Celebrate Poetry! #NationalPoetryMonth #SaraTeasdale #Logos

April is more than half over, and I haven’t yet marked National Poetry Month here at Beyond Romance!

I thought I’d remedy that today by sharing two poems. The one by Sara Teasdale might well be my all-time favorite poem. It beautifully captures the elusive and overwhelming nature of joy.

The other is one of my own poems, from many years ago. I’ve been writing poetry since I was seven years old. Nobody taught me how (though my parents did read a lot of verse to me). I’ve just always known, it seems, about the special music that can found in language. And I’ve always written about love and desire.

What’s your favorite poem?

What do you think of these?

Barter

Sara Teasdale - 1884-1933

Life has loveliness to sell,

     All beautiful and splendid things,

Blue waves whitened on a cliff,

     Soaring fire that sways and sings,

And children's faces looking up

Holding wonder in a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,

     Music like a curve of gold,

Scent of pine trees in the rain,

     Eyes that love you, arms that hold,

And for your spirit's still delight,

Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness,

     Buy it and never count the cost;

For one white singing hour of peace

     Count many a year of strife well lost,

And for a breath of ecstacy

Give all you have been, or could be.

Logos

Lisabet Sarai

(for GCS)

the word made flesh.
electric whispers
trace the wires
speed of light
the dream takes shape.

     (here I am now,
     on my knees,
     bound and breathless,
     open and still,
     awaiting your will.)

violet ink
on ivory parchment;
mystic runes
in flickering phosphor
glow and fade;
tangled tales
come alive:
candle light
and velvet shadow,
ruby wine,
leather and steel.

     (seductive, real
     as the lust in your eyes;
     you seem surprised.)

moon embraced
in naked branches,
nightwind breathing
in my hair,
westbound plane
burns through the dark.
I speak your name
and you are there.
fragile walls
between the worlds
melt to mist:
I step beyond
the looking glass.

     (eat me. drink me.
     all transformed,
     logic crumbles,
     powers awaken;
     offered for
     the ritual--
     offered, and taken.)

inscribe the signs,
recite the charms,
weave the web
of words. We practice
ancient art:
veritas
in nomine.

     (Domine,
     you called me, claimed me,
     named me with
     my secret name,
     clasped me
     in this circling flame.)

now we reinvent each other,
mage, apprentice, captive, lover,
fashion masks
from the stuff of Story,
words as lens
to focus longing,
coalesce
vision to flesh.

     (hand molds breast,
     lips taste thigh,
     kisses drenched
     in silver fire:
     forms of
     crystallized desire.)

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.

Happy Anniversary, Goddessfish! #poetry #prizes #authorservices @GoddessFishPromotions

Welcome to the Goddess Fish Promotions Tenth Anniversary Month Long Celebration!

Who is Goddess Fish Promotions? And what do we do? We're glad you asked!

We didn't want your visit here to be dry and boring, so we decided to have a poetry competition and put what we do into verse. Here are the initial entries:

Marianne:

Roses are Red.
Violets are Blue.
I'm awful at poetry.
Coffee.

Judy:

We can edit your book
find things you didn't see
It will be fun to look
at the changes from me.

Yeah, for some reason, Judy won!

Even better, her poem is correct. We DO offer editing as one of our options. Here are a couple of testimonials from clients:

I worked with Marianne on a complete edit and was very happy with the results. Her feedback was clear, easy to follow, and she probed on things I hadn’t thought of. She was also responsive whenever I had questions and helped me work through a few issues. Her feedback and guidance improved the quality of my manuscript, all at a very fair price. I’m working on my next book and plan to use their services again.

-J B Glazer, author, In Search of Mr. Anonymous

Choosing the right editor for a project is incredibly important to an author. Let’s face it, we want the best for our books. When I was considering editors for my first indie-published book, Regenerate, I naturally thought of Goddess Fish Promotions–and I’m so glad I did.

Marianne Arkins and Judy Thomas are incredibly attentive and professional during the entire editing process. Their input was invaluable and the story is much stronger because they cared enough to help unsnarl plot points and find order in the chaos..

I can’t wait to work with them again. Truly, a top-notch editorial team!  

