fallen verses

Totally Optional Strings: Multiple Allusions

This weeks prompt over at Totally Optional Prompts, was a short poem by Liu’ Chang-ch’ing:

Your seven strings are like the voice
Of a cold wind in the pines,
Singing old beloved songs
Which no one cares for any more.

I took that, some Neruda, a touch of Rilke, probably some other influences I’m not consciously aware of and wrote the following poem:

Pergola Romance

“In the distance, someone is singing, in the distance.”
-Pablo Neruda

The nightingale in the jasmine tree coos its sweet, enigmatic song for lovers. The moon is coy, showing half her face as if peaking around celestial corners.

Gauze curtains like morning mist obscure the pale glow of your body, naked, simple as light through darkness. Tendrils of your hair climb across the bed, growing on wishes and heartbeats.

Four pillars holding the sky encircle you, frame you as all of creation, in which creation occurs. Like the descended night I come upon you, enshrouding inch by inch the skin too delicate for sun. Smooth plains and gently rolling hills move like the tides at my touch: shiver, retreat, advance.

Our hearts find an allegro rhythm as the chords progress. My hands joined by your hands in the exploration of your world, the search for secrets, treasures and ancient wisdoms. The grace of mystery torn as the robe on the floor, shyness before experience lost as you roll me to my back and take spoils. Victor, woman, lover, you wash over the beaches and carry the sand and stones back to your seas, to the wondrous gardens too delicate….

Too delicate for such desire, you plateau, subside. The calm of the passing storm is upon us, flesh still leaping like lightning strikes, but softer, softer, softer. Weak, you lean forward, breasts against me, head on my shoulder. In the distance, the languid sounds of a guitar, six ill-tuned strings turned to wooing. In the distance.

The title taken from a song by Jim Harbourg.

Thus far, the Thursday post isn’t up, but I will add the link when I see it.

Edit: The Thursday Post is up.