Scarlet Verses

darkly, yours

2018-11-20T05:30:00.000-11:00

at last, the day folds to dusk
and our stiff masks fall aside, forgotten

in the room, ready for the flint of our skin
my fingers trace, retrace veins of desire

remembering the drip of golden honey
from mouth of your song

love me
with all the certainty you can muster

night air bristles, the way spice darkens
chocolates to red

sweet, with heat, twines with peppered kick
we melt: sea of flames

the sight of strawberry moon, rising
to straddle your hips

slow dance of tango,
musky perfume of ripe fruit, fresh rain

raking memories stolen with hard kisses
in your arms, enamoured

by the fire in your eyes, blazing bold
as stark blue flower-

i am sky - resting amidst waves of contentment
as starlight dims

love, hold me closer
you are the salt of my poetry

Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - Desire and Sexuality, hosted by guest HA, Anmol. It's been some time I have published a poem in this blog. Please join us when the pub opens at 3pm EST. Thanks for the visit ~

only red lipstick

2018-04-09T05:00:00.000-11:00

when the day's done
unbox
me,
sliding each
teeth
out of margins,
i'm redolent
under
moonlight

oyster sky is
your face
swooping down

swirling snowdrops
out of winter's depths

i close my eyes
as each
hot-peppered kiss
unzips me
with fingertips
soft as
tulips

Posted for dVerse Poets - Quadrille, a post of 44 words with the word Zip. Hosted by De Jackson over at dVerse pub. Come by at 3pm EST for the fun challenge.

two moons ago

2016-11-03T06:15:00.003-11:00

night air bristles,
the way spice darkens
chocolates to red

sweet, with heat,
twines with peppered kick
we melt: sea of flames

~0~0~0~

Under ripe strawberry moon
night's perfume:
I hear black wolf's racing pulse
rain, musk, wood
As your tongue cools my heated flesh
tangled in your arms

Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - OpenLinkNight - Join us when the pub opens at 3pm EST. I am sharing two short poems I wrote during summer season.

Tanka

2016-08-18T05:46:00.000-11:00

read my letter as
you would pare ripe fruit - juiced
liquid clinging thick
words settle on your tongue - soft
as snowflake, tanged with sugar

~0~0~

moon song - velvety
against swaying maple trees
your face is candle
flicking deep night stars - amber
against slope of my chest - pinked

Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - Tanka, hosted by Kanzensakura.

Thanks for the visit.

Echoes of music

2016-08-04T05:49:00.001-11:00

You are the snappy rhythm
my fingers catch, dally & dance

On black & pale ivory keys
Even with no sheets to follow

You are the sun-lit river tides
my rib bones pulse & thrum

You are the flickering rain
on wood & fresh pines my feet sway to

Under verdant sky & billowing clouds
Stringing of noisy grey geese returning

to spring season of maple trees
Open the front door & hear- lilt, verve, cadence-

Never lost, it waits to be found-
This music, & you

The above poem is an edited poem. Below is the original poem.

You are the rhythm
my fingers catch & play

On black & white keys
Even with no sheets to follow

You are the river tides
my rib bones pulse & thrum

Under verdant sky
Stringing of noisy geese returning

to spring season of maple trees
Open the door & hear the call

Your music was never lost
It was just waiting to be found

Posted for D'verse Poets pub - Hosted by Victoria C. Slotto. We are asked to edit an old poem and kick it up with sensory details.

Moontide

2016-05-26T06:15:00.001-11:00

we wax the full moon
silver fruit
then slice it
petal by petal
leaf by leaf as if
hidden in its deepest core-
seeds of pomegranate

our palms are
chalices of wild honey
brimming our tongues
with lushness of
spring
blossoming lilacs

the fragrance is heady
dripping with awareness
that spring season is very short-

and suddenly
between us,
night is velvet-apple
sky is passionate violin
strumming every kiss to heady brew
bewitching wings to soar from the whirlwind

through all the rush, swell & ebb
spinning us madly out of orbit
we land
here, our safe harbor
our ocean sand of silence

as we shut our eyes to sleep
we murmur a promise:
never say
goodbye

Posted for: D'verse Poets Pub - OpenLinkNight where I am hosting ~ Come & join us when pub opens starting at 3pm EST ~ This is a belated response to Abhra's Unintended Farewells prompt last Tuesday.

Spring fever

2016-05-19T05:33:00.003-11:00

Dab
the sky
pink, blue, gold-
I ache for green
dazzling leap of morn-
Fragrance is you, rain-fresh
With the wild song in your eyes
Around us, earth buzzes - wings - life
Kiss, spice me madly - I want to do
With you what spring does with the cherry trees

“I want
To do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.”

