[x]

WhitmanI am all that grows from me
and all that grows from me is sacred—
              my hair, dirty roots reaching towards sky,
fed by sky, shifted by its undulating currents
              my fingers, spiders, crescents, twigs,
gaunt, blunt, probing, inquisitive...prurient
              my ears, awkward conch shells jammed on as if by mistake,
rigid and ridged, elven,
innocent like unexplored caves for children to bound gaily into
resounding with echoed cheers of courage wanting
as if a dozen more children waited within, fearless guides;
              my nose, obdurate.
The reach of my eyes knows no bounds;
what walls are there to throw my body against?

Pausing By The WineMarriage is
the frustration of reality

when the man who works the wine section
pauses in his tracks to make sure
you've found everything you "really need...are you sure?"

With a look that tells you
he finds you sort of beautiful

and you wonder how your life
might be different,

if any man other than this one
had ever looked at you like that.

GrapefruitI hold a microcosm in this globe,
heavy on the palm of my hand,
full of regret and heat.

it is heft and heady smell,
the unexpected roundness discovered on the ground
after the season's first rain, a secret shielded
by shining leaves pulled open like wet, wide eyes.

The skin blushes with nervous goose-flesh,
fragrant as a summer promise.
It is the dark light behind your iris,
lemonade on the green porch,
hair stripped by the sun until it is soft and wild.

It holds the flesh of the hot season
tightly beneath its puckered skin
and I knock on the door of its fullness
with my teeth.

We are sharing this summer secret together,
in

I Of YouI want you to break
and never bend for me,

see my history
spiderweb your brilliance
till you belong to me
(and I, to you)
utterly and forever

and know
you cannot stop this.

Exhume and InhaleI have tasted God, he tasted of sweet wine
and sandalwood, the deep forest you lay down

in the moss and twigs, scattered like finger-bones,
your spine ripped out, curved like a bow.

I couldn't find your heart, trembling
against the opened cage of your ribs,

under the gently speaking rustle,
leaves unfurling, the dance of sunlight

slinking between your vertebrae:
piccolo skims and birchskin shaves.

I fled. Your right shoulder blade beckoned still,
unfolding like the slow feathers of a wing,

your wrist flung out, palm
up, gasped my name,

but I could not stay, only
strained your skin with oleander tea,

drifted, drifted with the t

The ElementsI.
Wine as red as stained glass
is lifted up & tilted back

Empty cups
touch wood like thunder
having given up grace

II.
Blue veins
thread across wrists & palms
spent vessels returning to the heart

Fingertips suffused with pulse
lift to lightning's loveliness

moth wingswith no alarm
she dances through the bony air,
eyes like a hungry child
slobbering at the first scent of knowledge.
glistening off of those eyes
– the very sight of it –
the taste that all greedy minds crave.
she flutters towards it,
light peaks through her delicate wings
like how it flickers under the water's surface,
an angel ascending into heaven

easily and swiftly crushed
by the capital hand
that shadowed behind such heavenly light
– with all intention of crushing the wings of innocence –
and with a clear conscience,
as a moth is to a hand as what a person is to the universe.

isn't it painless for a hand to swa

earth circuitAnd when the sun sinks, the earth's skin crawls:

I.
I wonder if this awkward creature would notice me the way I notice him.
He's so tragic at his throne
I stare after him longingly.
And yet,
He never realizes that I'm the one
Who forever basks in his brilliant beams.
If only he knew how much brighter he could burn
[with me]
He'd light up the universe.

II.
I heard him speak of thirst, once.
The quenching lust of the stars had run dry.
So that night, I brought along a jar of acid.
(And how it gleamed in his glow).
I handed it to him, wrapped in taffeta ribbons,
screaming
I wish curdling joy
On my gurgling boy

epitaphin the end
when i'm almost gone
and all i've left
is a red lamp
and a ragged song
to pave my way
into the thunderstorm
let every raindrop murmur
i loved you and lost
nothing but emptiness
and the company
of ghosts

the hanged manThis little red book you call the human body:
take it up and shake it. Shake the flaking pages
out of it, shake it from endpaper to endpaper
until the last of the phrases are gone; shake it
until it's aching and empty, the soul of a bird.

