my tongue will be fire, my fingers and arms
serpents to restrain you

my nose will plough the secret earth of you
petals will fall open at my breath, the hot gold
of my heart will enter through all nine doors.

Help ma boab! Open a windae!

Like the last two lines but I feel the tongue on fire and the arms like serpents are a wee bit of a cliche. My nose could plough the secret earth of you is possibly one of my favourite lines of poetry this year, but in such a torrid poem it introduces an incongruously comical tone

Certainly the second verse is great and I agree about the magnificence of 'my nose will plough the secret earth of you' which did not feel comical just so full of physical sexual expression to me.

The first stanza is I suppose is so much weaker but a decent, lesser introduction to the magnificent finish.

steamboats wrote:Help ma boab! Open a windae!

Like the last two lines but I feel the tongue on fire and the arms like serpents are a wee bit of a cliche. My nose could plough the secret earth of you is possibly one of my favourite lines of poetry this year, but in such a torrid poem it introduces an incongruously comical tone

Thanks Steamboats. re first lines, yep maybe so - classic case of the way a poem sometimes needs to write itself into a more interesting place perhaps.... And I do see that there is a danger of a snigger response!

Mic

dafra wrote:Certainly the second verse is great and I agree about the magnificence of 'my nose will plough the secret earth of you' which did not feel comical just so full of physical sexual expression to me.

The first stanza is I suppose is so much weaker but a decent, lesser introduction to the magnificent finish.

Thanks Dafra. Yours, is of course, the response I most hope for!

Mic

I enjoyed most of this.

I would omit 'with my mouth', what else kisses?

I too like the secret earth of you image, and the petals. The hot gold of my heart is too much for me, although I love the 9 doors.

I get that the poem is supposed to gush lush images, but I little restraint would improve it.

I think my suggested edits would do this but you might think of another way.

On the whole a rich poem.

Luke

Hmm, it's a thin line between good sex and bad sex, or so my missus tells me every time I forget the Viagra. I really like the 2nd verse but the 3rd verse reads like Alan Titchmarsh meets The Kama Sutra. No, that's unkind, I like plough the secret earth of you but nose is a mistake, I think, a big mistake. Not that size matters.

Luke, thanks. 'with my mouth' - I do see that it is kinda obvious, and yet, somehow I feel it draws attention to the mouth, dunno. You aren't the only one to say, but that's obvious innit? Will keep thinking about that.

hot gold etc .... yes, maybe, maybe too much ....

more restraint?

Ray, thanks for your candid response! I think the nose / plough thing made steamboats giggle too.

So, I've been reading e.e. cummings and wanted to try to write something erotic. It's not easy, is it?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/ ... wings.html

my fave is this sonnet to his girl:

xix.

my girl’s tall with hard long eyes
as she stands,with her long hard hands keeping
silence on her dress,good for sleeping
is her long hard body filled with surprise
like a white shocking wire,when she smiles
a hard long smile it sometimes makes
gaily go clean through me tickling aches,
and the weak noise of her eyes easily files
my impatience to an edge—my girl’s tall
and taut,with thin legs just like a vine
that’s spent all of its life on a garden-wall,
and is going to die. When we grimly go to bed
with these legs she begins to heave and twine
about me,and to kiss my face and head.

And I love the drawings too, of course!

Mic

ray miller wrote: 3rd verse reads like Alan Titchmarsh meets The Kama Sutra

Comments on the revision. "Tonight I will kiss you with my mouth" doesn't work for me. I've heard it before but I still don't understand what it means. I think you have to use language honestly in a poem like this, not be too clever.

My tongue will be fire - sorry but that's awful, I'd run a mile from that line.

My arms serpents - how? Cold and scaly? If the arms will restrain, why not simple cords, or chains, or bonds, or some conventional restraint? You could never restrain someone with a serpent. The serpent (why not snake by the way?) would bite them or they'd run away.

My hand will kiss you with my mouth - good. But "taut" is very porny and overused and "star", five or six or seven pointed? I just think of starfish. A body has four points, the limbs. Unless you count the head, I suppose you are. Hmm.

The ploughing nose, again overly humid for me. The secret earth, OK, but is it really secret? This sounds like a relationship, if so I doubt it's secret. If it's the first time, isn't this all a bit sudden?

Petals fall open - blah blah Anais Nin blah. Hot gold of my heart, blah. All nine doors, pranayama blah. Sorry. Not sexy at all for me.

Sorry to be negative. I certainly understand the homecoming lust. Maybe I should try and do better rather than sitting here and carping ...

k-j -

I'm glad of your feedback - truthful and unflinching in its assessment. The line I find most interesting in this is 'my hand will kiss you with my mouth'. I did have reservations about 'taut'. I like the nine doors/homecoming idea. S'all good practice though, innit?

Mic