― Pablo Neruda, Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

I have been using this quote in my poems for the last 4 years at the height of the spring season so I am carrying my own tradition.

Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - Etheree poetry form, hosted by Victoria Slotto ~

Thanks for the visit ~

The sweet season

2016-05-12T07:07:00.001-11:00

Love is a war of lightning,
and two bodies ruined by a single sweetness.
-Pablo Neruda

the slow trickle of heat, love
is enough to flame the forest, it is
season for hunger - smell of rosebuds, a
wave of spring green- a war-
drum beats, our chests throbbing of
passion- your kisses are lightning
while my lips are ink and
pink pressing letters on your skin, we're two
voyagers finding the same spiral shell, our bodies
are petals of clover, ruined
by blazing afternoon sun, by
wild tempest of colors, a
language our fingers (re)trace, trembling under a single
symphony- this season is sweetness

Posted for D'verse OpenLink Night, hosted by Gayle

Poem form is Golden Shovel - where the end word of each line is a quote from one of Pablo Neruda's poem. Thanks De for the introduction of this form~

Say it with flowers

2016-03-08T06:27:00.000-11:00

I should burn old year
& throw away the scarlet letters, but I don't

The moon crawls
between spaces & craves your imprint

I keep sliding back to your
touch bruising the back of my bare knees

It was the promise of Always
slotted between wet kisses & sweaty palms

How my face flowers just for you
The bad boy of the town

I learned the many degrees of Always
Flimsy as moth wings

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,
Yet the wanting of you is an addiction

Crackling after the blazing dies
Always, always, always

even when you don't give me
any flowers

Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - Hosted by Mary ~ Inspired by poem

Burning the Old Year, BY NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

I used two lines: Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,

Crackle (ing) after the blazing dies

Thanks for the visit ~

Aria

2016-02-18T07:44:00.000-11:00

You dwell between
syllables & lotus leaves
Not a rhapsody of teal
But torrent of kisses & fire
melting winter crystals to rain

~0~0~

Weave your cyan pink sky
between each ice drop chandelier
Touch me with promises
Made long ago, I surrender
to ardent dusk, blooming with tulips

Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - OpenLinkNight - Hosted by Bjorn Rudberg ~ Thanks for the visit ~ Poetry form: Tanka

The tainted gift

2016-02-15T08:00:00.000-11:00

After a few sips of red wine, you went for a tentative kiss on my lips. It was tender, soft, smell of fresh ink on brand new page. I twined my arms around your neck, and pressed for another kiss. No words were enough, and I was swept into your fiery embrace. There were no secrets I kept from you as I was an open book. Soon, you proposed with a diamond ring under the moonless night. I was thrilled by your passionate declarations, and marked this day, the day.

Under your persuasion, I threw out caution, and we went on road trips together. It was wild rebellion, goose-bumps intense like "us versus the world". The tides quickly turned deep & blood-thirsty. You became the enabler, that I was trying out things I have not done before - marathon drinks & drug-induced parties until the morning. The final sting came one midnight, when I had to be rushed to the hospital due to severe attacks from heady drug cocktails. What was in the shadows that nursed your shaking heart? Or was the darkness already in me, awaiting your touch ?

icy polar wind

snaps the twigs to white, deadly

still, color of my sky

Inspired by: "Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift."

― Mary Oliver

Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - Haibun Monday - Join us when the pub opens at 3pm EST.

Tanka: Dancing under the moon

2016-01-21T06:57:00.000-11:00

under fog-lit moon

the dance of your fingertips

on my skin is spring,

unfolding petals white & peach

rain-rippled, silk with desire

Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - OpenLinkNight - Hosted by Gayle ~ Thanks for the visit ~
Poetry form: Tanka

Sparks

2016-01-07T07:47:00.002-11:00

words unspoken
crackle the air crisp as magnolia
tangy as first apple bite
you entice me with a dream's glimpse:
your voice twining with moon's lilt
daring me to follow you
wings wild & untangled
as rain flower

flint the fire's undertow
strike the static canvas to deep-vowel blue
softer than water-
us

Photography credit: Adam Martinakis

Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - OpenLinkNight - Happy New Year to all of you ~

The perfume of moon

2015-12-03T08:29:00.000-11:00

The ache is a susurration
pounding my chest with oxygen-fire
Let us put down these arrogant masks

And bid midnight to come, wine-
spilled with our tempest secrets,
Our eyes starved with possibilities

Not even our families at war, can define
Our words find each other
like threads to needle's eye, spooning like velvet storm

Each touch is mercury's fever
Marking time like panther chasing a wild harmony
Let's begin our own dancing, slow

sipping the perfume of night-blooms
Gripping us with passion's forbidden fruit
Thick with cups of spice

The full moon moans
at the back of my throat-
I say your name
over
& over

LILY JAMES AND RICHARD MADDEN IN ROMEO AND JULIET

Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - Synesthesia hosted by Victoria C. Slotto - Thanks for the visit ~

I dream of the mountain & its gift of fire

2015-10-29T07:30:00.000-11:00

All the light of the Caucasus falls on your body

as though into a little vase of glass, infinite,

where the water transforms itself, by dressing, by singing

at every transparent move of the river.

