My Beloved
Another very ruff draft (from poem started in workshop)
My beloved
I chose your voice for its sweetness
& like syrup, u slither into my sleep
with your voice of tin & plastic reed.
You keep calling my name
with a warmth of fateless sunrise
with a twist of lime in tequila
with a flake of cocoa on the tongue
You keep calling with a tireless tender persistence
urging me to wrap my fingers around you
& caress your nub till your breath chokes
& you are silent
still humming
trembling
shivering
under my fingers
you are electric
& begging
me to press my lips
Without you,
I have no ears,
without you,
no voice,
without you,
I am less than nothing.
You keep calling my name
I bear you but only just,
even when I sting beneath the weight
of your voice
carries across oceans
swifter than the sun’s first rays at dawn
You call my name & I cannot run
You call again.
Without you, I am dumb
& no philtre can restore my voice.
I die without you
& my thumbs turn to wood
& my lips to stone.
Comments
Agree with Yvonne
There is a lot working in this poem and I love the phrase 'thumbs turn to wood'! But it does feel like maybe there are a couple of poems in the piece or a couple of competing ideas.... The 'sweetness' idea disappears and the poem focuses more on her calling.... Wherever you end up taking the poem, I'm sure the muse behind the work is already pleased with its merits!
Thanks, I think there are
Thanks, I think there are conflicting ideas to be balanced too. Good advice!
Btw, there was no muse for this one, but my phone & memories of being in love...
i see two poems
maybe my untutored eye but do i see 2 poems here?
up to the line 'press my lips' to me could almost stand alone. think maybe the 'sweetness of the voice' and the line 'tin and plastic reed' conflict?
Maybe it was /is a deliberate thing to represent past and present. love the lines
'you keep calling with a tireless and tender persistence' & 'even when I sting beneath the weight'
ai! master segun!!
Thank you Yvonne - yes u
Thank you Yvonne - yes u could be right, there probably are 2 poems here. Good point abt tin & plastic reed versus sweetness.
love or murder?
i struggle to go past the sence of murder in the poem to see the 'love' in it. or is it the premise that love itself can be murder, the killing of self to take on another? or the process of expressing that love, to quote an old nigerian saying 'you kill me when you plant yourself within'
All in all, i'm re-reading and liking!
Hmm, murder? That was
Hmm, murder? That was unintentional - at worst I wz thinking more stalker, but yes that was the intention to get some of the obsessional destruction of self for the loved one. Perhaps ego suicide is more what I was after