navwin » Archives » Open Poetry #47 » The Rapunzel Syndrome
Open Poetry #47
Post A Reply Post New Topic The Rapunzel Syndrome Go to Previous / Newer Topic Back to Topic List Go to Next / Older Topic
bel1e
Senior Member
since 2006-07-24
Posts 1631


0 posted 2011-12-29 07:37 PM





your love is lampblack and blue ash,
luminescent, nascent, a geography of gypsum and hooves,

your kisses leave residue and tastes of cerulean sand,
a sugar blue song quivering in the veins,

your love is a poem,
and tells the story of a girl
who once while steeping tea,
spilled honey on a book and discovered you.

in the end, every poem is a cautionary tale steeped in honey,
and so the girl leaned near the window with violet light
falling like pearls, like rain, and wrote a poem called:

Crepuscule,
to this day
the vowels contain the dusty sibilance of your name on her tongue,

today the sky is thick with whining blue jays.

how odd to never hold the heft of you,
knowing already your absence, like echo and snow,
but to dwell on this is to sink
into a subterranean landscape of crows and cusses.

permit me the traffic of a broken heart.

the blue slate of this day stains my dress
but the rain's veneer is beautiful,
and contains the language of lost causes,

like rain that skims my spine,
while rivulets write your words upon my bodice:

"J'ai tant rêvé de toi que tu perds ta réalité."

there are rivers that spin rain into constellations,
there are cicadas that decay into lace,
indian burns from girls in third grade,

you're less lovely in the light
but lovlier than last night,

listen to the fricative sigh of fingers through tresses,
over peaches that glow like vines in a tower of stone,


who knows how it's done,
see you there glistening in your goddam indecision,

baby, this is how it's got to be.
here. hold this. feel this.
upon the shoulder where the cicatrix of a small pox shot
identifies. blue skin. blue sky.

to think, one shouldn't don black in summer...
a mere conjuring trick, into which I shrink my spine,
some nights are as black as belladonna,

the darkness I gather in my mouth stings, an aria,
rosewater, tympanic bone, a quieter poem, a bronze song,

something undone, saliva,
a crushed butterfly, its blood on a lightbulb,

the vermillion and solitary luminary shimmies
and singes the feathers of the aviary,

how do bodies turn into song?

On Sundays I wear yellow,
while violets leak from my eyes,
for every fairy tale is tinged with soot,

your love is cuttlebone, sugar cube,
it's a fiction. a glass of milk, an eager sugar
it revolts my love into baudelaire's concubine,
a mere diary tax, a way of happening. a mouth,
a drowsy landscape filled with peach trees.
a song. an urn. an ashcan,
a glass spittoon. a broken arm,


the elegance of the letter f,

birdsong is lament.
say smear, rain, tears
in the eye of a cockatoo, or a torniquet,
depending on the night's narrative,

say wet, writhe, hydrangea,
the despair of trees in February,
the air has the consitency of indium.
say death. say breathe.
I am lonely, you concede,
the myth of it is inescapable,

for I am always burying something:
cardinals with shattered wings, orange peels,
the scent of my dress as it dries on the windowsill,

your love is lampblack and red ash,
a hieroglyph I've swallowed whole,

and so now I am two parts water to one part salt,
on Sundays, each granule begs a lesser atom in my soul
and indulges all its hollow muscularity in hyperbole:

and so our love is ash. at last.


              

© Copyright 2011 babygirLPress - All Rights Reserved
ice
Member Elite
since 2003-05-17
Posts 3404
Pennsylvania
1 posted 2011-12-29 07:58 PM


"On Sundays I wear yellow,
while violets leak from my eyes,
for every fairy tale is tinged with soot,.."

Pablo, is that you?

JerryPat2
Member Laureate
since 2011-02-06
Posts 16975
South Louisiana
2 posted 2011-12-29 07:58 PM


"the blue slate of this day stains my dress
but the rain's veneer is beautiful,
and contains the language of lost causes,"

I picked these three lines out of this poem, but I should have reposted the whole poem here, because it is so jam-packed with life and death and sorrow and . . . so many emotions it is staggering to try to sort them all out. I have read this soliloquy twice and will save it to come back to, probably tomorrow and in days to come. Stunning piece of work . . .

~*~ If they give you lined paper, write sideways. ~*~

bel1e
Senior Member
since 2006-07-24
Posts 1631

3 posted 2011-12-29 09:02 PM


Ice~ hardly...and now you are just making me +blush+. Thanks for putting up with this one....

             

bel1e
Senior Member
since 2006-07-24
Posts 1631

4 posted 2011-12-29 09:06 PM


Mr. Pat~ thank you for the great review...and like ice...for your patience in sitting through this one. It's certainly a dark murky mess of emotions...with hardly any rhyme or reason to it...more of an assault than a poem...so your forbearance is much appreciated.

             

jwesley
Member Rara Avis
since 2000-04-30
Posts 7563
Spring, Texas
5 posted 2011-12-29 11:22 PM


Your writing is lovely without a doubt and in this piece you had me down to "who knows how it's done,...".

Reading you is a pleasure, though.

j.

bel1e
Senior Member
since 2006-07-24
Posts 1631

6 posted 2011-12-30 08:13 AM


J~
Thank you for the kind review.

