"ripening" poems
*hints of auburn drift creating a soft cadence against the autumn wind
almost heard in lieu 'tis felt somehow awakening souls buried long ago
giving birth to falling crimson leaves tinged with maroon and gold
abandoned dusty roads transform under enchanting spells cast by fall
burnt orange pumpkins standing solitary on wooden porches threaten to reveal
hidden secrets held by dusk’s luscious cinnamon seasoned air
once fulgent sunflowers begin to slumber softly beneath the harvest moon
whilst autumn’s trance brushes all it touches with honey colored hues
i stand pensive as an amber leaf gently twirling falls to the ground
bewitched by thine supernatural powers; thine gifted artist’s hand
who with one stroke turns to butter amber all that once was forest green
and imbues my soul with thine exalted essence forever ripening
©2016janetaylor
Sep 2, 2016
Sep 2, 2016 at 2:15 PM UTC
How fortunate
Our color blends unintentially,
Wildly with thoughts bleeding outside the lines what have we started: again
And again I stroke
And again you absorb
And again this easel-- summoned
And again your vellum-- softened
Perched on a stool,
Vibrant as mangos --ripening
I chose you, the spectrum
Unknown to most
The only museum I go to.
Jun 20, 2016
Jun 20, 2016 at 11:55 AM UTC
Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.
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__Body__
Let me love and care for the art piece
of your body- every pulsating touch of your
spasms. Jumping wildly; while washing
me in your spring water on top a mountain
of passions. I’ll spurt within you, from its tip.
And in kind; let the wetness of your lips
sooth my skin. Kissed by your sensual soul, as
it echoes every word of thirst, running down your
throat; chasing after every breath we lose in
a moment.
_Still, let us not love in haste._
__Amazon Queen__
I gaze at you, as my sprouting rose in
bloom. But not something so delicate; she is
tall, shapely, and sturdy— my Amazon Queen
that keeps me in the centre of her rainforest.
As she lets my words water her floret by
their tip- its warmth and gentleness spoke of
a love so deep and fulfilling.
__Foot fetish__
Oh, how she stimulates my eyes,
as I make out with her eye’s persuasion;
my mind often rehearses how I’ll love her
in it’s imaginations- my mind’s perfect
simulation;
For our desires are much sweeter,
by every bite of her smooth chocolate skin
I adore her more than I would have
yesterday- to quietly bless each step
she’ll take tomorrow. And a reason for me
to kiss her feet.
__Moist__
Surely as the night is washed by the gentle rains-
I have these saturated thoughts, pondering how
she’ll drown me over another night’
As she could never
have the most without I in the middle;
her underwear feels so moist.
__Climactic Prelude & Conclusion__
Would you love to experience a climactic
prelude; a middle so sweet in its time;
While my eyes ripen at the sight of your
ripening fruit,
Oh, so sweet in its time, let me capture
and savour that juicy fruit,
For yes indeed we had fallen in love-
but let not that fruit eventually fall;
From its tree, to rot off its vine; let me bite
you as mine- to taste your heaven’s ecstasy;
In this climactic prelude; I promise the middle
is filling, and its conclusion won’t be short lived.
Jul 1, 2024
Jul 1, 2024 at 8:22 AM UTC
When you're around
Someone slips down the thermostat
Plays it like a violin
Drifting a decent toward
The most poignant Minor cord.
I feel lost within myself
Like an island watching a beautiful ship
Sail by without stopping.
And yet-
You leave and it aches;
Hurts like the thud of pulse
Behind a ripening bruise...
Feels as though my heart is about to
Rend my ribs and squelch
Painfully though the cracks
To slither away in your general direction.
In your absence
I realize that simple things
Can grow into necessity.
Tiny seedlings who take root
Can somehow cross time to become
A redwood with roots so deep
The foundation of the earth is never the same
When it falls.
Air is everywhere
And yet when its gone
Beneath tidal waves
It's more precious than gold;
Riches mean nothing when you're drowning.
Feb 22, 2016
Feb 22, 2016 at 1:12 PM UTC
Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art! -
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors -
No -yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever -or else swoon to death.
