Cheap Date

[hillwalker]

CHEAP DATE

with that first touch
I felt you scorch the bed from under me
sensed every artery become aflood
an amazon
transforming all beneath
to mud-banks salt and waterlogged
to tidal flats and wetlands

that first intoxicating scent
your musk your sweat your tar pit hydrocarbons
every perfume barbed and programmed
like a man-trap primed
pervasive and persuasive

you liquefied my skeleton to honey
tempered steel to gold
your whispered softness
brought out all my tenderness
you said you were my mother and my goddess
and I swallowed every word
an off guard smile
enough to show the world the girl you must have been

but then the conversation turned to money
and I watched your body
once a special gift
become an impulse purchase
tarnished by the price tag
still attached

H

[Delta40]

ouch and double ouch. your beautifully crafted love stanzas really build up the expectation and its a real plummet to the bottom of the soul when you write:

and I watched your body
once a special gift
become an impulse purchase
tarnished by the price tag
still attached

[hillwalker]

oo-er, so sorry Delta..... I'm not really a cynical b*s*a*d - I thought the title might have forewarned you.

H ;-)

[dafydd manton]

Oh yes you are! And highly admirable it is, too. I take it that the lady in question was a bit beyond her "best before" date. I know the feeling myself, despite being male.

[hillwalker]

I take it that the lady in question was a bit beyond her "best before" date.

Not necessarily, daf - the bill presented at the end was the sucker punch I was aiming to deliver.

[Scheherazade]

Sounds like a rather expensive date, actually.

[PrinceMyshkin]

The title of course becomes rather bitterly ironic (or apropos) by the end.

[hillwalker]

@Scher and @Prince - presumably yes and yes on both counts (Thanks for your comments)

[dafydd manton]

Sorry, I seemed to have rather mised the ironic point. Got it now. My apologies - not having a Brain Day!

[hillwalker]

No apology needed, daf - it's still only Monday

[dafydd manton]

Is it? I've still got my Sunday socks on. No wonder I'm confused.....

[Bar22do]

As much as I loved the whole poem I think it's a pity you chose the title you did, because that let me know immediately what developments to expect... so the suspense was lost for me. But, if you allow me to ask, what did actually N expect from this date since it was a clearly money based one to start with?!
Which all doesn't mar at all the beauty of your language and of your talent at erotic descriptions... Thanks! And -
Beware of entrapping pheromones! :wink5:

[hillwalker]

But, if you allow me to ask, what did actually N expect from this date since it was a clearly money based one to start with?

I imagined that perhaps he was so intoxicated by the heat of the situation to begin with that he was not fully aware he was in the company of a pavement hostess - until the passion cooled and it was time to compare notes as it were. Which is why the price tag soured the afterglow.

And your final warning has been duly noted :-)

H

[dafydd manton]

Pavement Hostess - what a charming expression. Not heard that one before. I always like the RAF's "Night Fighter".

[hillwalker]

Crazy isn't it? Such hypocrisy - anything to avoid calling a spade a spade.

I actually heard the expression first in Welshpool of all places (back in the 70's - used by a Classics teacher who was berating some of the teenage girls who hung outside the local pubs at night).

H

[dafydd manton]

Classics, in Y Trallwng? Whatever next! Meretrix, in Latin, if I recall.

[hillwalker]

Meretrix, sounds more like a Pixar cartoon.

Aye, in those days they taught Latin there (and in case you ask - there were pavements there as well).

[Skia]

Oohh.. Funky poem :P

I liked this, I got the suspense completely,
Loved the ending, fantastic infact...

:)

[hillwalker]

Thanx.

[Delta40]

I seem to have lost the drift of this poem.

[hillwalker]

I seem to have lost the drift of this poem.

It probably means you didn't get enough .... sleep :sleep:

pay attention:

man meets woman - % - man thinks he's fallen in love - then finds it was nothing more than a bit of trade

H

[Delta40]

yeah but why did he think he was the better part of the deal???

[hillwalker]

the better part of the deal???

He presumably did not realise she was a prostitute at the beginning - fell for her big time - then discovered his mistake.

[Delta40]

light bulb finally goes on....oh!

I guess my cynical side says everything is a trade off - that's what makes the world go round

[hillwalker]

you are so right..... your first response to this (yesterday where you are??) was probably closer to the mark.

[Delta40]

I'm a cheap date. a guy took me to a chinese restaurant and ordered way too many dishes for us to finish. I have chickens and thought I'd ask the waiter for a doggy bag for the left overs because it just seemed like such a waste of food. He was so humiliated he said and angry that I let my penny pinching ways override the sheer pleasure of his company....I had to apologise to this man who, because he was paying, expected me to be something that he had in mind......I don't know who was wrong there but I did stop getting doggy bags for my chickens after that!

[hillwalker]

Shame on him..... would he have rather have the food go to waste?

Love me - Love my Chickens

Live by that motto and you won't go far wrong!! My ex never used to finish her meal when we ate out - always leaving some to take home to the mutts.

[Delta40]

my mother is scottish - perhaps its cultural?

[hillwalker]

Well I'm Welsh..... but I hateto see waste :-)

[Delta40]

waste not want not
penny wise
but girl foolish

[hillwalker]

Aw..... a man who's mean with his wallet is also mean in other ways.

[Delta40]

true....it sort of narrows the field of romance down

[Haunted]

Enjoyed this from beginning to end. Did you haggle?

[kittypaws]

Found your poem very entertaining....and probably costly at that!

So how drunk was the suitor? In all honesty those vixens of the night look pretty bad in daylight! lol!

I once had a friend whose mom was a 'desired woman' and she looked and smelled enticing in the dust and eve but one night I stayed over and in the morning I thought a witch was in the room! Scared me half to death!

A lesson lived is a lesson learned! Hope it was only in words for your sake!

kittypaws

[hillwalker]

Thanks Haunted - a gentleman never haggles.
And kitty - rest assured, this piece was 100% imaginary.

[PrinceMyshkin]

kitty - rest assured, this piece was 100% imaginary.

Oh, I have to take issue with that statement! Contrarywise, if I were to describe to you my morning's breakfast - a scant 45 minutes ago - that description would be at least in part imagined.

[hillwalker]

Ok, you win, Prince - imagined it is.....

[blank|verse]

Yes, another kind of sexual 'Deal or No Deal'.

To be honest, I didn't pick up on the prostitute aspect at first, thinking the last stanza was more metaphorical (and don't you have to pay in advance anyway?). And as for the prostitute saying she's 'your mother', well, whatever turns the narrator on I guess!

And talking of metaphors, that first stanza left me scratching my head about exactly what it meant (transforming all beneath your arteries?). I presume there's some deliberate playing with the elements (fire, water and earth at least) but I think it's done so at the expense of coherence.

Nice effort, but I wasn't entirely convinced by this one... but maybe that's a good thing!

[hillwalker]

b|v - can't say I know enough about how these transactions work either to concede whether you are right or wrong regarding method of payment; do they ask for a deposit, pay-as-you-go or cash-on-delivery!

As for the 'mother' reference - I do remember hearing a prostitute being interviewed who said some of her clients did look upon her as some kind of mother-figure (which did strike me as strange - Oedipus complex presumably).

the 'transforming all beneath' was meant to refer to him being transformed as he lay beneath her - down to how one reads it perhaps

and I agree the whole poem can survive without actually needing any direct reference to prostitution: an ill-advised one-night-stand suddenly being seen for what it might lead to in the cold light of day; the cost of having to woo someone, or make some kind of commitment, too high a price to pay.

Thanks for your response, H