             

Alison
Deputy Moderator 5 ToursDeputy Moderator 1 TourDeputy Moderator 1 TourDeputy Moderator 1 Tour
Member Rara Avis
since 2008-01-27
Posts 9318
Lumpy oatmeal makes me crazy!
7 posted 2011-12-31 12:15 PM


You are so good.  I just read and savor each word, feel each color and savor each image.  Positively stupendous.  That's all I have to say about that.  

xoxoxo
A

Michael
Moderator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-08-13
Posts 7666
California
8 posted 2011-12-31 05:17 PM


Bel1e, I was completely taken by this one.  I’ve read much of your poetry, many incredible pieces,  and this is as memorable as any of it.
quote:

the vowels contain the dusty sibilance of your name on her tongue,

permit me the traffic of a broken heart.


Amazing write, girl.

Michael

OwlSA
Member Rara Avis
since 2005-11-07
Posts 9347
Durban, South Africa
9 posted 2011-12-31 06:58 PM


Belle, this is way, way, way beyond your usual standard of superb, excellent, magnificent, rich, sensitive explosions of poetic perfection!

I know how you speak of your work, but for my part, I like to pause greedily on every tiny element of your art to let it diffuse into my being very slowly to savour its full impact.  I don't always reply, partly because of time, and partly because I can't come up with a worthy response, but I couldn't stay silent on this one.

Owl

bel1e
Senior Member
since 2006-07-24
Posts 1631

10 posted 2011-12-31 07:10 PM


Alison....thank you so much...so pleased you enjoyed it.

             

bel1e
Senior Member
since 2006-07-24
Posts 1631

11 posted 2011-12-31 07:11 PM


Michael...thank you for the great review.

Xoxo

             

bel1e
Senior Member
since 2006-07-24
Posts 1631

12 posted 2011-12-31 07:14 PM


Owl,

Thank you. I appreciate the time you take to read my lunacy! You are an inspiration to me...and so much praise coming from someone as wise and grounded in thought and emotion as you are, means the world to me. Thank you!

             

OwlSA
Member Rara Avis
since 2005-11-07
Posts 9347
Durban, South Africa
13 posted 2011-12-31 07:46 PM


Oh, wow!  I am an inspiration to YOU?  Wow! And "wise and grounded in thought and emotion"  Wow!  (Just for the record, I do know other words besides "wow", but I am SOOOOOO basking in "wise and grounded in thought and emotion" that I can't think of any of them, right now!)  "Lunacy?"  Call it what you like, as long as you bring it on!

Owl

bel1e
Senior Member
since 2006-07-24
Posts 1631

14 posted 2011-12-31 07:50 PM


::::giant smile::::::

Have a blessed 2012, dear Owl!

             

OwlSA
Member Rara Avis
since 2005-11-07
Posts 9347
Durban, South Africa
15 posted 2012-01-01 12:44 PM


Happy I made you smile, especially a giant one!  Happy 2012 to you, too, Belle. Smiling a giant smile too.

Owl

Lori Grosser Rhoden
Member Patricius
since 2009-10-10
Posts 10202
Fair to middlin' of nowhere
16 posted 2012-01-01 11:09 AM


Astoundingly beautiful as only you can do!

hugs
Lori

bel1e
Senior Member
since 2006-07-24
Posts 1631

17 posted 2012-01-01 12:31 PM


Owl: xoxo

             

bel1e
Senior Member
since 2006-07-24
Posts 1631

18 posted 2012-01-01 12:32 PM


Thanks so much, Lori

             

JL
Member Ascendant
since 2004-04-01
Posts 6128
Texas, USA
19 posted 2012-01-01 03:43 PM


“and so now I am two parts water to one part salt,
on Sundays, each granule begs a lesser atom in my soul
and indulges all its hollow muscularity in hyperbole:

and so our love is ash. at last.”


Whew…  very colorfully express throughout.
The last stanza, perfect close, inevitability
waited-on and expected, and a relief it was
finally acceptable, and realized.

Very impressive write, B.G.


JL

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul,and with all your mind. Love your neighbor as yourself.
Maranatha!

Nicole
Senior Member
since 1999-06-23
Posts 1835
Florida
20 posted 2012-01-01 05:12 PM


Niiice

Alright...that's it.  I'm throwing the pen away.  

bel1e
Senior Member
since 2006-07-24
Posts 1631

21 posted 2012-01-01 06:44 PM


JL~  thanks for taking the ride!  So happy you are pleased with it!

XOXO

             

bel1e
Senior Member
since 2006-07-24
Posts 1631

22 posted 2012-01-01 06:44 PM


Nicole~

you better not!  LOL...Thank you for the support and encouragement!

XOXO

             

tracie66
Member Elite
since 2000-01-18
Posts 4713
Australia
23 posted 2012-01-02 07:03 AM


Bravo! intense vivid imagery, well penned!

Love is the life of the soul...
It is the harmony of the universe
                        — W. E. Channing



bel1e
Senior Member
since 2006-07-24
Posts 1631

24 posted 2012-01-02 09:10 AM


Thanks for checking this out, Tracie.

             

Post A Reply Post New Topic ⇧ top of page ⇧ Go to Previous / Newer Topic Back to Topic List Go to Next / Older Topic
All times are ET (US). All dates are in Year-Month-Day format.
navwin » Archives » Open Poetry #47 » The Rapunzel Syndrome

Passions in Poetry | pipTalk Home Page | Main Poetry Forums | 100 Best Poems

How to Join | Member's Area / Help | Private Library | Search | Contact Us | Login
Discussion | Tech Talk | Archives | Sanctuary