‘Through the mountains you pass like the breeze’

XVIII From: ‘Cien sonetos de amor’

- Pablo Neruda

I dream of it

like an arrow of wild fragrance

drowning the autumn air

with stains of spring's first awakening

pushing, forming

it arrives not as raindrops slowly

trickling but sudden piercing flash

of thunderstorm

pouring like honey

all the light of the Caucasus falls on your body

dusty golden, you are dawn

unpetaled, blazing

rising above mountains, weaving the earth

with new watercolors

I dream of it

like symphony's

unbroken melody

recochetting between our bones

intimate as thinnest filament

as though into a little vase of glass, infinite,

love, with its immeasurable weight of sea,

is sailing through all the continents

seeking you

seeking me and all my words

fragmented as lost diamonds

I wait between harvests, spinning

music on this wet earth

I dream of it

like silkworm cocoons, of beginnings

where the water transforms itself, by dressing, by singing

through every season

flamboyant and effervescent

on my lips, cinnamon wine

on my skin, burning kisses

I dream of this

under the night sky as it shimmers

electric purple

ringed pregnant with silence

your every memory stabs the darkness deep that I shiver

at every transparent move of the river.

Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - OpenLinkNight, Hosted by Bjorn Rudberg ~
Attempted to do a glosa (draft) ~ Join us starting at 3pm EST ~ Thanks for the visit ~

If I should forget

2015-10-15T05:17:00.001-11:00

Turn me towards the sea
Where nacre of morning is pure ivory

Kiss me with your liquid tongue,
with your words, a whirlwind's blue fire

I trace the gull's ancient flight
nadir to where you are, map of thousand islands,

sweet bread of corn, a journey's home
All the trees will be fragrant with dark honey of spring

And I would fly straight
to your arms, dripping with naked flowers from sea

Photography by Brooke Shaden

Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - OpenLinkNight - Hosted by Gayle ~

A Sonnetina Due, a poem in 10 lines, with 5 couplets, no meter.

Thanks for the visit ~

Ode to Summer

2015-09-16T19:00:00.000-11:00

The Red Eternal by Brooke Shaden

Blue wind
where is your nest & soft feathers?

I am cold
as fallen pears on moonless night

Where is your kiss ?
A quickening sand, a storm lightning

Swelling the auburn fields to harvest
ripening fruits to bloom

Heat is a perfume
you rustle with each breath

Potent as chili spice
Succulent as amber wine

I haunt hills for your tempest songs
Dazzling as mid-morning upon fainting earth

The sky is a prism
scattering gorgeous tendrils of sun's radiance

I search for my love's voice
From tree to tree

Not silent with copper-burnt petals
But warm and loose as red-wild flowers

Love,
I wait for your return

Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - OpenLinkNight ~ Thanks for the visit ~

Eve's garden

2015-09-03T06:16:00.000-11:00

you turn my ribs
stone to water

with every kiss
a tendril is born unto the garden

where yellow tongues of sun
taste of overripe tangerine

soft moss and purple maple leaves
grow out of my mouth

every part of me
is alive & fragrant as lime wood

twined in your nakedness
I am a season, replete with your knowing

your name
smolders under my chest

majestic
flowing through the streams of my veins

then why do I
bleed over the lines of your palms?

Adam and Eve,

by Gail Caulfield, Villa Montalvo (Italy)

Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - OpenLinkNight Hosted by Mary

Thanks for the visit

Woman to Man

2015-08-08T23:47:00.000-11:00

This is the soil that labors
beneath our feet, growing damp
with rain, with seeds
In late summer, a red blooming
that catches the sky's opal eyes

This is the leavening our bread
seeks, the grit our veins inhale
when our ribs twine
petal & spine
imagining light spilling over us

This is the river-sap that seeks
our bodies, every valley & groove
at rest, or rocking to birthing tides
The bones that shape your thighs strong
The fire that makes me arch my back

In the moonlight
This is our hunt & chase:
That we give & take
Each other's fruits, our tongues
running along this quicksilver blade-

Oh hold me, my fearless love-

Title & poem inspired by Judith Wright

Posted for Imaginary Garden for Real Toads - Sunday's Challenge: Judith Wright
And Poets United ~ Thanks for the visit ~

