Piquée
There’s a little grey snake most cunningly faced,
curled up in cleaved breasts, well hidden in lace.
It’s only as long as a tailgunner’s song
only as thick as a Semtex stick
but it bites to the raw with a jaguar’s jaw
then tucks its head down and keeps drilling.
Sometimes it slithers outside on warm fingers
disarming observers with its plastic display.
Others the poison tongue drips out and lingers
soaks through the lace in a green disarray
to the sponge in the core
that echo'd reservoir
the little grey snake’s slowly filling.
February 2012
Posted for real toads
Open Link Monday
Posted for real toads
Open Link Monday
Images: Photos of Femme Piquée par un Serpent (Woman Bitten by a Snake)
1847Auguste Clésinger (1814 -1883)Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France by fmpgoh on flick'r
1847Auguste Clésinger (1814 -1883)Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France by fmpgoh on flick'r
Shared under a Creative Commons 2.0 Generic License
Gothic and well described ... Like! :)
ReplyDeleteyes grim and feisty =)
ReplyDeleteI've not seen anything more beautiful......
ReplyDelete:)
Mimi
Collage Pirate
nice...love the beat in this one hedge...nice modernity in tailgunner and semtex with the snake that has been a symbol since the beginning, your words slither like that snake...
DeleteHoney, listen...keep your KEYS there, or a ten dollar bill, but not this. NOT this.
ReplyDeleteYour depiction of this serpent is pure Hedgewitch, unique, clear and high voltage. The contrast between breasts and lace and Semtex sticks and jaguar's paws is startling. Your little asp seems almost delicate at times, and certainly capricious, but always deadly, always one to beware of. I wouldn't want him next to my heart, thank you very much. But in this poem? Oh yeah.
Nice details of the picture..I do the poison tongue dripping and lingering through the lace ~
ReplyDeleteHappy monday ~
What an amazing piece of sculpture, and your words wind delightedly around the extremes of life and death. I really enjoyed this.
ReplyDeleteThis is beautiful ... and dangerous.
ReplyDeleteThis is one good poem on the picture. Haunting, I would say. :)
ReplyDeleteClever wordsmithing.
ReplyDeleteAn evil tongue that poisons like a snake... lovely metaphor.
ReplyDeleteMy wife's terrified of snakes -- unreasonably, wildly so -- the slithery insinuations here of this asp would be terrifying if they didn't seem self-applied, the way Cleopatra rendered unto Caesar her cold bodice with that poison pen. Or maybe it's more terrifying, knowing with such prescience the devastation to come. Dunno is suicide was meant here, but something about snake driven into the heart filling up with its red ink, a letter to the world written with a dying fall. - B
ReplyDeleteI worked landscape hort with a lady with that fear--a bad one to have when you're out in the dirt and weeds everyday. Plus the guys loved to find dead snakes and hide them in her truck to watch her freak out. I never told them I hated grasshoppers.
DeleteThis is about gossip, insidious ill thought and malice, actually, not suicide.
acute observation combined with subtle suggestions for a wonderful poem that speaks on many levels.
ReplyDeleteYou've managed to make this snake seem both adorable and murderous at the same time, which I supposed they actually are (at least to me!)
ReplyDeleteI knew that looking at cleavage is like looking at the sun, look to long and you're gonna get burned...but now snakes....now I need sunglasses and snake boots. Cool and edgy and first time I heard Semtex Stick used in a poem. Great work.
ReplyDeletevery sensual
ReplyDeleteprivate dreamliner
Oh a snake at the most vulnerable place, filling itself up with that vulnerable flesh, silently and insidiously, beautifully and awfully. Creepily! Yet I can't stop staring.
ReplyDeleteYes, the sculpture set this off--another take on the Poe quote about the death of a beautiful woman, but I did mean it to be metaphoric. We do a lot of harm in this world to ourselves and others with a venomed tongue. Thanks so much for reading, Ruth.
DeleteVery nicely done, Hedge. That first line sets the reader up for the rest just perfectly: "cunningly faced" is great.
ReplyDeleteK
Snake in the lass--very clever. K.
ReplyDeleteAh, this is amazing! I absolutely love this one. Just look at this description, filled with metaphors as deadly as the creature it describes:
ReplyDelete"It’s only as long as a tailgunner’s song
only as thick as a Semtex stick
but it bites to the raw with a jaguar’s jaw"
And the structure, the musicality of the rhythm, the deceptively simple end-rhymes - all reinforce the classicism of the subject matter.
I don't know the subject of la femme piquée, but the atmosphere fits the story of Eurydice, taken away from Orpheus by a snake, which adds yet another dimensionality to the story.
Bravo!
really neat photo. i might have to write about that honestly. you have inspired me
ReplyDeleteNice. Had me thinking of Cleopatra at first, but then I'll always make a mental trip by Shakespeare for allusions. ;)
ReplyDeletecurled up in cleaved breasts, well hidden in lace.
ReplyDeletethat echo'd reservoir
Just a little of your garden statuary you are showing us? ha. I love the "non-traditional" imagery you pair with something as old and symbolic as the snake. This flows beautifully on the tongue.
I wish I had this in my backyard, certainly! If only. I just have a strange English Hare and a tiny leprauchaun. ;-) Thanks, Margaret.
Delete...but can you even imagine the garden that must be maintained to accompany this beauty to do it justice. One would have to be retired! :)
DeleteWell, I am, and I still couldn't do it--probably came from Versailles or somewhere similar--I have some nice flowerbeds, but that's a quantum leap. I'd need staff. ;-)
DeleteThis has a wicked little rhythm, and "it’s only as long as a tailgunner’s song" has to be one of the coolest lines ever.
ReplyDeleteThanks, MZ. I had to dig deep to think of a line that wasn't a cliche in that stanza.
DeletePerfect match of poem and photos.........I love the adorable mouse to the right with a pink bloom on her head.
ReplyDeletei know those grey snakes
ReplyDeleteasp clasped bosom buddy mates
cats make the best friends
This was a perfect partnership of image and prose, hedgewitch. I'm with Mama Zen - that line was perfection.
ReplyDeleteThe poem and the picture make a perfect match! Well done! :-)
ReplyDeleteKind regards,
Subhan Zein
I love what you did with this. It is the venom in the seemingly innocent tongues that bring the hardest deaths.
ReplyDeleteA bit scary honestly. k.
ReplyDeleteYes, meant to be a bit creepy. It's a creepy statue, in my opinion.
DeleteAnother excellent poem and quite creepy as is the statue! Enjoy your play with the words.
ReplyDelete