Mopping up

[Delta40]

When you're done with pain
laden with life's scum,
deem it time
to wash your hands
and clear your mind.
Take your sodden towel.
Wring every torment out.
Unclog the plughole
so everything goes down.
When you're done with pain,
you will turn your life around.

[Maryd.]

Good one.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I love the good, hard kick-a s s language in this!

[Haunted]

Very detailed cleansing imagery. The red type also adds something to the poem, highlighting the intensity of pain and the vigorous process of getting rid of it. The ending is wonderfully life affirmative.

[Delta40]

I watched America's Hardest Prisons lastnight and a guidance counsellor remarked that only when the female inmates are done with their pain, will they start to turn their lives around. The wisdom of this inspired me.

[Delta40]

I trust there is time
for safe assumptions;
that blanket of security
I snuggle up in
on the plaform of my beliefs.
How cold is the rush of wind
roaring down my tunnel of no light.
Anger when my train of embedded ideas
does not arrive at the station
I expected.
I shovel coal into my own furnace
of fuming waste,
to reaffirm my destination
while I choke on the puff of others.

[Jerrybaldy]

I am not sure if you have become heavy of metaphor or if you always were. Im not sure I know much now or ever did, but I know I love to read what you write.

[Delta40]

I am not sure if you have become heavy of metaphor or if you always were. Im not sure I know much now or ever did, but I know I love to read what you write.

I'm not sure what you mean actually

[PrinceMyshkin]

It's latish for me so I don't know if I can do justice to this fury of images. Marvellous, though, how the power in it does not knock the thing right off the rails of intelligent management. Brava!

[Delta40]

I loved his dimples
the wiry curls at the nape of his neck
My senses stirred by Blue Stratos
Now, I inhale dust.
He sat apart for his own life portrait.
Oh that my pallette knife
could smear his smug tincture.
In sulleness, my tongue grew furry;
yet we all incubate the seed of growth.
Broken plates, slammed doors
are reduced to mere devices in a play.
Will pouring draino down my sinkhole,
eat away aggregated filth?
'Hang this striking man's picture'
Alas, there are no walls on my stage.
Only a distant memory where he tickled me
till my ribs ached.
What a daughter will endure in order to feel
Daddy love rain down upon her!
I wince at the futility of childish wants.
I gather my memories, like a scattered pack
of Happily Families and run for my bus.
On my rough journey forwards,
I ponder if speaking my heart
ever held more value than the cost of my ticket.

[Delta40]

Describing your sapphire eyes
leaves me mostly mute.
My entrancing gaze
will tell you I am an open book.
My moist lips
act as an elixir of wisdom
for a Druid's thirsty pursuit.
My beguiling properties
drive his urge
in ritualistic assembly
to the coveted oak grove
where my honey blends
with the elements of romancy.
Heathen men
with sulkwood scowls,
who furrow nought more
than a libido starved brow
Know I am the bewitching balm
to soften hardened hearts
and soothe calloused hands.
Yet there is no hope of a forest dance
as I am cast upon their earthly lap.
Let my bramble thorns spike their mind
in spirituous venom when they plunge
into the threshold of their bearance
and gut me with their whiplash love.

[Delta40]

I eschew family trappings
and vomit them out as values.
Among my sins,
I have dwelt within its dark confines
and wondered what spawn I might
coax into growth.

Fungus

[Delta40]

I love kitchen smells.
Kitchen sounds.
Clacking cutlery,
pungent fumes of onions,
mill ground pepper sneezes.
My apron has become spattered
with things which may have mattered.
I sear and seal them at high heat,
leaving just enough pink to remind me.
Let it sizzle at full flame!
While I stew over
tomato basil and onion,
gravy thickens in a burnt pot

[Delta40]

My spaghetti breasts
unravel past
your toothless mouth.
They hang loosely,
inches from the floor.
Perhaps a winding fork will help you
ravish them as you kiss my parmesan breath.
Only on Sunday when the church bell strikes
do we attempt to relive
adolescent sex play.
Many winters have passed.
Everything has a lower, shrinking position;
even our resistance.
I measure your medication dose,
for this, our one great interlude.
There are no strings attached
except the ones from my corset.
I'm weighed down by
thick bra straps which my shoulders
just won't reach.
An enigmatic chasity belt
for your spidery fingers to unlock.
You can't love this parody.
Yet let us giggle till we cough
ourselves weak
at our arthritic fumblings
to the theme of
Gunsmoke and Bonanza.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I will return and comment on all these others which I've skimmed, often with bated breath.