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Everyday’s affliction with what we know is missing
Countless moments wishing that fishing was as simple as whistling
Remembering that willows wither in winters un-warmed
and wandering wonders willfully repose when rivaled against ripening woes
Come closer potential memories of exposes’
Clothes skydiving with expectations of faceplanting into the floor
Lady classifications disguise the actions depicting a *****
Heaping hopefuls cascade over glistening gazes that persuade the perilous to lay dormant
Come closer to the oops
That second guess in the back of your head that taps the shoulder and says go
That same go that was an initial no and now corruption has spidered the criteria
It seems the cat may have found the trick to the ball of yarn
Dec 1, 2011
Dec 1, 2011 at 10:26 PM UTC
Maiden,
New beginnings sprout in feminine Earth.
Legs rooted in blossoming
Spring.
Newborn innocence cultivates in
raw purity.
Mother,
essence of life,
predecessor of power.
Like fruit ripening in preparation of harvest.
Fertile fulfillment found in
abundance.
Crone,
a culmination of earned experience,
compassionate wisdom.
Cold winter bears bereavement.
Change in continuous
cycle.
~
Mother earth,
complexion of cosmos.
My celestial
creator.
Maiden, mother, crone. Woman.
Goddess.
Dec 2, 2014
Dec 2, 2014 at 1:00 PM UTC
A satisfied appetite is a simply joy
Overlooked and simplified
Like a growing urge, a salivating need
That is entrancing and glorified.
Everlasting for moments we call meals
Forgotten in time, lingering above
But the taste, the lonesome lover pushed aside
Gazes afar and near wanting to be enjoyed again
The young lady with a tongue of raspberry delight
And the matured widow with darkened cacao lips
Ripening nectar of a sliced peach center
Halved and topped with mascarpone crème
The man with a skin of caramel glaze
Caressing and savoring
With a fragrance and scent
Of hazelnut coffee indulgence and sin
In the pursuit of a brief love affair
What oral sensation did my taste buds want?
My odyssey of gustatory endeavors await
Through the seas of lined people and waiting staff
Generous portions and humble pies
Decadent desserts so rich you’ll die
Vine cherry tomatoes sliced and sauté
Over al dente rigatoni in a roasted cashew sauce
A robust aroma and savory appeal
Basil leaves with garlic strips
Olive oil to top the surreal
Hubristic meatball aborigine
Elysian cuisine or many dreams
Teasing the senses, warming the pit
Of flowing pleasures
And tingling fingertips
Without moral measures
And succulent wines
Rotisserie lamb falling of the bone
Seasoned with Sicilian herbs
And paired with broiled asparagus
Drizzled with lemon juice
And a glass of Merlot
Spices I hardly know
Lachrymose apologies beside a bottle of faded sorrows
With love there is pain, passion endured through the names
Thin soups, flavorless and dull, feeding street-thrown bums
Breathing hard against the delicatessen glass
Hickory smoked hams, pepper-seasoned pastrami
Vinegar cultured pickles and hard dried salami
Unpleasured, without measure, at one's leisure.
Forever my endeavor
Blackcurrant tea laced with slivers of gooping honey
Layers of cinnamon hair atop olive skin
red-painted doors with cedar trim
crushed almonds mixed with hazelnut butter cream spread
devilish rounds of crumbling rum-swirl bread
Smells and wonders, tastes so ...
oh god
Divine and sublime.
Jul 22, 2013
Jul 22, 2013 at 5:42 PM UTC
. . .
. . . .
. . . . . . . . .
i stare at a docile ocean
waveless sun accosted
dark and shadow edged
tinned with men's brave
history of misconception i
'Dragonne'.
'Colossuus'.
'Cetaecean'.
- Leviathan ?
As sure as hope setting sail -
Past shoal, past shallow,
So each chase begins.
Lines parsing out,
Expectations coyly
Embroidered,
Entwin-ned.
- Leviathan ?
Pray please this narrative be drawn :
Truth for sake of safe harbour;
Stillness without caution;
Softly ripening dawn;
Jupiter and Venus descendant,
Celestial promise anon ?
- Leviathan .
Violence
the casual violence of life
the worst kind
not casual really but whats violence anyway
few knew why why ask why the few
once the dice flipped get
its a flying a mind a dunzo game
gravity responds we hope hope together sake
to gether
we short the freaks short em' all them freakin freaks freaks
i want you I want yours
i want to take you over
take control take over
29' run kontrol all night day
long time end time
everthing happens forfurfor fit ur
once and done (nature) forfeiture
reason or ur other or ur another or ur a altogether reason
or simple GP drunkworld
reason (nurture)
surprise my ripest faither - less
5 rise 10 run huh
up the down and dumb
dumb ber right left left right thum ber
number one number
numb - ber
one ones
another
come
under
the
(tumb)
.
