ashestosnow | Entries tagged with poetry

poetree's writing challenge this week is for a haiku on summer. As last week's winner I'm not eligible to enter, and this is not a haiku, but the prompt inspired me anyway.

summer, you are the season of length:
long days, long shadows, long-loved memories
torn away from us by winter's strength,
frozen: you stir them with evening's breeze,
warm, sweetly scented with crème de menthe,
a perfect companion to heart's ease.
watching shooting stars, i count the tenth,
forget old wishes by small degrees.

this is a love song.
not a dancing of tongues,
friction of teeth against sunwarmed skin;
not tangling fingers in the soft sweet verdure
at the back of your neck. this is letting you in.
but not in the way most spoken of.
this is a song of a different merger.

this is your hands, gentle and skilful,
unbuckling not belts, but armor plate;
this is the sigh of aching muscles, released from torment
at the uncoupling of every latch and clutch,
and your palms unraveling the memory of the weight.
this is your eyes after nine days' traveling,
ringed and bleary, as you rise from our tent,
yet eager for sunrise as you were the first.
this is the shift in your posture, watchful, wilful,
your fingers in mine, that you may augment
this energy's flowing by the gift of your touch.
your magic in mine, empowering, ensconced,
yet all at once rushing and raging, fit to burst,
tearing down the barriers that represent
the illusion that fire and ice were ever discriminate.

do us disservice not; do not demean us.
eliminate from your thoughts that crippling crutch
that tells you: love requires particular response.
these responses, all and more, are goddess-blessed,
should you require that, should your brain soliloquize
that without deity, love cannot mean much.
do not mistake our love for second-best,
sincere gesture's for lust's shallow disguise
or the simplicity of holding hands for a prelude
to the end of the game. until you have danced with fire through us,
frozen a whisper in her outstretched palm, don't call this "tame".
upon our sanctuary do not intrude,
nor judge us right from wrong.
this is a love song.

The subject of non-sexual expressions of affection, and non-sexual yet loving relationships in general, has been on my mind recently; so, of course, as with many things I do not feel entirely comfortable discussing in prose, I wrote a poem about it. It's far from the best poem I've ever written, but I wanted to fit in some specific experiences.

the child razes the city at sunrise

The air around her heats, as mine turns colder.
Her form is silver-crowned, smoke-wreathed and tanned,
And caged in monstrous ribs of iron to hold her
Against escape, against the tide unplanned
Of old memories, dulled though growing bolder;
Raging against that sole instilled command:
You are not flesh but blade, not child but soldier.
Show mercy not to them. Stay not your hand.
I see the buildings spark, then start to smoulder,
And there lay down my honour and my brand.
It would not matter less if she was older;
Still she was one too young to understand.

armour of war

In darkened dreams I am that behemoth
That rose up from the shadows, shrieking, shuddering,
Like living flesh, yet forged of iron and wrath,
Hunched over, blackened, homeless-man-like huddling.
A tortured beast, yet tortured more its guide,
Her frame contorted into its resemblance;
From pain or fear, which, I cannot decide,
And dare not dredge up from my past remembrance.
I am controlled, yet commander am I,
At once the vehicle and the cold entrapment
That circles her warm brow and chokes thereby
Her memories of this cruel scheme's enactment.
I feel her strength resurge against my grasp;
I pray release, yet find my grip redoubling;
Though sickened by this violence, her pained gasp,
I countenance she's plagued by thoughts less troubling.
With shock I waken, memories of steel
And acrid vapours crushing in their gravity;
Still less to bear than knowledge time can't heal,
That outside dreams, I sanctioned this depravity.

Two poems: the first is my submission to

poetree's contest, though in honesty I prefer the second. I concede, however, that it might be a little too personal (and for many readers, abstract) to fit the theme. In many ways, they're companion pieces, hence my posting them together.

feather to fire. fire to blood. blood to bone.

bone to marrow. marrow to ashes. ashes to snow.

Entries tagged with poetry

summer

this is a love song

Companion pieces, on war [trigger warnings: brainwashing, child soldiers]

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