- Sarita Leone, award-winning author of Regenerate

We also offer Virtual Book Tours, Graphic Design, Social Media Promotion and more. You can see more testimonials here.

We hope you enjoyed getting to know us a little (more information is below) and we'd like to do the same. We'd LOVE to see a little poem that tells us a bit about you in the comments. We'll be awarding random book giveaways and $5 Amazon GCs to some of the best poetry we find. It might not be at every stop, but when something really makes us smile, we'll reward it! Come on, be daring...

And now, more about us:

About Goddess Fish Promotions

Goddess Fish Promotions was established October 14, 2008. Why? Well, when Marianne became a published author and got her the first taste of trying to promote a book on a budget, there was only one other virtual book tour company in place at the time, and their fees were simply too high for a small press author. After coordinating and running her own tour, she knew other authors could use the same service for a reasonable price. Thus, Goddess Fish Promotions was born.

Because both Judy and Marianne were authors and editors prior to running Goddess Fish Promotions, they approach the business with a unique point of view, and treat their clients how they would expect to be treated.

The people behind the fish

Judy Thomas

Judy has a college degree in English and she’s worked in retail, education, at her local library as well as an editor for a small press and for the now defunct ShadowKeep Ezine. She’s also a published author so can see things from both sides of the fence. In 2013, she “retired” and now spends her days helping authors make their dream come true—as well as working as much as she can with her local theater group.

Marianne Arkins

Grammar freak and coffee lover, Marianne wrote her first novel at ten years old, built her first commercial website in 2000, and published for the first time in 2006. She worked as a professional editor for just over a year, and knows what it’s like to write, edit and promote a book on a budget.

http://www.goddessfish.com

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/GoddessFishPromotions
 
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/GoddessFish

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/goddessfish/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mariannejudy/

Google+: https://plus.google.com/+Goddessfish

It's our anniversary, but you get the prizes!

For Everyone: One $50 Amazon/BN GC, two $25 Amazon/BN GCs, Two $10 Amazon/BN GCs

a Rafflecopter giveaway

For Authors: 2 $10 GC for any Goddess Fish Promotions service, Winner’s choice of either a free blurb blitz (2 wk) or book blast (5 day), 50% off any tour (excludes Review tour or Full Service Tour), 4 free 25 page complete book edit, 2 Winner’s choice of teaser or social media cover graphic design

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review Tuesday: The Shadow of a Dog I Can't Forget - #poetry #erotic @WordActress

The Shadow of a Dog I Can't Forget by Mary Kennedy Eastham

Robertson Publishing 2007

You wouldn't guess that the title above belongs to a love poem, would you? You'll find many surprises in Mary Kennedy Eastham's slim volume of poems and prose, most of them wonderful. Ms. Eastham's poetry is sharply observed and emotionally genuine. It encompasses both humor and pathos. While not all of the pieces in Shadow of a Dog are erotic, many focus on desire, love, and loss, and in particular, the power of fantasy and memory.

Undress Me

His name was Jinx,

a dark-haired Californian

with hands too pretty

to belong to a boy.

I was sixteen, a virgin,

girl-silly from fantasizing

about what men do to women

and what women do back.

I cut my jeans into short shorts

and cut my tee shirt to just half an inch

below my swelling breasts.

I rubbed the juice

from a bottle of maraschino cherries onto my lips

and put a drop of pure vanilla extract behind each ear.

Memory rearranges itself over time

but the good parts stay.

I remember the Volvo pulling into the driveway

the sound of his voice drifting in through the torn screen door.

As I climbed from my bedroom window

onto the hot porch roof

the strap of my sandal lets loose

casting tiny particles of tar into the soft, summer air.

Gardenias bend toward me

as I slide down, down, down

into arms that felt like part of a landscape

I've lived with all my life.

Jinx was mine.

Poetry, like music, is a highly personal taste. When I turn on my favorite songs, my husband holds his hands to his ears. Some poems resonate, setting up harmonious vibrations of emotion. Some do not. Not everyone will enjoy Ms. Eastham's style, superficially casual but cutting to the bone. But I did.