I will give you new words.

The Rumour of IcarusIcarus—
there is a rumour that your father killed you, that
he bent your wings until they broke and then
told you, "Fly."
If this rumour is true, then it lives in the throats of
those fragile boys who wear your death like Cain's mark,
whose tender hands split like swollen tomatoes when
they pluck strangled seabirds, whose
arms slump beneath the weight of their father's genius.
And this rumour lives on
the under-skin of their eyelids so that when they die
or simply sleep
they dream of their fathers
or maybe just of Daedalus, standing with
his hands full of feathers and wax,
their blood-flecked down under his fingernails

Math and PoetryShe used to tell me
of math and poetry
by the length of her arm
and rhythm of her heart
condensing verse and fraction
with form following the function

of communist theories
and greek philosophies.
she beat out aesthetics
with a perfect symmetry.

because no one understands
the relationship between
seafoam and shoreline
the way she does
[swimming in saltwater sorrows]

reimagining time in an hourglass,
she shot up infinities with a glance
and left me moondrunk in the night.

she emits sparks throughout my system
breaking and entering--
my kingdom under siege.

her name was an amalgam of numbers
1.61803399 . . . .
and I lov

Undressing PoetryShe clothes herself in poetry,
seals her skin within the verse.

Each line becomes another garment
that conceals her fixed form's curvature,
but peels away when read.

Last night I dissected a stanza,
clamped it tight between my teeth
and tugged it down her legs.

Her body breathes warm and sweet,
speckled red like a summer strawberry field.

I sucked the juice from her lines and
spit the punctuation like seeds.

My lips mouthed the shape of her words
as my skin grew more sticky with
every splash of imagery dripping down my chin.

I peeled apart her soft pages
with sticky, pink fingertips that left them
clinging to my skin.

A sing

To Us- Synesthesiai.

every sound
excites a burst
of color; an
exploding
firework,
dancing and
twirling.

ii.

your voice
tastes of mangoes;
sticky
and sweet,
caressing my senses.
your flavor is
personal.

iii.

the letters
all become a
different personality.
"T" is crabby
and "I" worries.
"J" is strong
and mighty.

iv.

closer and
farther away;
each number becomes
its own plane
and point
in space;
perfect details.

v.

all the numbers
form lines
becoming an army
of curvy rows,
swirling round
and round.
a perfect pattern.

vi.

letters take
on colors,
each and every one
a different hue,
a different shade,
forming rainbo

if only, if only.i.
we drove nowhere
and we spoke a language
that nobody understood
underneath a foreign sky
blanketed in the scent of pine.

ii.
you told me
my eyes were like envelopes—
because they were always
opening
closing
fluttering to the sound
of breaking seals
and ink stained fingertips.

iii.
i told you
we should run away
to a new land
with new faces
because
i was enamored
with people i had never encountered
and places i had never gone.

iv.
you laughed at me
and said that
if i didn't spend
so much time with my head
buried in world maps
i would realize
that i was living on one.

v.
i remember
it rained that day
and the tea went cold
but the

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Six years ago.I wasn't ready for you. I was ready
for a brawl. I was ready to trade in the hand
I'd been dealt for new cards, all of them
the queen of hearts. I was ready
to fight my mother for the next four years,
to blow so many holes in our relationship that we're
still half-sunk & bailing water out of a boat
we don't recognise anymore.

I was ready for a drink. I was ready
to hit rock bottom & start digging, to put out
my own fire with dirt and a shovel. I was ready
to be the kind of shitty girlfriend that leaves
you hanging on the other end of the line
while I chain smoke cigarettes
in the rain,
to spend six years and counting
waiting for another m

my father has started to take pictures.my father has started
to take pictures: of the flowers
and birds he sees on his way
to the lookout, a hike that my lover
and I have yet to successfully
complete but my aging father
walks daily; of the puppy
he bought my sister for
her birthday, all paws
and ears; of a moose
eating out of our bird feeder
last week; of the black bear that lives
in our backyard, which my father's
dog trees every other week; of
the land he tends to all summer,
even after long days of aching
backs and feet and hands. he is
so proud of them, in his shy way,
so eager but apprehensive
when I ask to see. I wish
I could make him understand
how much he has already

my mother's mother only knew hermy mother's mother only knew her

sometimes. mama, I have lioness
songs for you & the years you spent
waiting for someone's warm arms
to wrap around you. & I know
it's not over yet, all those years of surviving
sleeping heavy in your bones.
you & your shaking hands
that held me tight. you
& your enduring heart still waiting
for a familiar voice to call you home.