All Rights Reserved.
James R. Morse, NYC 2013.
Nov 30, 2012
Nov 30, 2012 at 9:48 PM UTC
The snow leopard mother runs straight
down the mountain.
Elk cliff. Blizzard.
Hammers keening
into the night.
Her silence and wild
falling is a compass
of hunger and memory. Breath
prints on the carried-away body.
This is how it goes so far away
from our ripening grapes and lime,
coyote eyes ******* the canyon.
Yet
we paddle out in our ice boat
headed toward no future at last.
O tired song of what we thought,
stillness crouches like a prow.
We break the ice gently forward.
If I want to cling to anything
then this quiet of being the last
to know about our lives.
Copyright @ 2014 by Jennifer K. Sweeney. Used with permission of the author. This poem appeared in Poem-a-Day on June 27, 2014.
Jun 27, 2014
Jun 27, 2014 at 11:25 AM UTC
Autumn, like an Indian classical dancer, dressed up
Arrives with soft rhymes and quickening steps
She comes aglow, aglow with a rare beauty
Dancing to the bracelet's tinkling song
Her floating robe falls in deep folds around her feet
As she mesmerizes all with moves full of grace
Viewing the flaming colours in assorted display
We are apt to wonder if Nature carefully saved up
All that is best for the closing grand finale
Autumn tints look enchanting all through the land
With pervading green, offset by crimson, citrus yellow
Flaming red, lustrous gold and a faded russet
The air stays crisp and sweet in the ripening fields
While stray clouds ramble in flawless turquoise sky
When autumn is thus all agog like a frenzied dervish
It gives us morbid pictures of death and decay
The trees wrestle to free themselves of their worn cloaks
Causing a cascade of withering autumn leaves
Now they fall scattered in endless stream and lie in piles
Like charred carcasses after a fierce forest fire
The rustle of dry leaves blown by the wind
Falls in our ears with the gabble of migrating birds
Pale sunshine sifts through leafless trees of maple and oak
All those leaves once stayed regal in stations high
But now tossed out like worthless chaff
They come nose diving and fall several meters below
Spreading a hazel curtain over the moist earthen crust
When trampled mercilessly by careless feet
They silently mourn their thankless fate
Graying that comes at the end of each autumnal fall
Reminds us of the pall of gloom that awaits
It is disturbing like the parting song of birds
As they fly southward before the fall of winter
Oct 8, 2016
Oct 8, 2016 at 9:09 AM UTC
well then shepherd in the mess why does that sharpened cowl of wheat surround those sweet yams in the satchel, some scene of loosening transgressions, no pear ripening itself one dull, and one unfulfilling afternoon, rolls down over its branch of sister and brother father and mother Bartletts from the stem, only to make its way into the bottom of that stretched out tawny hide. Where by the wayside every other nobody can see straight inside when a hand moves in, sweeps its fist and then goes deeply down into that can of rotten novelties we all hate, but you feel keeps us in suspense. I wonder will it ever end? Bells busting from the insides of their guts, another candy shock, up and bounces, popcorn kernels, roasted almond slivers, and some preceding green vegetable posted on the 8th St. Diner marquee display on 9th, another advertisement fighting at the sore, devoured hunger for that silhouette following closely behind the moistened wells where my brush dabs lightly into the cup before the gouache and paint mixture begin to dry, that is where I wait and wonder why? Why? Pained with hunger but besmirched with fright, skin sweaty, knotted like muslin yards growing weak against the coil. So humbling were the groans that nearly a decade crossed swiftly across his face, only five or ten minutes had passed before another twenty years flowed into the vast matrix of the rivers of blue sweat marked by estuaries, creeks, and streams across the brow, down the cheeks, and ultimately across the neck, lazing down into the chest, before settling its heavy panic soaking in the guts. Where a heavy glass brick has been vitrifying in the sun, never have two people seen the steamy and piping-hot quarry go from its conviviality and festivity of life, into this shriveled up tree having found its way into the prairie where giant winds bend its branches and enormous thunderstorms nearly strangle it with its own roots. Frisked by sin and pangs of nostalgia in which a thousand thoughts intersplice the whorls imprinted upon our brains.