My favorite poems in this book are the ones about love and desire. "Kissing Harrison" chronicles a fantasy relationship with a "bareback meteorite cowboy" who comes to town looking for a "good girl/bad girl" who isn't the narrator:

He opened up my eyes to me

said he saw me, or someone like me

in the pages of Vogue

a girl on a raspberry satin chaise lounge

disobedient gold high heels dangling from my feet.

Or the dark imagery in "Stripping for Blind Men":

The men ask me to describe the movements

which I am only too happy to do.

...

I am cat-crawling on the floor for you now boys, I say

blowing a handful of my Braille business cards

toward bodies pressed hard

against the stiff bar rail.

My hot breath gets the men crazy.

Then there's the stunning prose/poem that opens the book, "Is there ever such a thing as a tiny betrayal?"

'Do you close your eyes when you kiss?', he asks me. He's left the hotel door half-open. Someone looking in would see my bare legs dangling from a persimmon and gold chaise, my platinum silk high heels ready to walk, or not.

The non-erotic poems are equally powerful "What He Did at the End of His Life" brought tears to my eyes:

His favorite nurse is due in soon, the one who said,

'I wish I'd known you healthy.'

"6 Parisville Place" puts us into the mind of an abused child:

Pretty things will hang in her walk-in closet here.

Guns won't fire. There will be no need to hide

foster brothers and sisters in another

cold white porcelain tub, her own feet

quivering on the toilet seat

as she searches for shadows in the thin line of light

beneath the locked bathroom door.

Poetry is difficult to describe. It exists only as first hand experience--hence all my quotes, frustrating attempts to convey the emotional impact which, really, can only come from reading an entire poem, the way the author intended--perhaps re-reading it, a second or a third time, seeing new angles, feeling new emotions.

If the quotes above resonate with you, pick up a copy of this book. And read it more than once. 

 

Every Breath You Take -- #Inspiration #Divinity #Breathing

 
It's the first word of my very first novel. "Breathe..."  In this case, I was using the term literally. My heroine arrives in Bangkok and is immediately assaulted with the foreign smell of the place. I still remember my own debarkation, back in the eighties, before jet ways. Clambering down the metal stairs onto the tarmac, after midnight, I nearly swooned at the combination of diesel fuel, moist earth, night-blooming jasmine, and fried garlic.

If you write erotica, breathing is more than an autonomic process responsible for oxygenating the blood.  Arousal reveals itself in our breathing. We pant, gasp, gulp air, hold it as we wait in anticipation or delicious terror for the next touch, the next stroke of the crop. I did a search for "breath" in the random subset of my stories I happen to have on my disk in text format. Here's a small sampling of what I found.

The song changed to something more upbeat. She shook her hips, did the same bumps and grinds as the other dancers, but the effect was totally different. She was listening to some inner voice. Every now and again her eyes would meet mine, and that luscious smile would light her face. I found myself holding my breath, willing her to turn again in my direction. ~ Butterfly

His beard was softer than it looked, tickling her. For a moment he simply held her, breathing in, inhaling her as if she were another drug. Suddenly there was shocking wetness. His tongue circled her navel, dipped inside.  Her sex clenched in a sudden, delicious spasm. ~ Chemistry

All at once I wanted him. I grabbed him and  fastened my mouth on his, grinding my pelvis against his hardness. He opened to me, held me tight as if he was afraid I would evaporate. “Where can we go?” I panted when we broke for breath.  ~ Citadel of Women

Alan relaxes in his chair, enjoying Beryl's confusion. He's been in the film business long enough to recognize an act. Her flushed cheeks and quickened breath speak more clearly than her deliberately chosen words. She still wants me, he thinks with a hint of smugness, after all this time. ~ Old Flame

I bask in his gaze, proud and humble simultaneously. "You know what happens when you tease me. I'm sure that you remember the other night." Of course I do, and the memory leaves me wet and breathless: the binding, the beating, the final delicious buggering. My sex overflows. My thighs are slippery with my juices. I imagine he can hear the liquid squelch as I walk. His arm is around my shoulder now, guiding me along. ~ Wednesday Night at Rocky's Ace Hardware

"Much better." She flicks a lock away from my breast, almost but not quite touching me. "But I certainly don't want to hide those adorable tits."  Seating herself on the chaise, she beckons me to her. My nipples are just at the level of her lips. She warms one with her breath, and it tightens visibly. I want to scream, to beg her to touch me. She's running this show, though. We both know that. ~ Velvet

I could go on, but I'm sure that I've made my point. The way our characters breathe tells our readers what they're feeling, as much as their facial expressions or vocalizations, their wetness or hardness. And in an erotic encounter, lovers use their breath as an extension of their bodies.

