Celebrating Poetry - #NationalPoetryMonth #EroticPoetry

Did you know that April is National Poetry Month? Here it is, the last week of the month, and I haven’t done anything to celebrate!

So I thought I’d share a very old poem. It’s by no means my best work, but for some reason it has been running through my mind for the past few days. This was born of some real heartache. Like all good authors, though, I’ve taken the experience and used it in a novel. In Miranda’s Masks, my heroine is loved by a foreigner visiting her town, who all at once disappears from her life.

Also – I have been working on a FF short story based on one of my favorite poems, The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes. I’ve always loved the atmosphere of this piece, as well as the rhythm:

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees.   

The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.   

The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,   

And the highwayman came riding—

         Riding—riding—

The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

You can practically here the horse’s hooves beating against the cobblestones of the road.

Noyes’ poem is a tragic ballad. However, I intend to give my tale a happy ending. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile here’s my poem for you. If you want to read more of my verse, visit my free reading page on my website.

To Save My First Betrayer

By Lisabet Sarai

(Summer, 1975 - to DV)

you, too, I guess,
should be immortalized,
you with your foreign flairs,
your furry thighs,
and all your river-words
(your liquid lies)
that surged around me,
through me -

true, we
never mentioned
promises, no, never any -
many
sweaty, heavy velvet
dangled hours
were not so silent.

you in me,
such perfect style
and awkwardness in consort
grows to grace.
and how am I
to blotter out your face,
pieced out of the gloom
and hanging hair,
a hovered mask
of pleasure poised and rare
while down your words cascade
(a litany)
and shower
all my opening
like April?

every inch of English
I enjoyed,
every taste Italian,
every ride
upon your board, New Yorker
surfer boy...
too many
pigeonholes.
how could I ever know,
keep track of you,
believe that you would go?

(you at one gulp, too much for my innocent brain,
and meanwhile you had mind-washed me with rain.)

all in all, and always after this,
I think I'm learning what my problem is:
I look at things too simply, can't play chess;
I still think flesh is holy, more or less;
we fit so well, I thought that we would stick;
I want and give too fast, I melt too quick.

I replay all your loving, on and on -
my problem is, betrayer, that you're gone.