Dec 11, 2018
Dec 11, 2018 at 6:57 PM UTC
Little pieces of paper
To threaten the existence
of Little girls
Why know English?
To comprehend a language
That many of us already speak ?
Why learn Math?
In ten years' time,
I don't see myself
doing set theory
or applying circle properties to my occupation
Its' called common sense
And this common sense will lead me to believe
and to perceive whatever I have to do
In ten years' time
At this juncture, I must ask
Is common sense being taught?
Why learn Science?
Yes understanding the world before us
Humanities?
Science and Humanities
Common foes
Threatens each others' existence
One looks at human conditions
The other make theories to "disprove" that human condition
Love is blind, says one.
Love is Everything,
"This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet"
The great poet has uttered.
Pieces of paper
With marks scrawled in red
Threatens my very existence
Live your life to the fullest.
Becomes a misleading statement.
And then again,
exams seem like a milestone
And many of us frogs
Which leap from one to another
Drown in the middle
Hop up to another
A never-ending series of jumps
All the way till I'm 22.
Little pieces of paper
To threaten the existence
of Little girls
Sep 1, 2013
Sep 1, 2013 at 9:18 AM UTC
Yesterday she was nowhere to be found
In the earth or under the earth.
Suddenly she is all here - a bright soon
Of a tomorrow in earnest and potluck joy, embers and pyres, iris and the merriment of ochre.
A star groomed by outer space - spilling wet ash
And fissured out by the tailored saw of the wood.
Now something is stirring in the smolder.
We call it a girl.
Still wowed.
She has no idea where she is.
Her eyes, chalcedony stones, explore ripening doomsday and an ivory moon rock.
Is this the world?
It confuses her. It is a great numbness.
She pulls herself together, rousing to the new weight of things
And to that maternal figure nuzzling her, and to her down burrow.
She rests
From the first infinite shock of light, the empty laze
Of the curious and their curious questions -
What has happened? What am I?
Her ears keep on inquiring, blissfully.
But her legs are impatient,
Mending from so long nothingnesses
Her tiny hands are restless with ideas, they start to try a few out,
Swaying this way and that,
Grasping for balance, learning fast -
And she's suddenly upright
And stretching - a giant hand
Strokes her from top to toe
Perfecting her outline, as she tightens
The knot of herself.
Now she comes to -
Bold, beautiful - Argentina
Over the weird world. Her nose
crimson and magnetic, draws her, consciously sounding,
A petite yaff, aimed towards her mother. And the world is warm
And gentle and softens her daze. Touch by touch
Everything fits her together.
Soon she'll almost be a woman.
She wants to be a Woman,
Pretending each day more and more Woman
Till she's the perfect Woman. The immortal Woman
Will surge through her, weightless, unbound, a twirling flame
Beneath silver gusts,
It will coil her eyeballs and her heels
In a single outlaw fright - like the awe
Between mortar and firework.
And curve her neck, like a crocodile emerging from the placid pond
Among lilies,
And fling the new moons over her shimmery banner,
All the full moons and the dark moons.
Booming, ineffable delight.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 4:59 AM UTC
The old man was standing,
still and quite,
his back turned to the sun
as it drowned
in stormy shades of orange and pink.
The old man was still and quite,
staring the wavy distant line
hills and mountains drew.
The warmness of the dying day
spread a scent of hay, exhaling,
a violet blue slowly cloaking
distance and nearness.
As the full moon rose
in close roundness,
brightening contours
in a charcoal outline,
the old man lowered his head
and turned away.
In the early morning,
their feet wet by the dew
glimmering the fields,
giggling children
and women with panniers
swinging in their hands
would come
and harvest
the ripening fragrancy
of strawberry fields.
Jun 12, 2014
Jun 12, 2014 at 6:04 PM UTC
.
I know this place,
light stone avenues,
fig, pear, apricot and apple,
trees that line in rows,
cut paving with neat gutters
**** white granite buildings,
as ferns and creepers
cascade from roof gardens,
the green shining vivid
in appreciation of being alive.