Breathing is more than just a tool for delineating emotion, though. Breath is also a powerful metaphor for life itself.  Some versions of Genesis say that God animated the clay body of Adam by breathing upon it. "I'll never give in, while there's breath in my body," our dauntless heroes claim.   

Breath is also used to refer to the spark of creative passion. The word "inspiration" derives from from the Latin inspiratus, past participle of inspirare "inspire, inflame, blow into," from in-"in" + spirare "to breathe". The connection to the term "spirit" is obvious. In fact the original meaning of inspiration was "under the immediate influence of a God or god".

"Inflame". How appropriate a term for a writer of erotica!

When inspiration strikes - when the words are flowing unhindered, the scenes in my imagination painting themselves effortlessly on the page - I do indeed have the sense that I've been touched by something divine. I feel it in my chest, a kind of buoyancy, as though I'd filled my lungs with helium.  My poor body seems too limited a vessel to encompass the joy.

I wrote a poem many years ago about inspiration, called "metapoem":

it comes as the wind comes
and you can't change it.
you can only be patient
and open
and humble.
          in glimmers,
          in floods,
          it comes.
you have to be
reverent -
silent -
or else
          go out and get drunk,
          forget it
          to find it.


Inspiration, the author's Holy Grail. It's mysterious and yet simple. As simple as breathing.

Every Breath You Take (#breathing #inspiration #erotica)

It's the first word of my very first novel. "Breathe..." In this case, I was using the term literally. My heroine arrives in Bangkok and is immediately assaulted with the foreign smell of the place. I still remember my own debarkation, back in the eighties, before jet ways. Clambering down the metal stairs onto the tarmac, after midnight, I nearly swooned at the combination of diesel fuel, moist earth, night-blooming jasmine, and fried garlic.

If you write erotica, breathing is more than an autonomic process responsible for oxygenating the blood. Arousal reveals itself in our breathing. We pant, gasp, gulp air, hold it as we wait in anticipation or delicious terror for the next touch, the next stroke of the crop. I did a search for "breath" in the random subset of my stories I happen to have on my disk in text format. Here's a small sampling of what I found.

The song changed to something more upbeat. She shook her hips, did the same bumps and grinds as the other dancers, but the effect was totally different. She was listening to some inner voice. Every now and again her eyes would meet mine, and that luscious smile would light her face. I found myself holding my breath, willing her to turn again in my direction. ~ Butterfly

~~~

His beard was softer than it looked, tickling her. For a moment he simply held her, breathing in, inhaling her as if she were another drug. Suddenly there was shocking wetness. His tongue circled her navel, dipped inside. Her sex clenched in a sudden, delicious spasm. ~ Chemistry

~~~

All at once I wanted him. I grabbed him and fastened my mouth on his, grinding my pelvis against his hardness. He opened to me, held me tight as if he was afraid I would evaporate. “Where can we go?” I panted when we broke for breath. ~ Citadel of Women

~~~

Alan relaxes in his chair, enjoying Beryl's confusion. He's been in the film business long enough to recognize an act. Her flushed cheeks and quickened breath speak more clearly than her deliberately chosen words. She still wants me, he thinks with a hint of smugness, after all this time. ~ Old Flame

