She remembered spreading her legs and she remembered the cold metal against her hands as she reached to brace herself; and the cold air between them, if only for a second, a lull between waves it had seemed. The ambulance chimed in the wind of exertion, jiggling with bottles and needles and other loose bits for healing, for saving, for puncturing, entering, injecting serums and opiates and she felt herself, legs spread, knees bent, as a vein, a flood of warmth entering her, filling, stretching, fitting, and the thought, strange as it seemed then and strange as it seems now, of leather, clear as saddle soaped, of blooded neighing, perhaps the smell of wood, of hunt, of chase, the bark of a dog somewhere, of pheasants over the shoulder and shells being slipped into smooth bores, unhinged and vulnerable to those casings, a cold touch of metal upon metal, a trigger away from fire, from light, from that noise that silenced all other noises, of feathers flying and falling, the rush of the kill, of blood, of leather, of that leather worn smooth, spit-polished. This, like her warm café au lait, such the resemblance of the young man filling her cup, was he remembered, twirled in fading memory, with each petit sip a familiar warmth, over lip, tongue, held and savored, each Tuesday morning as it was that day he walked into her hospital, so many Tuesdays before.
Reading and Commentary
Reading and Commentary with slideshow
27 comments:
I love that there are 129 words in your second sentence. :-)
Three in total, three sentences of spectacularly good writing. Animated and animating, a stirring current of images, the sensual, melting, connective, spirted, and the those that point to their surroundings, to wounds, to distress, to death, the two teamed both in a manner that revives the impressions from the post that communicated the precariousness of life as a soldier, the intense embrace of the other, the moment, life, fuzed, and since I for the life of me suddenly cannot remember what other teaming quality I very much wanted to comment upon (deeply frustrating!), the detail within this post, independently of the other posts, accentuates the paired realities of her memory, the encounter enveloped within a tempestuous surrounding, a stolen moment in more than one sense of the word. Wonderful post, hope to return with intended comment.
Well, I do like a long sentence. Almost as much as I like warm honey drizzled on sweaty milk chocolate before the heaving shadows cast by flames of wood within an amphitheater of brick and stone. :-D
Love, love the addition.
You're very welcome. Thanks for noticing. :-)
I love the way you say Tuesday :-D
And ambulance.
And dogs.
So nice to hear this one read, really appreciate you taking the time to do so, to hear the words you have written spoken in your voice is truly special, adding another depth to the poem that only this could bring, though as I have said to you many times before, where one would expect there might be surprises, stresses and intonations that vary slightly from the voice heard when it has only been read by oneself, this is never the case. How, I have absolutely no idea, but within the writing itself, even down to individal words, the melody within your poetry on the page plays practially note for note as it rises therefrom, as though it were spoken. Wonderfully, dynamically natural, I noticed it most when you read of feathers flying and falling, we flew, we fell.
Her figure painted, as she sits in that cafe, for all to see, the strokes of her coat beautifully detailed and I think of two things, how beige the picture of her was beforehand, she was there but all thoughts were concentrated on her mind, on her hands about the cup, of her vision seeing into the past and it was only when you described the colours that surrounded her that I became conscious of the blur that had existed before, a blur in comparison to the enlivened image now formed, the other simply a smile, at the completeness, the detail of what you are describing regardless of whether they are mentioned, what I mean to say by that is it demonstrates the fullness, that pieces can be so large, so influential, so complete within themselves. The poems focus, but in the commentary to use your words, the camera pans out, and we see her from without, see the scene, see her surroundings, realize, not that it wasn't a given of course, but are made aware of a world surrounding her, of time and people and life surrounding her as she sits, alone, at a table, before a cup, with memories of a man that only knew these things a long time ago.
Just because I liked it so, when you say within 'for it was on a Tuesday', it had such a sound of narrator, of author and his work, if that makes any sense, intimacy and professionalism and kinship, insight, of being at home, of ownership - none of those words cover what I mean, but together they go some way. A renewed flood of warmth, of love for your writing arrived with those words. Commentary too revealing things we would never know otherwise, the image of the cup reaching her lips as though flowers of rememberance, these sharings are what make commentary invaluable, why they enhance the experience of your work. Loved too how you worded following your elaboration the trigger that the waiter is as delicious, so rightly, the longer it remains, ie the longer that it is considered via your commentary, the more delicious it becomes. And am rushing now so that I might watch that slideshow all the sooner, so simply saying that the idea, understood now voiced by you also, of her breathing life into the memory was loved too. The bookeded moments and the changes, as they are described metaphorically enough reason in themselves to have listened to, to have treasured this audio. Of her, all these years later, taking those moments not only to remember the encounter, but still trying to find reason, acceptance, too strong words.
