Thursday, May 01, 2014

NaPoWriMo Day 29: Portrait

Prompt: Incorporating Twenty Little Poetry Projects into one poem


Gimlet eyes, focused like a smoking gun
The candy-corn stripe of her sinuous upper lip
Trembled in the dark like a Cheshire cat smile
The air tastes butter-warm in cold mouths
Her scent is that of old bones and talc
Charged with electricity:
Musty, dangerous, a tangible prickle
Over my skin
Hell Helle Hellebore
It’s noon in Paris, the ticking minutes
Reflected in her metronome gaze

She drifts by, scentless, silent
The lilacs bloom in Central Park today
Clustered like grapes on the vine
Overripe, sweet perfume like sticky juice
Dripping over nose and mouth
A finif will get you a bet going nowhere fast:
Hell is her name, therefore, hellion
Yo buska ku bos teng kantu sen
Ke faze fabor
The reticulate shadow of seduction
Is a gauze curtain veiling a mystery
A verdant tree sending roots deep
Insidiously breaking up foundations and ground
A weed in an oasis of plenty
She walks on air, and her wings unfurl
Black as steel, sharp as words
As she steps into the night towards the moon

The Dame is a flower at evensong
She shall unfurl her petals like a skein of silk
Watching as knights and errants war in times soon to be
For the favour of a dropped pearl-smile
The stars are her heartbeat, tu l’as vu? Mais oui!
The gun in well-oiled silence
Settles with a wordless purr
Into the cradle of her warm, warm hand
In her hair a rose blooms like a blood drop
Scarlet as the painted mouths of the dead
Their old bones shrouded in lace
And the scent of old women’s talc.

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