~~~

I bask in his gaze, proud and humble simultaneously. "You know what happens when you tease me. I'm sure that you remember the other night." Of course I do, and the memory leaves me wet and breathless: the binding, the beating, the final delicious buggering. My sex overflows. My thighs are slippery with my juices. I imagine he can hear the liquid squelch as I walk. His arm is around my shoulder now, guiding me along. ~ Wednesday Night at Rocky's Ace Hardware

~~~

"Much better." She flicks a lock away from my breast, almost but not quite touching me. "But I certainly don't want to hide those adorable tits." Seating herself on the chaise, she beckons me to her. My nipples are just at the level of her lips. She warms one with her breath, and it tightens visibly. I want to scream, to beg her to touch me. She's running this show, though. We both know that. ~ Velvet

I could go on, but I'm sure that I've made my point. The way our characters breathe tells our readers what they're feeling, as much as their facial expressions or vocalizations, their wetness or hardness. And in an erotic encounter, lovers use their breath as an extension of their bodies.

Breathing is more than just a tool for delineating emotion, though. Breath is also a powerful metaphor for life itself. Some versions of Genesis say that God animated the clay body of Adam by breathing upon it. "I'll never give in, while there's breath in my body," our dauntless heroes claim.

Breath is also used to refer to the spark of creative passion. The word "inspiration" derives from from the Latin inspiratus, past participle of inspirare "inspire, inflame, blow into," from in-"in" + spirare "to breathe". The connection to the term "spirit" is obvious. In fact the original meaning of inspiration was "under the immediate influence of a God or god".

"Inflame". How appropriate a term for a writer of erotica!

When inspiration strikes - when the words are flowing unhindered, the scenes in my imagination painting themselves effortlessly on the page - I do indeed have the sense that I've been touched by something divine. I feel it in my chest, a kind of buoyancy, as though I'd filled my lungs with helium. My poor body seems too limited a vessel to encompass the joy.

I wrote a poem many years ago about inspiration, called "metapoem":

it comes as the wind comes
and you can't change it.
you can only be patient
and open
and humble.
          in glimmers,
          in floods,
          it comes.
you have to be
reverent - 
silent -
or else
          go out and get drunk,
          forget it
          to find it.

Inspiration, the author's Holy Grail. It's mysterious and yet simple. As simple as breathing.

My First Love (#poetry #sonnet #erotica)

Long before I started writing erotica, I was a poet.

Well, at least I was writing poetry. Love poetry, mostly, or maybe lust poetry. When you’re a teenager, it’s hard to tell.

Nobody taught me to write verse, though my parents did read poems to my brother and me from a very early age. Finding rhymes, feeling the rhythm of the words, seemed to come naturally.

Poems were how I expressed my emotions. They were private, personal, efforts to capture a moment. Little conscious art, and certainly very little deliberate craft.

Then in the late nineties, I started writing and publishing prose. Somehow, the well of poetry dried up. I think this was partly because I’d gotten over a good deal of the angst from my teens and twenties.

In the past decade, encouraged by my friend and colleague Ashley Lister, I’ve starting writing some verse again. The experience is very different, though. Ash is an expert on different poetic forms. Many of my recent poems were experiments using forms he proposed in his monthly exercises at the Erotica Readers and Writers Associationblog. The emotion is still there, but I’m much more conscious of the process, and the result.

I still seem to have a sense for the way words chime and combine, though.

Just for fun today, I’m sharing a couple of poems. The first is more than twenty years old. It’s not in any particular form. The second I wrote in 2015, and is the form of a Petrarchian Sonnet.

To be honest, I like them both. But in a very real sense they were written by different people.

Meditations on a Crescent Moon

(To GCS)

a bright thorn lodged in my flesh,

scarlet petals crushed on my breasts;

silver hook reeling me in;

scimitar pricking my skin.

clipping of a fingernail,

charm to bind; scorpion's tail,

sweetest poison in the sting,

fever dreams; broken ring

of the ancient myth,

how I shall know

my other half.

silken curl

from some platinum plait;

comma—a pause,

saying hush, wait.

light leaking beneath the door,

beneath the blindfold—

nothing more,

in the darkened room

but a lingering kiss

and the rough caress

of the bonds

on my wrists.

Burlesque - Petrarchian Sonnet

Black satin glove discarded on the floor;

a smooth descent of zipper down your spine

disclosing inch by inch, by clear design,

a glimpse of pearly flesh. You promise more

than you deliver. Desperate, we implore,

we beg you, Take it off. You pout, recline,

expose a shapely leg where slits align,

content for us to hunger and adore.

A sultry soundtrack drives you to reveal

in increments the charms your clothes conceal.

In thong and tassels finally you pose;

a teasing smile, a shimmy, then you steal

away to leave me with a racing heart

and wonder: is this Lust or is it Art?