sex on the beach with a xanthochroid Options

[Marc-Andre Germa...]

Revision one

Tropical fantasy
flood of fluorite
disco lights

a kittenish coryphée
shimmies like
a rainbow slinky

kaolin cheeks
terra cotta
irides

faux eyelashes
waxed skin
sculpted breasts

estrogen pills
papier-mâché

steamy patter
pousse-café

resist

desist

delist

exist

heart alchemist
ore to amethyst

in the twilight

first kiss



First draught

In Pattaya, there to tomcat around,
I saw you centre-stage on sultry nights;
you shimmied like a slinky as I drowned

my thoughts in mai tais, with all my sights
fast bound to you, coy kittenish coryphée;
your curves flooded by fluorite disco lights,

your Belleek china cheeks, silk appliqué,
warm terra cotta eyes, graceful Burmese
footsteps which gave bare shoulders spiced cachet,

all made me wait until the last reprise
to know you. Raptured by your pousse-café
flavours, your steamy patter, heady tease

in the twilight, we sank into foreplay.
Faux eyelashes and hair set in French twist,
waxed skin and sculpted breasts ( papier-mâché…)

Still.. I could not resist. And when we kissed,
you changed a heart of stone to amethyst.



Copyright 2009 by Marc-Andre Germain - All Rights reserved

[Marc-Andre Germa...]

First revision posted.

[Larry]

Hey Mark,

I'm sorry but I like the first version better. Not much on "New Wave" poetry. If I were, I would lose "delist" off the list. It doesn't quite fit in with the other emotions one envisions from "resist, desist & exist".

You have painted a very odd (IMHO) picture in my mind of a yellow haired, white skinned ballet dancer shimmying to disco music and also displaying the ancient, but very beautiful steps of a Balinese or Burmese dancer.

I've no idea where Pattaya might be (Burma?) or if Thomas Huxley ever had a similar experience in such a place but it will take a while to put your poem in its newly assigned niche in my mind.

Larry

[Marc-Andre Germa...]

Larry, thanks for reading and for the feedback. It seems I still need to work more on this, and it seems its going to lead to two different versions. The terza rima version might become a Spenserian sonnet, but I can't really tell until I revise it next; sometimes, a poem just won't go the way I first intend...I will probably use the revised version for ultramodernist/avant-gardiste experimentation, which I won't post here.

Back to the versions at hand, I do have some questions for the reader/fellow poet. Is the revised version any clearer than the original one? In the first draught, were there words that proved distracting? What did you make of it? Or was it even worth even pondering over?

To answer your other question. Pattaya is in Thailand; it is a tropical canker sore in the Land of Smiles, a sex tourism hub in what is otherwise a beautiful country. I have changed it to "tropical" to remove the ugly allusion.

Thanks again,

Mark

[Larry]

Hi Mark,

Sorry about the delay in getting back to this post but I've been a bit busy. Anyway, I like the original version much better than the revised one. Unless one reads the first version, the revised one is confusing, (at least to me).

The only reason one would find words distracting in the original would be due to an inexcusably stunted vocabulary. My only problem was the mind picture you left with me of the dancer. I would think, after you informed me of the locale of Pattaya, that one would be more apt to encounter an ebon tressed lass with olive skin and coal-black eyes demonstrating ancient techniques of formal dance. Of course I'm old fashioned in my thinking because of one very singular and memorable visit there in 1966 during the Viet Nam war (a little R&R).

I do believe you are correct in your assessment that you have two poems here. You wouldn't get very much feedback at MM on the terza rima version but, if submitted in the Spenserian Sonnet form, (with a new title - most people who read your current title would just say, "HUH!!!!"), you should get some interested readers.

Now to the crits (bumpy and metrically confusing) and the kudos (beautiful inner rhyme and alliteration, especially in S2/L2-3)on the original version. You know what it will take to make the sonnet sing and I look forward to reading the re-revised version at a later time.

Larry