Beautiful reading, fabulous commentary.
Sunshine, your comment is nothing less than chocolate to me, warm, soft, sticky chocolate all over my fingers, my lips, my tongue. And I like chocolate very much. :-D
I wanted to tell you of the memories invoked by this. Yes, of leather, but of other things, too. I wanted to tell you of the archer's bow, a well-stocked quiver, the sleepy woods before sunrise, rutting deer and scrapes along the limbs of trees, of scent markings, the ground beaten beneath the leaves. The blood rush.
Yes, instead I'll tell you of the blood rush. The rasp carried along in the veins, with sinew and tendons vibrated, stretched. Carnage and carnality. The trajection through bone, and tender mass, the wet piercing of a heart.
That's what it is to read you.
S., I could read your comment ten times ten times and yet each time seems as fresh as the first, of a kiss that still melts and rises, that still caresses and tingles, that still swoons and catches, that gives in the taking, that shares in the swallow, swallowed in eyes drinking me in, of hands that won't let go, of knees that part and slide and nestle, a ledge, of that cold burning snail trail of lips working slowly, with intend and purpose, conspiring with fingers and hair. I think I'll read you again, if you don't mind even though I've just changed my sheets.
I'm wearing those sheets against my skin, as you do...
I'd like to see the gentle undulating waves and swells of that white sea, the soft movements of the ocean inhaling me in.
Close your eyes...
Be gentle . . .
Inhaling, begins gently...
as a string, pulling, my breath into you . . .
as I would your whisper, the softened thread of a sigh, as I would your voice, becoming echo through limbs, as you sing a summer breeze through me...
as the trees crowned with leaves shutter with wind in the way of pelagic minnows flitting under the skin of the sea, glint and glimmer of eye, full as monastery cisterns, air heavy with the exhalations of cloud, sweat as beads of the rosary I pray with tongue upon the day, new sun tracing the cliff of your thighs, to the ledge of my hand resting on the plateau before the plains of your back, dipping into the curve before the waterfall of your hair, the expression of your cheek, bellowing the engine of my loins . . .
(forgive the metaphoric mess--consider it a compliment as bow to string, playing within the stream of my desire)
breathe, breathe into me then, breathe me chapels, until I am stained with the wash of your eyes, breathe until you are as strident as dusk breaking waves at the copse of my spine, until my touch crashes into you with the flux and fever of a thousand blue-electric storms, breathe until there is nothing left of us, but your tender pearls of mercy strung like a white desert mirage across the surface of my belly, until you have bottomed out in the silk and swell of my womb, until I never take another breath, without...
my fingers kneeing upon the pew of your lips, receiving benediction, your cleansing wash, consuming my darkness into the humid night of your sanctuary. And upon the pool of your belly my hand swims in slow circles, drawing hearts in pearl, watching them glitter and wink, the sweet spoor of what was and what would be again. Your lips kiss my forehead, our torsos glued as paper not dry, damp as sheets blessed behind curtains whispering the day outside.
I lie supine, breathing supplicant prayers into the vestibule of you, this awning of flesh humid in my rain, my salvation, a baptism plunged, my faced cantalouped with the sticky fruit, and what was dormant, as the night gives way to dawn, again rises before your careful gaze as a queen commands her troops to march, to seize what is hers, to bring forth the shinning shield and its treasure of life.
Breath of me. Sweet, stolen breath of me. As you are commanded to the nest of my lungs, commanded to plumb, to pillage the very depths of me, the very secret, swallowed breadths of me, so too, am I surrendered to your arms.
Lay with me.
as a vessel afloat in your arms, succored by hands firm, nestled in flesh divine
Inhales...
exhales . . .
Holy fuck!
What else is there to say?
Shit.
I think I can just stop fargin writing now. Wow.
erin
Erin, what a wonderful compliment. Your writing is marvelous, don't even think about stopping. :-)
um, just came back. ya. hadn't read your comments back and forth between S. before. Did today. Frig. Breathing hard. Don't you guys ever close the curtains?
Clearly there is something devine at work here, something beyond.
Erin, I like the way you use language. And I can imagine you breathing hard, like a woman, not a girl, like a woman that knows how to breath and knows a few other things too.
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