April 2007 IBPC Nominations Options

[Eisa]

This is a very original poem composed of different levels of mythology, spirituality and fantasy. I found it a very powerful poem.

This is posted in Seren's Synapse: Adonis in Dreamscape

Adonis in Dreamscape

Somewhere--
where chimney smoke dots the distance
in synaptic gaps, like memory loss in warm rolling meadows, I tango

with the sun matching my every step.
Our growing heat--a fever un-indexed on any chart--
warms my neck as meadowlarks

sing warnings to intruders. I pause
in rehearsed mid-curve of a dip
to slip myself off; upside-down, the blue sky

becomes a cloudy skipping stone path
along a zen azure river bed.
Someone crosses that rarefied stream; meadowlarks

scatter and soar into those rapid currents to drown,
as the timothy grass above
bows and parts like hair yielding to watery eyes. He arrives

hunkered and stalking; the sun
returns to its rightful place; released,
I twist and fall onto my knees.

The wind offers burning incense:
cherry-wood and ripened blackberries
from the undergrowth of his kinky hair.

His indefatigable arms,
with sun-kissed skin, gather me up--
wildflowers bunched to his bare chest

in one motion; I stare at thin scars on his stomach
while his breath--
a Snowy Owl's stuttering wingtip-- brushes me.

My trembling fingers crawl inside his hands: hands
dewy and deathless as the Earth
that receives us all in our due turn.

We spin.

Where did you come from, O Beautiful One? The ancient capital
of Nineveh, by way of Lesbos and Sappho's revered verse,
only to descend into my arms...maybe...

pivoting, his dark myrrhic eyes betray his intentions,
and I feel my breasts heave and sigh, as our rush
blurs grass and sky,

until colours fracture, fall
and form iridescent steps to Aphrodite's throne. We ascend past the clouds;
I half expect feathers to tear from his back, during our dance.

We drift.

I kiss him before he condenses and falls like rain,
returning back to the soft ground.
His blood slowly coagulates into a bed of red roses

that are plucked
by young, barefoot maidens in flowing, virginal dresses
who have come far to worship our passing beauty.

I wake.

The sun bestows me red rows through my window in consolation;
I grin at those fresh flowers filling the kitchen vase,
while my husband, awake early, smiles coyly
and burns myrrh incense.