Wildfire

[deryk]

Wildfire

You consume everything I touch.
That sinister twinkle in your toothy grin
flares out through your nostrils
and engorges my attention
in a firestorm of your dirty clothes
tangled hair and pulp fiction.

I have to let my flattened earth of
measurements and boundaries burn.
I have to rekindle my voice beyond reason,
belting baritone salvos of "Don Giovanni"
in notes that have never been heard
just to hear you laugh.

I remember whispering words of such strength
that they could survive and penetrate your
phoenix foliage like prostrate adamantium claws.

They're still hidden under my
asbestos skin somewhere.

I'll go tooth to tooth with bears on coat-racks
and tango with leopards in the kitchenette
just to wrestle them back from my
drenched universe of doubt.

But when your jets pierce my skin
for monkey grooming's sake,
your sketchy eyes indicate
that you don't want talk.

What's going to happen when I finally cram
every last howling "OOH!" and synaptic "AHH!"
into a supple noose around your lower lip?

Maybe the rafters will part and the
tenements will swagger and spit us out like hot
ejaculate that cannot be contained.

Who the **** knows?

[deryk]

this is a love poem
i am a strange person
sorry about the latter
i love all feedback positive or negative

yours,
deryk

[Hawkman]

Hi Deryk: I think you might have got a bit carried away with your descriptors in places.

engorges my attention engorges? I guess you going for an oblique sexual reference here but still, can attention be swollen or glutted? I just don't think it's the best word in context.

prostrate adamantium claws How can claws, whether they be of adamantium or not, be prostrate?

drenched universe of doubt Drenched?

"I have to let my flattened earth of
measurements and boundaries burn."

a peculiar image, this.

"I have to rekindle my voice beyond reason,
belting baritone salvos of "Don Giovanni""

Why beyond reason?

"What's going to happen when I finally cram
every last howling "OOH!" and synaptic "AHH!"
into a supple noose around your lower lip?"

Not quite sure what you are conveying with the last line here.

However, the poem certainly comes over as passionate, but I feel it would be more comprehensible after the wielding of Ockham's Razor. There are too many irrelevent embellishments which just confuse the imagery and obscure the message.

Live and be well - H

[hillwalker]

I quite enjoyed some of the more over-the-top imagery at work here - the inflamed passions of the writer reflected in his verse almost like distorted images in a hall of mirrors.

But in that opening verse I felt line 2 completely undermines the portrayal of what one learns is a fiery relationship.

A 'toothy grin' brings to mind a cute cartoon kid - sickly sweet rather than alluring.

And the 'sinister twinkle..that flares out through your nostrils just doesn't make sense physically or contextually, unless you have a pet dragon - more cuteness when I'm assuming you were aiming for something altogether more exasperating.

H

[Delta40]

Deryk, I don't possess the critique skills of Hawk and Hill and the theme was obvious, despite its mystifying lines. I especially loved:

I'll go tooth to tooth with bears on coat-racks
and tango with leopards in the kitchenette
just to wrestle them back from my
drenched universe of doubt.

The animal of man still exists in the modern world!

Wonderful poem and I always enjoy reading your work.

[deryk]

Hawkman, thank you for your point-to-point response to my overwrought and obfuscating descriptors. Occam's Razor certainly would have made the 'poem' more readable by an audience, but I'll get back to that later...

Hillwalker, I'm thoroughly glad that you enjoyed my inflamed distortions. And I concede that the opening should have been more purely sexualized and less childish.

Delta, thanks for your insight (as always) into my animal lines. That was precisely what I was attempting to express!

A quick afterword: I hate explaining poems because it is self defeating, but this is not a poem in my mind. The fact is, there is only one person who would understand all of the in-jokes and innuendo in this 'poem', so it was unfair for me to submit. If a poem gets you laid, does it cease to be a poem? This is a utility and not a work of art, unfortunately. Maybe my hope was that it could be both.