Tuesday, February 22, 2022

Quadrille Of The Poppies

 
 
 

 
 
Quadrille Of The Poppies
 
 
In Mexico
you wrote me word by word
into the book of your hips.
We traded salt naked
 
lip to lip; your 
listening kiss
heard the colors come
as poppies and geraniums stirred
 
rustling from my earth,
turning their dark faces
towards yours,
opening. 
 
 


February 2022
 
 
 




 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 posted for dVerse Poets:
Quadrille #146: Salt






using words from
 
where I am hosting for Shay this week

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Images: Textile Bookbinding from The Netherlands, ca 1621  Fair Use 
Oriental Poppies, 1908, © Georgia O'Keefe    Fair Use

24 comments:

  1. You engaged all my senses with this one! Always in awe of your writing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ah, now that's it. I love that opening, and then the flowers slowly turning. Somehow the Georgia O'Keefe goes perfectly with your poem. Lovely, artisitically sexy stuff, Joy. Thanks for taking another run at the Neruda words and, again, for hosting. This made me happy.

    ReplyDelete
  3. "listening kiss" ~ that is awesome!

    -David [ben Alexander]
    http://skepticskaddish.com/

    ReplyDelete
  4. Replies
    1. Thank you, Wanda. I really appreciate you coming in from the internet.

      Delete
  5. Oh, my. I'm just gonna live all up inside this line for awhile, if you don't mind:
    "you wrote me word by word
    into the book of your hips"

    Whew. So good. A gorgeous poem, from title to end.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I so much love the richness of your poem, the short length just makes it more powerful, and the best kind of kiss must be the listening kind.

    ReplyDelete
  7. What a sexy poem, Joy! That beautiful sensual first stanza opening up into the kiss as flowers pop and open, then culminating in them kind of voyeuristically watching, whilst being an erotic metaphor for what's going on. Such cleverness, you're so good <3

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Sunra. Your poem for the Word List took my breath away.

      Delete
    2. Thank you, Joy! That's very humbling as I so admire your work, thank you <3

      Delete
  8. Could imagine the poppies dancing, kissing, cavorting! You do the quadrille quite well, my Friend.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Helen. Years of practice with the 55. ;_)

      Delete
  9. Your first stanza was just delicious, and amazing writing, leading to wonderfully literary, artistic and sensual verse, so beautifully sensual..

    ReplyDelete
  10. Wasn't this originally titled "Salt"? Quite a talent, taking that 55 tango and squeezing out just its 44 staccato flourish but its here, the pure crystal perfectly shaken (squeezed) out, a sharp wakening and bracing tang which gets all the flowers dancing. Whew. Nailed it Hedge.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, it was originally titled Salt.I didn't realize I had published it that Way? It actually started as even fewer words til the first few lines came to me. I really wanted to add just one more word, too, "...dark faces..*upwards*.." but you can't have everything when you count words, sometimes a strength, sometimes just makes you gnash teeth. Thanks for reading, B.

      Delete
    2. Don't let a count get in the way of a gnashingly better poem, friend. And I'll try to remember the reverse.

      Delete
  11. Erotic, sensuous - irresistible!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Yes! Yes! Oh my yes. Drop dead great. The words breaking through the crust of the earth with wanton energy and life.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, qbit. You have done Neruda proud with your poem for the word list. It's obvious you have spent some time with him in your head.

      Delete
  13. for the first time in months I've spent some hours tonight reading poetry. yours, last, because, well, as they advise, what to save for...

    ReplyDelete
  14. You gave me goosebumps with this searing union of two amorous bodies rising to the occasion.

    ReplyDelete

"We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, out of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry." ~William Butler Yeats

Comment Moderation Has Been Enabled