We're still dancing

Venus and The Sailor, 1925, by Salvador Dali

We’re still dancing

We’ve danced all night and skipped rope together

You spinning double tied to the railings coated in ice and then my hand

We’ve washed the dishes dried the dishes turned the dishes over

You standing  to swing against the sky in the cold autumn night: some naughty children on the run

And still you love me amongst the baby carriages and the flapping nappies and you’ve forgiven the passion-killer undies conceding defeat in the face of comfort

Ones we shared when the bundle of shared existence was too tight to separate for clean clothes or appearances

The shaken heads with wisdom telling it would never last

Never last once the lust had burned itself out

Still waiting

Still dancing all night 

Thanks to Tess at Magpie Tales for the image and inspiration.  Please read more here at http://magpietales.blogspot.com/

430 O Sacred Face! (Poems of Exile)

O sacred face!

O sacred face worthy of Bacchus or Apollo,

which neither man, nor woman can observe with safety!
O fingers which long to stroke –
even those of a young boy or maiden.

So fortunate, the woman who nibbles at your neck;

so fortunate, whose lips are bruised by your lips.
Happy the girl who rests her heart on yours 
and who would tire her tongue in your tender mouth.




Seneca at his most sentimental - or political?

Birthday Greetings to my divine Marius, from his own true love.

x

435 I am not in love (Poems of Exile)

      I am not in love

A certain someone (if you would believe it) is in love with me,

not only a little, She dies of love: she is consumed.

And thus, she will grant me favours I shouldn’t ask –

I would show her love always, but believe me:  I am not in love.

Perhaps Seneca can offer an antidote to too much chocolate and excessive sweetness?

x

240 Cupid Raging at the Heavens (Poems of Exile)

      Cupid  Raging at the Heavens 

What? Struck by my own arrows?

What sort of trick to play on the son of a goddess?

I never asked to be immortal.

I was safe in my tower, snickering – well maybe sniggering –

at the agony of my targets

Those afflicted by my darts, the vehemence of their moans!

Now I am wounded

My mind knows not these sighs

This fire – I never spared Man nor Woman – now the madness overcomes me

A divine wave, such as when the earth trembles,

sweeps me breathless and staggering

There is no bridge for this raging sea, no firm axis to stand on

The sky is alive with plagues and mists,

storms and tempests roar at Neptune’s behest

Jupiter laughs across the earth – it was Pluto who conspired against me

They all did, all the gods

Now they watch me suffer this chaos of dreams

The punishment of the world’s love

Bella, come to bed

Only your diamond heart’s kingdom can release me

I am vanquished, staggering under this burden

Only your savage love can heal my wounds and

Draw the arrow from my side

You deny me?  This treachery – too much.

I die of love.

Image courtesy of Magpie Tales where more love awaits ...

Science of Love

If you rely on chemistry alone

to set your heart ablaze,

when entropy’s won

and the fires are gone,

what then for love?

magpie tales: http://magpietales.blogspot.com/

x

Body-surfing

I want to stand on your chest

and say “mine all mine”

“impossible” you say

“there is life, there are obligations, regulations,

the world”

x

Secret Transports

image from edupics.com

Secret Transports

How do you measure the velocity of love?

The ancients used the flight of Cupid’s arrow

from bow to target in two heartbeats.

Chaucer said the flutter of a wing

 when fowls chose their mates.

Elizabethan seductions passed by hand,

swept up a sleeve, tucked in a bodice, 

and loved danced a madrigal square.

Later Miss Austen took love’s temperature

declaring estates and carriages the measure,

until Brunel powered love by steam engine,

Orville and Wilbur made it fly

and Campbell tried love on land and water.

What is the velocity of love? 

The high speed rail link between hearts?

The hovercraft of desire?

The rocket-ship of lust?

Nothing has changed: the velocity of love is light over you.



image from britainexpress.com



for Poet's United prompt 'Secrets'

448 Could you seal your heart? (Poems of Exile)

 A taste of the romantic side of the philosopher Seneca/pseudo-Seneca.  Do not be fooled by his cynical disguise.

448-449 Could you seal your heart? 

Could you seal your heart, living with her captive sweet youth?

Could you live and love and know?

Could you keep your heart free from the tender torch,

Watching love die and her consumed?

You could defeat your heart with undiluted wine:

If remorse strikes, repress it, drive out the dark clouds.

If night-love seizes you, dare not to succumb

Unless –          your prudent heart is safely numbed

The Barbie Cycle 8

Plastic Love

Let the public vote!  no mind beats in the vacant chest of that malleable coy mistress

Barbie

how can we call it

   love

projected onto those guardians of our childish hearths 

the Lares and Penates of the Pink World?

Love does not bend unless it’s plastic: 

worth unknown but price precise, with discount, tax and shipping

Barbie’s not Time’s fool:  her fuchsia lips and cheeks

blanche only to fashion’s dictate

and alter to match the marketing brief

 – even to the edge of taste and decorum

Ken dallied with the Toys

while Barbie surfed the dating game

now he’s asking us to choose for her  

what hope do our full-sized selves have if elections determine love?

427 If you could love me (Poems of Exile)

This poem is from my collection The Poems of Exile, inspired by Seneca, or pseudo-Seneca.  An explanation of their genesis is posted in The Madness of Exile.  Poem 427 is one of the most corrupt in the original collection, which has given me plenty of leeway to interpolate. 

After the grim and unappealing 'Horrid Corsica' I want to show a different side to the imaginary poet.

If you could love me…

my sweet love, if you could love me like this:

alone to bed (Hesperus would see this)

alone (Lucifer would see this) to arise

no passage of time would cease our borrowed love

and in return you would always be loved

if only you would deny that you surrender, so often, to others

if only you would surrender, more often, to me

and your betraying snare, squeezing my soul, my heart, my pride

I want to give you my nights complete:

            you are unavailable

            you condemn the wasted night

and my empty bed is hostage to your cruel fear

once, you promised me, for life:  no more

            one senseless quarrel leaves me alone:

            when I was down with the ‘political illness’

            you flirted with your entire body

and then you denied our love

surely, you gave a thousand kisses to senators

            they say you were generous

you ensnared me so slowly:

            briefly, you were my dear woman

            eternally dear, in truth

your love affairs defeat me so quickly:

            jealousy stretches the night to endless torture

            I am always awake