And I connect across the aeons,
this place was my home,
from centuries long passed,
yet reaching out to be found.
The avenues mimic my mind,
long straight and narrow,
broad and winding,
leading to sedate squares
to sit and feel the sun,
to bathe in beautiful isolation.
And the trees sway
casually in a breeze so soft,
it caresses the branches,
enough to tickle the leaves
and cool the ripening fruit.
Here, the forest erupts,
circles around this sanctuary,
forming a natural hedge
to this garden of tranquility,
this oasis in the maelstrom,
this home in my heart.
Flowers of honeysuckle,
jasmine, of clovers and lily,
adorn walls and buildings,
bright in contrast
to the shadows of the trees,
bloom with the intensity of colour,
riotous in hue and arrangement,
yet, ordered to Nature's Law.
Paradise wrapped in image,
slicing through time and space,
my place a thousand years ago,
my place to claim forever,
and the wind carries me home,
I know this place,
because it lives inside of me,
because I made it.
© Pagan Paul (06/06/18)
Jun 7, 2018
Jun 7, 2018 at 1:09 PM UTC
So tired
Back to work and then there's this social event and that social event
and the last one is the best one and I'm still trying to get over not having
last years job that was taken from me and given to you and still
trying not to even think about this because this is a whole new year and
Driving past Napa Valley's Wineries
Hotels, Buses, wine
Everything wine and I don't know where I'm going
My GPS broke, and the directions are drive straight and you'll see it
Suburbia has turned into true wealth
I've gone back in time, wine Haciendas on hill tops
like feudal mansions, waiting for the peasants to do the actual
work of wine, the dirt and the sweat of wine as the owners
twiddle their thumbs and worry about the stock market and their wine
I arrive at my Castle. For a few moments I will be allowed to taste
the lifestyle of the wine and pretend that I too belong in this castle
watching grapes ripen and waiting for the teaming hordes to do my work
and the mechanical wine processors sit idly waiting for the grapes and I feel a tinge of
sadness and fear for the grapes to be processed like in a slaughter house
until I realize they are only fruit, and not mammals
And on the hot deck overlooking the beautiful, silent valley with grapes ripening before
our eyes the only chair left is next to you
I sit down and look to my right and I see the woman who I feared would take my job and now did
and I wonder how it is that this has happened that I've driven for miles in the hot sun
through miles of grapevines only to be made to sit next to you who jealously drooled over
my job and could never say anything good about my work and then you won.
And we talk and I'm very clever and you don't like that because I'm supposed to be stupid
and it's supposed to be obvious why you got the job not me and not some seniority thing
and you say nothing nice, and it's only me keeping up a charade of conversation that
could turn ugly at the drop of a pin but doesn't due to my skill
and you then leave made uncomfortable by the evidence of my continued existence
and lack of dumbness
And it's only later that I realize in my imagination I wanted to hurl you from the deck
and into the wine press
Aug 19, 2012
Aug 19, 2012 at 12:25 AM UTC
507
She sights a Bird—she chuckles—
She flattens—then she crawls—
She runs without the look of feet—
Her eyes increase to *****
Her Jaws stir—twitching—hungry—
Her Teeth can hardly stand—
She leaps, but Robin leaped the first—
Ah, ***** of the Sand,
The Hopes so juicy ripening—
You almost bather your Tongue—
When Bliss disclosed a hundred Toes—
And fled with every one—
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Most late summer days fade into night holding a tepid dreariness in their breath, beating away with the tedium of the sun from late July through early September.
Yet ephemeral as it may be, the life of early summer is purely sanguine in the face of its oncoming age, as willowy saplings sway in the blustering breezes of June, and sprouts of vivid animation appear all around.
This is when the soul heals, and out of the mulch rises new beginnings and the ripening fruit of various works.
In this early season of summer, many taciturn inhabitants of the flourishing earth made their home, and among them, Lily: a creature of reticence and intricacy.
She burgeoned in attitude and character as days crept forward, extending her limbs upwards in an eternal paean to the heavens― as such was her sinecure and quiet delight.
In this, she stood insular to her ubiquitous family, an outsider to the sisters who flitted about carelessly on the wind, satiny gowns of pink and yellow billowing as they twirled.
Always invited into the fray, Lily was evermore stalwart in her choice to keep out of their plainly sordid affairs.
