The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poetry Break, 6/6/08

[BlueIris]

"Choose Your Garden"

When we decided on the Japanese,
forgoing the Victorian, its Hester
Prynne-ish air of hardly mastered urges,

I thought it would be peaceful.
I thought it would relax my nerves,

which these days feel like cheap gift wrap:
my hands spelling their obsessions; a nervous
tic, to wring the unspeakable from
a silent alphabet.

I thought it would be like heaven:  stern,
very clean, virtuous and a little dull—

but we had to cross the bridge to enter
and in the crossing came upon a slaughter
of camellias, a velvet mass-decapitation
floating on the artificial lake,

where, beneath its placid surface, a school
of bloated goldfish frenzied, O-ing
their weightless urgency
with mouths too exact to bear:

	    O My Beloved
they said to the snowy
petals and to the pink petals soft as
wet fingers,
	    O Benevolent Master

they said, looking straight up at us
where we stood near the entrance, near
the teahouse half-hidden in a copse of ginkgo,

where even now, discreetly and behind
its paper windows, a woman sinks down
on all fours, having loosened the knot
at the waist of her robe.

—Erin Belieu

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. My dear BlueIris...

Mmmmmmmmmmm...

I love this...

The delicate imagery...

And the process leading to such a delicious ending!

Somehow I knew the end would be erotic...

Really lovely!

Thank you...

:hug:

[BlueIris]

2. Yes, delicate is exactly the word I would use to describe the images. nt

[RetroLounge]

3. Sweet!

I thought it would be peaceful.
I thought it would relax my nerves,
which these days feel like cheap gift wrap:
my hands spelling their obsessions;a nervous
tic, to wring the unspeakable from
a silent alphabet.

:applause:

RL

[BlueIris]

4. I had a feeling you'd like this one. nt

[BlueIris]

5. Kick.

[BlueIris]

6. Kick.