Two Summer Tanka

2015-08-06T06:04:00.000-11:00

you fill summer nights
with cicada songs
tempting all my fruits
i settle beneath your moth wings
ribbed with moon's ardor, dazzled-

-~-~

in sudden hailstorm
seeded black as ripe plum
your tongue is ice
on my heated skin, a snowflake
drifting, light as cotton seed-

Posted for D'verse Poets Pub- OpenLinkNight ~ Thanks for the visit ~

You

2015-07-23T07:30:00.000-11:00

Summer heat frog-leaps
under ginger-shadowed moon
My lips are on fire-

Posted for OpenLinkNight - D'verse poets Pub - Hosted by Anthony Desmond

Summer rain

2015-06-28T01:21:00.000-11:00

we made the customary
days into tangerine sky over the marina

when we sailed away on your birthday
I gifted you with

summer kisses
wet with rain

you came back
purring with nights bursting of fireflies

there were no roses & chocolates
but pebbles & seashells carefully picked & bottled

what can i give you
of our times together

but chains
silk velvet, fingered by mistress moon

but words lashing
your skin restless, swelling with longing

over the years
our distance stole your memories, ebbing with tides

but i am cursed with perfect one
defying time's savage currents

every summer,
i recall your kisses when
rain
    f
a l l
s

Posted for Imaginary Garden with Real Toads - I chose M's word list:
fresh, burst, defy, chain, struck, forward, exchange, customary, prefer, close

And Poets United ~ Thanks for the visit ~

Chocolate

2015-06-16T07:08:00.000-11:00

You are the chocolate cake
kept hidden in the ice box

Your skin is rain-moist,
petals plump as ripe apple cheeks

My vegan tongue plied me
raw crunchy baby carrots & celery stalks

I nibbled on baked salmon with lemon & dill
But the meat of you

roasted fat, juicy, pitted with spicy herbs,
wells up from my deepest belly

making my canines
itch

longing for burn
of your kiss

From Maya Lukash

Posted for: D'verse poets Pub - Theme is Food hosted by Kanzensakura ~ Thanks for the visit ~

Five ways to make perfume

2015-04-16T13:09:00.000-11:00

I. Blade the neck of flowers
Distill oil, soft as vanilla
Musky as sandalwood
Imagine words
dripping
lashing
their own distinct
perfume
on your fingers

II. First bite into apple
Tangs your tongue
crisp as morning rain
  Bottle it-
spring's perfume

III. Wound the tree
repeatedly until myrrh gum
bleeds
darkens the parched bones-
The perfume of sorrow

IV. Witness the pearl
growing a thin amber of silk wings
upon another layer, threads
mirroring light
deep
into roots-
The harmony of music
is perfume

V. Moonlight on your arms
Fire in your eyes
The fruit of my desire
There is no perfume
headier than
you

Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - Meeting the Bar - Hosted by Anna

Thanks for the visit ~

Cherry

2015-04-02T01:09:00.000-11:00

Photography by Totomai

Bid the sun to rise soft as dew
On my skin, rain-fragrant trail
And I will bloom, pink and new

Where the knot tangles cold residue
and turns kisses to fading memories
Bid the sun to rise soft as dew

There's sap on my palms, honeydew
on my lips, bees on my knees-
Soon, I will bloom, pink and new

Wrapping away winter's bluff, so blue
Paint my core-seeds cerise
Bid the sun to rise soft as dew

There's a spell to brew
Ripening petals in quivering tryst
This blooming, pink and new

I want to do with you
what spring does with the cherry trees
Bid the sun to rise soft as dew
And blooming, I am pink and new

* From Pablo Neruda poem's Everyday You Play:

I want to do with you
what spring does with the cherry trees

Posted for Poets United - Cherry Blossoms
and D'verse Poets Pub - Villanelle poetry form - 19 line poetry form with two repeating rhymes and two refrains ~ Join me later at 3pm EST ~

Scarlet Verses

darkly, yours

only red lipstick

two moons ago

Tanka

Echoes of music

Moontide

Spring fever

“I wantTo do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.”

The sweet season

Say it with flowers

Burning the Old Year, BY NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

Aria

The tainted gift

Tanka: Dancing under the moon

Sparks

The perfume of moon

I dream of the mountain & its gift of fire

‘Through the mountains you pass like the breeze’

XVIII From: ‘Cien sonetos de amor’

If I should forget

Ode to Summer

Eve's garden

Woman to Man

Two Summer Tanka

You

Summer rain

Chocolate

Five ways to make perfume

Cherry

“I want
To do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.”