---

until it is still and quiet again.there are places
where the ground never thaws. I would
bury my love there, drag it
north & northwest heavy
on my skin. the land
is hard here but I
took & gave you harder,
miss you now
the hardest.

---

have you seen your fatherhugging the cat, my mother asks
& I laugh because I have. the
cat hugs him back, wraps his paws
around my father's neck, rubs
his face against the bristle
of my father's greying beard. &
I imagine my father whispering
sweetly to him & the cat's
low rumble in reply. just yesterday
they were fighting, my father
threatening to drown him
in the lake, cradling a
bird with broken wings.
he loves them, every
bird & ground squirrel,
buries them & storms around
all day. but by night they are
embracing, my father & his cat,
making peace between themselves
too low for our ears. these
things I cannot hear, but see
& feel: my father's
endless well of lo

my father is telling storieshe moves his hands like
I do, curling & uncurling his
fists. my father who belongs
to a different time, who raised
his babies on the edge
of the wilderness, taught my brother
how to chop wood, adopted
a half-wild wolf dog that
chases bears. he works
at the sawmill, operates
heavy machinery all day,
builds calluses through layers
of sweat & dirt. & I love
him so much, this man who took me
ice fishing on the frozen lake instead
of to school, taught me
to call to the coyotes at night,
how to fell a tree in the snow. when
I tell these stories, I move
my hands like he does.
I got that from him. a gift.

---

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Submitted: May 25, 2012
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(Contains: sexual themes)

The taste of a man.by ~this-epiphany

Literature / Poetry / Romantic / Erotic / Free Verse

Mature Content

Because *vespera wrote this poem: [link]

Edit: I've fiddled with the punctuation and wording a couple of times... for some reason, it's really importanted for me to get this piece right. It's sticking with me.

Edit again: Oh gosh, guys, a DLD. Blushing! Thank you incredibly much.

It keeps me going.

Edit AGAIN: You guys. I cannot thank you enough for all the support and comments and faves and the DD and everything. I'm trying really hard to answer everyone's comments BUT I'm at my parents with terrible internet access so it might take me awhile! Thank you all, so, so much. Sincerely.

Daily Deviation

Given 2012-06-18

The taste of a man. by ~this-epiphany This poem drips with an undeniably animal facet of intimacy and an aspect of sexuality seldom examined. ( Suggested by =DailyLitDeviations and Featured by ^Beccalicious )

love 8 8

joy 1 1

wow 2 2

~~mad 0 0~~

~~sad 0 0~~

~~fear 0 0~~

~~neutral 0 0~~

~kyubicully Mar 25, 2013 Student Digital Artist

omg that was really good and very soulful

*b1gfan Nov 12, 2012 Student Writer

Yummy is the word for this..yummy

~this-epiphany Nov 14, 2012 Writer

haha, thank you.

*b1gfan Nov 15, 2012 Student Writer

You're very welcome

`jade-pandora Nov 10, 2012

Your wonderful words are featured here: [link]

~this-epiphany Nov 14, 2012 Writer

thank you so much

`jade-pandora Nov 16, 2012

You're so very welcome, dear.

=KissTheSunrise Aug 9, 2012

Congrats on the DLD. This is really well written. It meanders about like lovers do until the last, when love unrestrained blossoms.

~unoservix Jul 24, 2012

to be honest, i always pretty much just associated this with porn and its built-in male fantasies. it's interesting to hear about it from a female perspective and what it might mean to her.

=LoveoftheDark Jul 20, 2012 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

WOW. that is the most amazingly accurate poem on the subject. Beautifully done!

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The taste of a man.by ~this-epiphany

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