This Is Not Lust

New Poem, your feedback welcome...

This is not lust
Wanting to taste, feel, please
Every inch of you.
It is not simply carnal
The desire to tease and be teased
As much as I want to love and be loved.

This is about love
The kind that makes me
Run you a bath,
Learn to cook your favorites,
Sleep in your pajamas.
I want to love and be loved
Until you can feel my heart
Through my fingers, my tongue, my lips.
No, Baby, this could never be as simple as lust.

Smoke Signals

I would love some feedback.

Smoke Signals

Like Tantalus, I will my limbs to yield
With my bending to drink my fill;
With my stretching to taste your fruit.
Water up to my chest, yet drowning in this desire.

A fleeting glance and my heart swells
With hunger; and your voice whets my appetite;
With desire as your spirit sends smoke signals to mine.
Your vision ingrained, I hunger for your touch.

Like a wildfire, with you for air
Only an ocean would make me yield;
Only a tornado could quiet this flame.
Fully consumed, this body burns for you.

Like tender flint, under your hand
Gentle touches spark rousing flames;
Confident strokes ignite these walls.
You have set this house ablaze.

Barely a spark, here in the dark
My heart led here, a moth to your flame;
Your soul led to me, an ancient spirit quest fulfilled.
These smoke signals forever calling me to you.

kda,2002

Ache

OK, I finally finished a poem I started late last summer. I am stuck however. I cannot tell if it makes sense to anyone else so if you could help I would appreciate it. I am not trying to be cryptic at all and I do not think its genius. It is however one of the few real things that I have written in a long time. So, be honest. It does not mean that I will change it, but I need to know.

Peace
storm.


Ache


Moonless nights made longer by the memory
Of loving you strongly, surely. This troubled terrain
mocks me, pillows filled with dreams of you.

Ghosts of nights gone by ride me into day.
I am the wrong kind of tired; sleepless
for the wrong reasons; ridden the wrong way.
Glorious were the nights we slept not at all.

Restless days of news to share, without you.
Every step uneasy, this foundation is splintered now.
This pitiless ring promising the certainty of you
laughs until dawn breaks.

My heart open enough to want you happy;
Selfish enough to wish it were with me.
Here in the dark, for you, I ache.

Black Iris and Certain Dark Things: Finding The Neruda and O'Keeffe Within.

Georgia O'Keeffe is one of my absolute favorite artists. Actually she's tied with Frida Kahlo; I love them both for being raw and laying things bare, in very different ways.

Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings of large flowers, and some of her abstracts are very sensual.


To me, this painting is like that one lover who remains under my skin, long after I've last scratched my nails down her back, long after our last intimate moments, and our last kiss is nothing more than an ache.

Her work resonates with me. It is like my most secret desires, that I can only whisper, in the dark, after a year of laughing and loving, and desiring. Seeing her paintings is like voicing those desires that make me blush long after I've spoken them; long after a lover's reassuring kiss and compliance.

In the words of Pablo Neruda...

...as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.



The first time I read Neruda's poem, XVII, I felt that he understood something that is universal about passion and love. That sometimes passion is so very deep that it is kept safe, beneath the surface. It is not common, this love he knows. It is not some cute 'eye candy', it is something that I would keep safely hidden deep in my soul. It is not something discussed, yet shows as bright as a full moon on a clear night.


Neruda's words and O'Keeffe's paintings stir something within me. I love intense art. Neither of these artists offer the sunny, easy view. Neither of them travel the easy road. Everything is so intense that it threatens to overwhelm. It resonates in me. I love reading things and seeing art that reflects a tiny mirror back to me. It seems that nothing for me is simple or easy.

I have a running joke with a couple of co-workers: I am not for the weak or uninitiated. No, this is not the bunny slope. This territory I offer is for the road warriors, the battle-scarred. And yet, there is this moment when all the hills level off, the thorns have fallen, all of the overgrown brush is gone and all that remains is...

a tender heart, my rich love, a vast and powerful sea. all that remains is me.

peace

XVII (I do not love you...)

Just thought I would share one of my favorite poems by one of my favorite poets...

XVII (I do not love you...)

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose,
or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as
certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the
soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in
itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid
fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you
without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly,
without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand
on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.


Pablo Neruda
Translated by Stephen Tapscott

peace.