Yet in her isolation, the night whispered to her many a berceuse.
The sleepy stars implored of Lily’s indolent nature as she gazed into their eyes, trailing across eternity into peaceful slumber.
The night sky held wonders and questions that filled her paltry existence but placed her in stasis with the decorated heavens of her dying season,
Left to wither away with the insidious heat and vibrant splendor of late summer evenings.
Aug 11, 2018
Aug 11, 2018 at 2:45 PM UTC
sound and noise-
two chapters of the same book.
Sound: the quiet ripening of music notes over wind, or the fluttering of bird and butterfly wings.
Noise: the static between radio stations, gun fire, weeping.
There would be no such thing as the overlooked if there wasn't anything highlighted, and so I would not be writing about our neglect of sadness unless there were such a thing as happiness.
young love and youth and destruction and dreams are all noise, all left in the shadows of their more bright, elder predecessors.
And we mistaken noise for sound more often than not, which makes the ability to hear a blessing and a curse.
For we mistaken a teen's cries as a sign of teen angst, or a mother's book of rules as a restriction of our lives, and the noise we think is being produced is the music of our lives. Sound isn't beautiful, sound is real. Noise is heard, sound, you feel.
So before you go labeling something as noise, remember what is missing: noise implies that everyone can hear, but no one is listening.
Jun 14, 2014
Jun 14, 2014 at 5:01 PM UTC
Where sunless rivers weep
Their waves into the deep,
She sleeps a charmed sleep:
Awake her not.
Led by a single star,
She came from very far
To seek where shadows are
Her pleasant lot.
She left the rosy morn,
She left the fields of corn,
For twilight cold and lorn
And water springs.
Through sleep, as through a veil,
She sees the sky look pale,
And hears the nightingale
That sadly sings.
Rest, rest, a perfect rest
Shed over brow and breast;
Her face is toward the west,
The purple land.
She cannot see the grain
Ripening on hill and plain;
She cannot feel the rain
Upon her hand.
Rest, rest, for evermore
Upon a mossy shore;
Rest, rest at the heart's core
Till time shall cease:
Sleep that no pain shall wake;
Night that no morn shall break
Till joy shall overtake
Her perfect peace.
2.2k
In melancholy moonless Acheron,
Farm for the goodly earth and joyous day
Where no spring ever buds, nor ripening sun
Weighs down the apple trees, nor flowery May
Chequers with chestnut blooms the grassy floor,
Where thrushes never sing, and piping linnets mate no more,
There by a dim and dark Lethaean well
Young Charmides was lying; wearily
He plucked the blossoms from the asphodel,
And with its little rifled treasury
Strewed the dull waters of the dusky stream,
And watched the white stars founder, and the land was like a dream,
When as he gazed into the watery glass
And through his brown hair’s curly tangles scanned
His own wan face, a shadow seemed to pass
Across the mirror, and a little hand
Stole into his, and warm lips timidly
Brushed his pale cheeks, and breathed their secret forth into a
sigh.
Then turned he round his weary eyes and saw,
And ever nigher still their faces came,
And nigher ever did their young mouths draw
Until they seemed one perfect rose of flame,
And longing arms around her neck he cast,
And felt her throbbing ***** and his breath came hot and fast,
And all his hoarded sweets were hers to kiss,
And all her maidenhood was his to slay,
And limb to limb in long and rapturous bliss
Their passion waxed and waned,—O why essay
To pipe again of love, too venturous reed!
Enough, enough that Eros laughed upon that flowerless mead.
Too venturous poesy, O why essay
To pipe again of passion! fold thy wings
O’er daring Icarus and bid thy lay
Sleep hidden in the lyre’s silent strings
Till thou hast found the old Castalian rill,
Or from the Lesbian waters plucked drowned Sappho’s golden quid!
Enough, enough that he whose life had been
A fiery pulse of sin, a splendid shame,
Could in the loveless land of Hades glean
One scorching harvest from those fields of flame
Where passion walks with naked unshod feet
And is not wounded,—ah! enough that once their lips could meet
In that wild throb when all existences
Seemed narrowed to one single ecstasy
Which dies through its own sweetness and the stress
Of too much pleasure, ere Persephone
Had bade them serve her by the ebon throne
Of the pale God who in the fields of Enna loosed her zone.
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