Here, there is so much visceral richness - and sadness! I'm especially taken with



Stratos
Now, I inhale dust.
He sat apart for his own life portrait.
Oh that my pallette knife
could smear his smug tincture.
In sulleness, my tongue grew furry;
yet we all incubate the seed of growth.
Broken plates, slammed doors
are reduced to mere devices in a play.
Will pouring draino down my sinkhole,
eat away aggregated filth?


and


What a daughter will endure in order to feel
Daddy love rain down upon her!
I wince at the futility of childish wants.
I gather my memories, like a scattered pack
of Happily Families and run for my bus.
On my rough journey forwards,
I ponder if speaking my heart
ever held more value than the cost of my ticket.

The power, the anger and the sadness of these last lines


On my rough journey forwards,
I ponder if speaking my heart
ever held more value than the cost of my ticket.

is almost unbearable! But yes, if I might step outside my role as grateful reader of your poetry and don my therapist coat, YES, I venture to say that the cost has not only more value, but that the cost of NOT speaking your heart is more than any sensitive, thinking/feeling person ought to bear.

[Delta40]

Thank you Prince. Your comments are always appreciated. I think I got very carried away today. I'm very tired and need to go to bed. I would love to hear your comments on each of my poems but I understand there is alot to read.

[PrinceMyshkin]

How marvellously these opening lines


[CENTER][B][I][COLOR="Green"][SIZE="4"][FONT="Century Gothic"]Describing your sapphire eyes
leaves me mostly mute.
My entrancing gaze
will tell you I am an open book.

prepare us for the dual actions in this poem, that of confession and of open sexual longing!

And the poem throughout speaks simultaneously in almost Biblical language and in that of a particular, contemporary woman.


Heathen men
with sulkwood scowls,
who furrow nought more
than a libido starved brow
Know I am the bewitching balm
to soften hardened hearts
and soothe calloused hands.

This makes my own recent bawdy poem seem like the prissiest of utterances!

You were always a good poet. Now you appear to me to be an even better one!

(But I couldn't find a satisfactory definition of "sulkwood." Would you please provide one?)


Thank you Prince. Your comments are always appreciated. I think I got very carried away today. I'm very tired and need to go to bed. I would love to hear your comments on each of my poems but I understand there is alot to read.

Imagine! A poet allowing herself to get carried away! What's this world coming to? Next thing you know, some politician will lie to us!

[hillwalker]

I have only managed to give these a couple of readings, Delta, but allow me to say that as your writing becomes more personal it carries far more impact.

The first two to me seemed a little too rhetorical to be believeable - but those that follow were very powerful and hard-hitting. 'Life Recipes' in particular surpasses even your usual (high) standards.

H

[PrinceMyshkin]

I love both "Fungus" and "Life Recipes," in each of there is such visceral detail, such a passionate human being speaking in full, emphatic voice.

[Delta40]

Prince - I made sulkwood up. Really, I'm sure clonazepam is responsible for all this!

Hill I think the first one may be rhetorical but not the second. I thought Life's Recipes was typical me and boring actually but I'm happy to be told otherwise...

Thank you both.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Prince - I made sulkwood up. Really, I'm sure clonazepam is responsible for all this!

Interesting, evocative invention in that case.

As for your attribution of clonazepam: some writers claim more than they perhaps ought to re their works; and some are reflexively (and unfairly) modest.

[Jerrybaldy]

I love your poetry Delta, but with these pesky threads I now have a novel to write as my few days off mean I join here with a flood of Delta. I like 'em one by one. As it is silly o'clock here in Blighty I will have to return to give them all justice.
Delta lover
Jerry

[Jerrybaldy]

Father non time - I think the father/daughter love is an enormous bond, but as a father with daughters I would do. Your poem is of when this all goes wrong and I loved ' I gather my memories, like a scattered pack of Happily Families'

Woodsprite has an archaic style that I struggle with. This is my weakness and not your poem's, but it leaves me unsuited to give any worthy comment.

Fungus carries a weight within its few words. The esscence of your writing lives within family and the household. We cannot write any greater truth than that built of experience and the personal nature of your writing, always keeps me coming back for more. Fiction is so much more tastier laced with truth. I love your written truths and your domestic settings and your inability to flinch away.

Life recipies. A tasty metaphor with a chewy heart.

Loving Down South. My favourite. Down south in more ways than just down under. Witty, self depreciating, unflinching (see above) and beautifully Deltaesque. My spaghetti breasts, I fear, is a phrase that may never leave me :)
best wishes
Jerry
PS I still don't like single threads :P

[_Shannon_]

I am so glad I clicked on this thread---there are some phenomenal poems in here!!!

[Delta40]

Thanks Shannon. I like them too!